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Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

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Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#281

Post by anthk »

orthoxerox wrote: post #133
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 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}.

Mostly Southern Chinese or Hong Kong.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#282

Post by mhink »

grey-area wrote: post #147
nephihaha wrote: post #127

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.

If it’s taught well I think it can be very entertaining. There are lots of levels to Shakespeare and lots of very basic comedy. Watchman in Macbeth etc. the motives of characters are also explained well. The only problem is the language.

I haven't read much of Shakespeare, but the lightbulb moment for me personally was the 1996 "Romeo + Juliet" movie with DiCaprio. The modern contextualization makes it so much easier to parse the period dialogue.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#283

Post by mynegation »

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…

As a Russian native speaker, names were not the problem, but the dense boring prose of Dostoyevsky was. On top of this, I did not like Crime and Punishment at all. I believe a lot of it has to do with the degree of association of the reader with the main character. As a 14 year old, I could not understand what the whole fuss is about, the whole thing felt like a feverish dream in the pool of molasses.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#284

Post by anonymous »

gtg239a wrote: post #65
blast wrote: post #45

Earlier 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.

No post body was provided.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#285

Post by childofhedgehog »

somenameforme wrote: post #217
jampekka wrote: post #183

Earlier 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…

Because Lexa is short for Alexei, not Alexander!

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#286

Post by helterskelter »

personalityson wrote: post #193
jhbadger wrote: post #182

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)

I was in my 20's when I realized Bill and William are the same name

Will = William

Ipso facto:

Bill = Billiam

Mutatis Mutandis:

Jim = Jimothy

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#287

Post by stackedinserter »

ventana wrote: post #96
usrnm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are kids "ready" to deal with organic chemistry? Or integrals? Do you think that more people will need the knowledge of the reproductive system of plants than the skill of reading and uderstanding large texts? Not simply understanding the words, but actually analyzing and comprehending what's being said

I actually started re-reading Crime and Punishment right after writing my previous comment, because I barely remember anything after many years. These are the second and the third paragraphs, and reading this text now, in my forties, I perfectly understand everything that's written, and the emotions the protagonist feels, because I know by my very own experience what it is to pay rent, to be in debt, and to have no m…

Try to read 10000 random numbers, one by one. Ary you able to understand them? Yes. Do you want to read them? I don't think you do. Now imagine it's pushed to you at age of 16 and called "math". You'll hate it for a good part of your future life.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#288

Post by LearnYouALisp »

slackfan wrote: post #53

The Pevear and Volohonsky "translations" are an affront to english prose, russian literature, and the craft of translation in general. A heavily quantized LLM with an aneurism would provide the reader with a better translation than that trash. (I used to be a professional translator for the relevant languages, so I have opinions™)

As a matter of tangent-(ial relation), have you ever come across or read any of Silverman's translations of mathematics or science from Russian? Supposedly they were slanted by opinion, a mis-informed Westerner's perspectives, and had a number of liberties such as re-arrangement (in a mathematics text!). I wanted to read the (more recent) original and asked a classmate to buy it on an exchange but have not met up afterward.

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#289

Post by vkou »

nephihaha wrote: post #125
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…

This isn't a specific Russian problem. English speaking school children are forced to read Shakespeare, and I really don't think that works either. (That isn't a condemnation of Shakespeare but of schooling.) I do love literature, but that is in spite of school not because of it. School did a lot to put me off some books. I was lucky to have read Golding's "Lord of the Flies" before our class did, because it gave me…

Shakespeare would land much better if people were reading it in a language they speak, as opposed to a language that he spoke.

When 90% of your mental effort is dedicated to understanding exactly what the hell he is saying, you aren't going to get a lot out of his work.

(It's not supposed to be read at all, in fact - it's supposed to be seen and heard. In a language that you intuitively understand.)

Re: Dostoyevsky isn't difficult

#290

Post by stackedinserter »

NotGMan wrote: post #105
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…

Yes the amount of damage this does to kids must be huge. Some people here argue that "math is also what kids don't like" but math and chemistry can be understood by a teenager even if he doesn't like it. But these "classic" books can't because much more life, adult problems and having children, deaths of parents and illnesses have to happen in order for one to comprehend this books. It's like trying to force a 8 year…

The main damage is they forced it into us and call it "classic literature".

I hated it with passion, even got F's in my report cards, and could re-read it only in my late 20's. Still hate these "language and literature" teachers, all of them.

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