Dostoevsky is surprisingly great to read. I first started with "Notes from Underground (1864)" and I found it a profound book. Then I read Brothers Karamazov, and it is one of those "great" books. I wrote my reflections here: https://ritogh.substack.com/p/reflections-on-brothers-karama....
Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
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Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Possessed (2010), The Idiot (2017), and Either/Or (2022) That's like publishing Hamlet (2010), King Lear (2017), and Thus Spake Zarathustra (2022). I wonder what her thought process is in choosing these titles? And what will her next work be?
She has an academic background in Russian Literature and writes really engaging essays about her encounters with the literature (The Possessed). I can’t recommend her novels and essays enough. They’re riotously funny and erudite and readable if you’re looking for something.
Her coming-of-age short story or perhaps memoir of a few years ago in The New Yorker has stayed with me. Only after finishing and contemplating it does the tragedy of the young woman's experience really make itself felt.
Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
#243When raising children, introduce Dostoyevsky to Sophomores not Seniors. The Landlady and some short stories, like White Nights. Leave Notes from Underground lying around at-hand. Watch Love and Death on family movie night. Chekov is nice at about this time, too, but again, short stories are best. Developing the skills to read Russian literature take a little time, and when you pick up Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, or Dead Souls, it's nice to feel at home in the genre so the glories of the work can shine without caveat.
Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
#244I regret every minute I've spent reading Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The most overhyped literature ever, with an unhealthy obsession by contemporary readers living far away from the epicenter of it all.
> The most overhyped literature ever Just because you aren't ready for it doesn't mean it's bad literature. That's basic. I really like Dostoevsky. He was really onto something. What he wrote was deep and meaningful and profound. Tolstoy is also great. His short story "The Three Hermits" (1885) profoundly impacted how I look into these things.
They are not bad. But neither they are great, just average. They are also super outdated and missing a lot of context from the time authors lived in. These books just have this fleurs exotique by the virtue of being russian and written in a very hard language for the Roman group speakers. It's a self-perpetuating self-reinforcing cycle of hype. Like a joke a about "no one was fired for ordering IBM" the same goes for the "classic" literature. No one was criticized for including Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in a 100 Best Books Of All Times list, and so they are invariably included again and again.
Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The main difficulty is the names. The names make it so hard. What's wrong with the names? I find Chinese novels much harder to read because everyone's named C{V[n[g]]|ei|ao|ou} C{V[n[g]]|ei|ao|ou}C{V[n[g]]|ei|ao|ou}.
I think the problem with Russian names in particular is that a Russian name has three parts (e.g. Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky) and different parts get used in different contexts, depending on who's speaking, level of familiarity and so on. So it's like in an English novel where someone might be referred to as Smith by the narrator but John in dialogue, but with an extra 50%, at least, of confusion.
> So it's like in an English novel where someone might be referred to as Smith by the narrator but John in dialogue, but with an extra 50%, at least, of confusion.
I've been reading Tom Clancy recently, and that's basically the Jack Ryan books. Somehow, "Jack" is actually a nickname for "John".
Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are also the "canonical" nicknames that are not obvious to non-Russian speakers. E.g. Nikolai is Kolja.
With different transliteration that one at least makes sense. Nikolay = Kolya. But one that'll send most non-Russian speakers for a loop is Alexander = Sasha. It's like Richard = Dick, though there there's at least a rule that makes that one make sense (a rhyme with a shortened name so Richard -> Rick -> Dick, William -> Will -> Bill, etc). I wonder why it didn't just end up as Lexa, which would fit the other pattern…
The "-sha" pattern is relatively consistent: Pavel-Pasha, Mikhail-Misha, Natalya-Natasha, Nikolay-Nikolasha, Alexey-Alyosha, Mariya-Masha, Ilya-Ilyusha.
So, Aleksandr-Aleksasha. The dropping of "Alek" is the only inconsistent part, on par with Agrippina-Agrusha-Grusha.
Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
#247im only getting 504's on the website
Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
#248I 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
Actually USSR pushed a lot of soft power and spent real money behind it. Especially the authors whose narratives didn't directly violate the narrative of the Party. Leftist parts of society looked up to USSR a lot, and a lot of humanities professors, teachers all over the world were left-leaning, and promoted these books as Russian culture. This is one factor, and doesn't explain the whole thing, of course. See: http…
> Actually USSR pushed a lot of soft power and spent real money behind it. Especially the authors whose narratives didn't directly violate the narrative of the Party.
Do you have any sources for that? I'd like to read about it.
Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The main difficulty is the names. The names make it so hard. What's wrong with the names? I find Chinese novels much harder to read because everyone's named C{V[n[g]]|ei|ao|ou} C{V[n[g]]|ei|ao|ou}C{V[n[g]]|ei|ao|ou}.
I think the problem with Russian names in particular is that a Russian name has three parts (e.g. Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky) and different parts get used in different contexts, depending on who's speaking, level of familiarity and so on. So it's like in an English novel where someone might be referred to as Smith by the narrator but John in dialogue, but with an extra 50%, at least, of confusion.
I've not read Dostoevsky, but there is a similar issue in Japanese literature. The same person might be referred to in as many as 4 different ways, and on top of that you are supposed to infer who the speaker is by the mode of address (and other context clues like personal pronouns), so dialog tags are seldom used.
I'm bad with names to begin with, so I usually make a chart to keep side characters straight.
Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
#250As 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…
The same thing used to happen in Brazil. Machado de Assis is great for older audiences, but a bore for children and teenagers. Making them read his books probably did more harm than good.