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Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

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Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#221
post #214

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…

I only had the patience to read long books in high school; now I really want to but they're too difficult.

Have you tried audiobooks?

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#222

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 main difficulty is the names. The names make it so hard.

I think that's an exciting part. When I am bored with names of similar kind, the names make the characters somewhat exotic. I don't know about you, but the name "Grushenka" adds to everything that is going on with that woman.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#223

I am genuinely curious why Russian literature is so popular in non-Russian speaking world. How do you wake up one day and decide to read Crime and Punishment? How do you find out about Russian literature in the first place? Recommendation from a friend, marketing in your favorite book store, school? Could somebody shed some light

Well, Crime and Punishment is often taught in US high schools. Or at least was back in the 1980s. During the Cold War there was a lot of interest in Russian literature in general in part because in the bipolar world they were seen as "the other civilization" that we needed to understand if we wanted to avoid nuclear war. You'd think these days people would be more into Chinese literature but except for the Three Body…

Russian lit was never part of my highschool reading. Freshman year was Greek classics and Shakespeare, sophmore year was more Shakespeare and Romance. Junior year was classic American lit, and senior year was Norse mythology and british lit. I diverged from my friends and decided to take the non-AP English classes junior and senior year. I would have been reading non-fiction in AP English Language and books by Bronte and Dickens for AP English Literature. I'm don't think the IB courses covered Russian lit either although my school didn't offer IB.

My liberal arts classes in college didn't involve Russian lit either. My freshman year English I and II classes were very unserious, we read Philip K Dick and a (somewhat distasteful) book by the current governor of Maryland. I could have taken a Russian lit class but instead decided on Appalachian studies which was surprisingly interesting and probably helped shaped some of my politics. I did read A Day in the Life while I was taking summer classes. Admittedly, I was on Adderall at the time which led to me reading at a rate that matched when I was a kid and was tearing through books faster than I could get to the library. I listen to a lot of audiobooks now and miss when I had the attention span to actually crack a book (or at least use a kindle). I've got a copy of Crime and Punishment in my queue but I've been reluctant to start it.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#224
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about Shakespeare. We suffered through Shakespeare in both English and Drama classes. I'm not sure that improved my appreciation. Other things did. I had to learn to love Shakespeare otherwise. I watched "Hamnet" last night, which was okay, but I dread to think what that film would have been like if I was made to watch it at school.

I think Shakespeare might just be a badly chosen set of "classics". Romeo and Juliet is so overdone in pop culture there's nothing interesting there, and the one or two others we had to read were just boring. But then I ran across Much Ado About Nothing (while still in school) and remember it being actually good.

> Romeo and Juliet is so overdone in pop culture there's nothing interesting there

The whole point is to read the actual primary text that has been so done, re-done, overdone. And hopefully to recognize there's some real beauty and drama in there

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#225
post #124
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…

I dunno, I feel like Dostoevsky hits perfectly around high school. I enjoyed Crime and Punishment around 9th grade, but tried read some Dostoevsky as an adult, and it really reads like young adult luterature. I only learned to appreciate Tolstoy as an adult though - it was extremely boring for me as a teenager barring some smaller pieces

The Brothers Karamazov reads like young adult literature? Hard disagree there. Maybe in terms of how navel-gazey it is, but the themes are not at all young adult.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#226
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I feel like Dostoevsky hits perfectly around high school. I enjoyed Crime and Punishment around 9th grade, but tried read some Dostoevsky as an adult, and it really reads like young adult luterature. I only learned to appreciate Tolstoy as an adult though - it was extremely boring for me as a teenager barring some smaller pieces

Tolstoy is pretty heavy on religious perspectives on moral question. That's probably why I would be boring to a teen. And I totally agree that books like C&P are perfectly readable for young adults. Some people overemphasize the part of analyzing hypothetical symbolism instead of "just" enjoying the story.

Yeah, but I've also appreciated the symbolism much more as an angsty teen than as an adult.

The best part about Tolstoy is how he depicts the intricacies of human relationships, and that's a thing most people cannot appreciate until they hit like 30

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obscure Russian nicknames! How is anybody supposed to know without being told that Sasha and Alexander are the same guy? (I do realize that while some English nicknames like Johnny for John are pretty self-explanatory, other like Jack for John or Dick for Richard are as opaque to foreigners as Alexander/Sasha)

The first time I worked with Polish people I had this problem a lot until I noticed the pattern. Someone told me to go and talk to "Maciek", it was only on asking Maciej where to find him that I found out they were the same person

Here there is at least same prefix.

Only issue I recall might be with female Aleksandra (abbreviated to Ola) and male Aleksander (abbreviated to Olo, or Olek).

Others usually (if I remember correctly) have similar prefix.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#228
post #221
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only had the patience to read long books in high school; now I really want to but they're too difficult.

Have you tried audiobooks?

I found this Librivox audiobook to have a good narrator.

https://librivox.org/crime-and-punishment-version-3-by-fyodo...

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#229
post #23

War and Peace is one of those books I've reread every decade since I was a teenager. It's one of my favorite novels because, as I've matured and moved through different stages of life, the parts that resonate with me change significantly. Each rereading feels like encountering a different book, not because the words have changed, but because my own life experiences have shaped what draws my attention. I'm sure many b…

I fell into War and Peace and couldn't stop. The opposite was true with crime and punishment for me.. I just couldn't get into it. There are such fundamentally different works

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#230
post #214

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…

I only had the patience to read long books in high school; now I really want to but they're too difficult.

You just have to build a habit. Nothing happens unless it becomes habitual.

Of course, that "just" is doing a lot. I'm saying it's doable, not that it's easy.

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