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Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

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Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#81

Post by ventana »

As a Russian native speaker who graduated from the high school in Russia many years ago, one thing that I don't really understand is why these great works of Russian literature are included in the school must read list. An average teenager, myself included, always has some better things to do than reading a huge novel, barely understanding characters' motivations, because neither of these books were ever intended for teens.

Those who find time later in their adult life will re-read the classics and appreciate it, but many will not, and that's probably a result of forcing the kids to deal with something most of them are not ready for.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#82

Post by d1ss0nanz »

> I discovered that I don’t actually read names, I just pattern match, and I have sometimes gotten hundreds of pages into a novel before I realize that I have no clear sense of the the middle syllables of the protagonist’s name.

Same. TIL this is not just me being lazy.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#83

Post by UncleOxidant »

SugarReflex wrote: post #63

I was blown away by Crime and Punishment. I truly felt like I was the main character, and I read it with feverish sweat and dread for my impending doom. I cringed and felt terrible sadness at the poor little lives of certain individuals. So much woe and tragedy. I was glad to see how it turned out though. I'm currently reading Karamazov and it's good to have something a bit more jovial and dry witted. The main diffic…

Read Crime and Punishment ~25 years ago, the Idiot ~20 years ago. I read Karamazov last year and Demons early this year. I still think C&P is the best of his books with Karamazov a close 2nd. Demons is very dark, but also it seems prophetic - it's like he foresaw some of what would happen in 1917 way back in 1870. He's even got a character in there that's short and bald and likes to wave his arms around wildly as he's speaking, whipping the crowd into a frenzy - sounds a lot like Lenin who was born about the time Demons was written. Still, I wouldn't have made it through Demons if I hadn't read it in an online book group where once a week we met to discuss.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#84

Post by jszymborski »

d1ss0nanz wrote: post #82

> I discovered that I don’t actually read names, I just pattern match, and I have sometimes gotten hundreds of pages into a novel before I realize that I have no clear sense of the the middle syllables of the protagonist’s name. Same. TIL this is not just me being lazy.

I did the same for a long time, but the diminuitives and nicknames for characters made that too hard to do, so I just ate the acorn and learned a bit about patronyms, pronunciation, etc...

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#85

Post by kombookcha »

shermantanktop wrote: post #62

I (precocious, pretentious me) read Anna Karenina in 7th grade. It was long but not difficult. Keeping track of the characters was the hardest part. I’d like to say the story stayed with me, but alas it was the reaction of adults to my reading matter that I remember. Part of growing up was realizing that being precocious really isn’t a thing anymore at some point.

I recently started reading Anna Karenina, and even for me as an adult, there's a lot of people with a lot of interconnected relationships to keep track of. But I am surprised by how moving I find it - I guess I expected it to be more distant somehow, but the people really spring to life. If I'd read it as a kid, I imagine I would be relating differently to all of these very adult concerns.

One of the best gifts I ever got was when my dad plopped down a big box full of old classical adventure novels (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, King Solomon's Mines, Captains Courageous, Three Musketeers, Count of Monte Cristo type of stuff) and I devoured all of them over the course of the next year or so. I'm sure I would appreciate a lot of different things about them if I read them now, but they certainly held up in terms of being engaging in spite of them all being 100+ years old by the time I got my hands on them.

I was a precocious reading kid too, and I sometimes wonder how much I understood of all the stuff I read. I feel like I remember it decently enough, but there must have been a lot going over my head.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#86

Post by dub4u »

SugarReflex wrote: post #63

I was blown away by Crime and Punishment. I truly felt like I was the main character, and I read it with feverish sweat and dread for my impending doom. I cringed and felt terrible sadness at the poor little lives of certain individuals. So much woe and tragedy. I was glad to see how it turned out though. I'm currently reading Karamazov and it's good to have something a bit more jovial and dry witted. The main diffic…

The name problem totally disappears when you use any e-reader's built-in search on the highlighted name

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#88

Post by asimovDev »

SugarReflex wrote: post #63

I was blown away by Crime and Punishment. I truly felt like I was the main character, and I read it with feverish sweat and dread for my impending doom. I cringed and felt terrible sadness at the poor little lives of certain individuals. So much woe and tragedy. I was glad to see how it turned out though. I'm currently reading Karamazov and it's good to have something a bit more jovial and dry witted. The main diffic…

Crime and Punishment is one of the very few school curriculum mandatory books that I enjoyed reading and actively got ahead of the required per week pages.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#89

Post by necovek »

ventana wrote: post #81

As a Russian native speaker who graduated from the high school in Russia many years ago, one thing that I don't really understand is why these great works of Russian literature are included in the school must read list. An average teenager, myself included, always has some better things to do than reading a huge novel, barely understanding characters' motivations, because neither of these books were ever intended for…

Only one or two of Russian classics were obligatory in Serbia high-schools — yet I devoured them all (esp Dostoeyvsky, Bulgakov, Gogol... Tolstoy a bit less so).

I am sure I'd find them different if I re-read them, but I could relate to characters and their struggles quite easily.

I do not necessarily think that those who wouldn't appreciate them as teenagers would ever appreciate them as adults either — maybe a small percentage would.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#90

Post by eitally »

alex0015 wrote: post #69
shermantanktop wrote: post #62

I (precocious, pretentious me) read Anna Karenina in 7th grade. It was long but not difficult. Keeping track of the characters was the hardest part. I’d like to say the story stayed with me, but alas it was the reaction of adults to my reading matter that I remember. Part of growing up was realizing that being precocious really isn’t a thing anymore at some point.

This resonates with me very much. I remember being very proud of myself each time I was tested in school and I was told I was reading at such-and-such a grade level above my own. Now in my 30s, I still like reading a lot, but there's so much more to reading than finishing books. I still have a bit of reticence toward admitting that I find some books hard or haven't finished them. I found the Iliad enthralling and the…

I think a lot of the deeper enjoyment of literature comes when one has a sufficient understanding of the relevant culture & context and can adequately bring the characters to life. I studied Latin for 5 years (and Spanish for 3, Portuguese for 2 and German for 1), and I can tell you the immersion into Roman (and Roman Empire) culture absolutely made reading everything from Homer to Herodotus to Augustine to Seutonius to Cicero, Catullus or Ovid far more engaging than if I'd picked up any of these authors without context.
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