/lit/ - Literature

>>19381090
Didn't know he was still alive.

>>19381090
He made epileptics seem visionary instead of just a bunch of spastics

>>19381090
Thanks for Notes, it cut me deeper than any other work of fiction. Really held up the mirror.

>>19381187
Which book?

Thanks for Seinfeld, Larry David

>>19381211
The Idiot

Also thanks Dosto, because of TBK I still sometimes think of when someone insulted someone else by calling them an 'ugly mushroom'

>>19381151
refuted by this thread
>>19381187
don't tell the muslims
>>19381303
based

>>19381090
was he a poet or something? here in america we don't read that gay shit

>>19381090
Happy birthday, Fyodor. I'm sorry this thread is such an abomination. But I suppose there's nothing more a man can ask for on his birthday than to see his pathetic enemies seething.

>>19381090
Zdrastvy Michailovich
Hows your blood pressure. Aunt is concerned and is praying for that and your soul every night.
You know how lonely can be here in steppe ant not a single soul for miles.
Thank you for your concerns on household. The roof was fixed alright and wood already gathered but winter is already getting colder.
With the help of God were faring good.
Circumstances do not allow me to send you any money at present but our best regards be with you in this happy day of yours!

>>19381151
He still lives in you.

>>19381090
Happy bday king

>>19381090
Happy birthday! Thanks for your works, you are the only Christian that I can tolerate.

хвaлa и cпacибo тeби дpyжe зa твoјy paбoтy ктopy јecи ocтaвјaл нaм, зaиcтo жeлaм тoбє миp в cмpти

>>19381197
You should take the advice he gives
>>19381846
Cпacибo, дитя бoжиe

>>19381090
Dostoevsky makes me wonder just how much more great Russian literature we would have had in our lives if it wasn't for communism. Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov after 1917. So much more could have been had.

>>19382006
True. Sovietism broke the winning streak and Russian lit never fully recovered.

>>19382006
>>19382012
Although I will say writing "dangerously" under thee noses of totalitarian censors tends to add spice to the literature that is produced. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman is a literary monument.

happy birthday

>>19382027
Holy shit, look at this. I know what I'm reading next. Thanks. I take it I should skip the first volume where he praises Stalin?

>>19381090

Ech!

>>19382055
Depends on taste. You can skip it. They can be taken as stand alone novels. As the title suggests, Life and Fate is much more sweeping in scope wheras Stalingrad is about, well, Stalingrad. Life and Fate is far more interesting in my view because it is thought crime. It goes places it shouldn't. It reveals secret truths, the hidden thoughts of Russians under stalinism. But it's interesting to see how much of a departure from ideological orthodoxy it is from the first book. It's like the mask was removed. It's the more famous of the two books for a reason.

>>19381090
thanks fedor

>>19382114
Nice, thanks. I'll start with Life and Fate. Would rather read that than forced bullshit if you know what I mean.

>>19382126
Good choice. Here's a taste of what you're in for.

“When a person dies, they cross over from the realm of freedom to the realm of slavery. Life is freedom, and dying is a gradual denial of freedom. Consciousness first weakens and then disappears. The life-processes – respiration, the metabolism, the circulation – continue for some time, but an irrevocable move has been made towards slavery; consciousness, the flame of freedom, has died out.
The stars have disappeared from the night sky; the Milky Way has vanished; the sun has gone out; Venus, Mars and Jupiter have been extinguished; millions of leaves have died; the wind and the oceans have faded away; flowers have lost their colour and fragrance; bread has vanished; water has vanished; even the air itself, the sometimes cool, sometimes sultry air, has vanished. The universe inside a person has ceased to exist. This universe is astonishingly similar to the universe that exists outside people. It is astonishingly similar to the universes still reflected within the skulls of millions of living people. But still more astonishing is the fact that this universe had something in it that distinguished the sound of its ocean, the smell of its flowers, the rustle of its leaves, the hues of its granite and the sadness of its autumn fields both from those of every other universe that exists and ever has existed within people, and from those of the universe that exists eternally outside people. What constitutes the freedom, the soul of an individual life, is its uniqueness. The reflection of the universe in someone's consciousness is the foundation of his or her power, but life only becomes happiness, is only endowed with freedom and meaning when someone exists as a whole world that has never been repeated in all eternity. Only then can they experience the joy of freedom and kindness, finding in others what they have already found in themselves.”

>>19382168
should be required reading in high school. Kids don't know what lack of freedom is.

Dear Mr. Dostoevsky,
I own most of your books but never read them. I tried to, but all the rather long very similar russian names confused the shit out of me.
But I'm actually learning russian right now, so maybe I'll try again.
Happy Birthday!

PS: I'm sorry I used Demons to stabalize my desk

>>19382211
If only. Good luck finding high schoolers these days with the literacy and attention spans to power through a book like this.

>>19382234
>Filtered this hard
Sad

I have schizophrenia and Fyodor is one of my voices.

He wanted me to post that it warmed his heart that someone would make a thread about his birthday.

>>19382520
Does he talk like Yakov Smirnoff?

>>19381090
i've read "white nights" only so far and it was meh. should i bother with other stories? everyone is so fond of this guy and say he is best, i don't get it, whats so special?

>>19381090
Happy birthday Fjodor, thank you for creating the greatest literary pieces of the entire human race

Thanks for your stories, they are inspiring, have good messages, and I try to live by similar values. I was born Nov 10th

SCORPIO SZN BBY

I would cut 5 years of my own life to bring him back, just to write a 100 page short story on a life of few 4chan posters of different intelligence and morals. In the end they would all kill themselves for the same reason.

>>19382653
i'd add my 5 too anon

>>19381442
Speak for yourself mutt

Thank you. Reading "The Idiot" right now.

>>19381151
I didn't even know he was sick!

>>19381090
i liked crime and punishment and notes from the underground
i liked brothers karamazov despite its shitty translation
i'm going to read idiot soon
very nice books mr Dostoyevski

>>19381090
200 years ago, wow

nobody will even know I ever existed in about 50 years

>>19382935
better start writing anon

>>19382935
i am going to deliberately remember this post and tell somebody about it in 50 years

>>19382935
No one knows I exist now desu.

>>19381090
Happy birthday. He's my favorite author. It's one of the few fiction authors I feel like I learn something from

>>19381090

"Unlike many of even the greatest artists, Shakespeare is not interested in completely flawless wholes. He says what he wants to say and lets the sonnet end anyhow. But that is the fault of a major artist, for a minor one always completes the work carefully. For instance, when we read Dostoevsky, we feel, yes, this is wonderful, this is marvelous, now go home and write it all over again. And yet if he did, the effect might well be lost.
Most of us, however, can’t get away with that attitude toward our writing."

Auden on Dostoesvsky

>>19381090
Sticky when?

>>19382855
When it comes to sicknesses, he had the best one.

>>19381090
he had a pussy on him that would make a grown man cry

>>19383199
Clarify?

>>19382855
You know, we should all get together and kill that old loan shark lady.

>>19381151
As long as people read his works he will never die.

>>19383318
She died around 150 years ago

>>19382234
>PS: I'm sorry I used Demons to stabalize my desk
Leave this thread and delet your account now

>>19381926
>в cмpти
he lives in heaven now

Rank his books
>TBK
>C&P
>Demons
>Notes
>The Idiot

They are all amazing though. Not a bad one in the bunch

>>19382005
Is there advice in Notes from Underground? I don't remember any.

>>19381090
happy happy Dostyyyyy

>>19381090
He's my favorite author. The best.

Rank his books
>Raw Youth/Adolescent
>Demons
>Idiot
>The Village of Stepanchikovo
>Insulted and Injuried

I am not sure whether or not he's saved or destroyed my life. But these days I am horribly ill, depressed, and quite hopeless despite my ostensible youth. Never before have I been able to relate to protagonists as I do when I read his works. I would very much like to abandon my misanthropy and egoism in favor of the loving embrace of God and His Word but I fear such a revolution will not occur in my life before it's too late. But I have never been treated well by society in the first place, so damn it all anyways.

>>19383722
Well, that's almost as tragic as her being denied entrance to Viennese art school. I hope she at least made an impact on the world, touched a lot of lives.

>>19384416
In my readings:
1. The Brothers Karamazov (Garnett)
2. The Demons (Magarshack)
3. The Idiot (I forget)
4. C&P (Ready)
5. Notes (Peepee & Vuttholeski)

>>19384656
Actually, I would put The Gambler above C&P.

>>19383442
Lol this is exactly the sort of shit a dostoevsky reader would post. excellent satire.

>>19381090
I miss this nigga like you wouldn't believe.

Dostoevsky, this week I read two of your books, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov. I read them because Jordan Peterson and /lit/ users recommended them. I read them mostly to justify my existence to myself, to cope. But in this cope there is a true passion to know, and so thank you for your work. My favorite part of Crime and Punishment is Raakolnikov and Sonya reading the Bible. My favorite part of The Brothers Karamazov is Mitya's encounter with Grushenka and The Poles. Your female characters are lovely as charming and so thank you for reducing the female nature to such a refined form so that I could compare them to the women I have known in my life and understand them better. Thank you, Fyodor.

>>19384661
The Gambler is good.

Reading all of your fiction and a biography. Holbein’s painting of the body of Christ is amazing. I think I understand its effect on you back in Basel.

>>19384685
cope

>>19384685
How’s it feel to know that you’ll be forgotten monsieur

Thank you for rewarding the faith I had in you to not drop Demons during the first 200 pages.

>>19384685
fuck you fuck you fuck you

>>19384987
Very based. Looking forward to reading the one-volume edition of Frank.

>>19385053
I know exactly what you mean

You’re my favorite author Dosto-kun (subject to change as I become more well-read)

>>19381090
Dosto was a degenerate pulp fiction writer who was paid by the word to fuel his insatiable gambling addiction. If you like his work you are the literary equivalent of a soccer mom picking up a harlequin romance novel in the check out line at the local super market.

>>19385266
Retard

>>19382653
>I would cut 5 years of my own life to bring him back
I didn't even know he was sick

>>19381090
Dostie changed my life as a youngster. I decided I wanted to get into reading at like 16 years old and for some reason chose him as a starting point. I was mind blown by the depth of his humanity, the weight of his soul, his profound sympathy for the human dilemma. His philosophical asides were deeply instructive and formative. He wrestled with the gods, struggled with the fundamental questions. I related to the suffering he so obviously lived with. I hope you are in god's kingdom with your daughter, Dosto.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. ... But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

>>19385390
Dosto was a total hack. His plots contrived, his characters manic, his "messages" trite. If you find him deep you must have the mental capacity of a tea cup.

>>19381090
I miss him so much bros...

>>19381090
I'll get to your books eventually my man!

>>19381090
Thank you based Dosto

Early on in Brothers Karamzov rn, already starting to see why it's so beloved

>>19385522
Name a better all-around novelist.

>>19385557
Without leaving Russia, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Bulgakov, and Nabokov. But really, with how shallow and abysmal Dosto's writing is, basically any notable author is better than him.

>>19385557
I don't think anybody really considers Dostoyevsky a great all-round novelist. His talents were very specific. I also happen to think that anon is wrong (and most likely just baiting).

>>19385601
Tolstoy and Gogol are the only two who meet to qualifier of "all-around" (by which I meant well-rounded). Turgenev had ideas but didn't write well (I've yet to find a good translation of his work so I've assumed he's part of the problem), Nabokov is a great prose stylist but doesn't have the depth of Dostoyevsky.

>>19385601
This has to be bait. The only one who compares is Tolstoy, and even then that's debatable.

>>19385522
>t. contrarian

>>19385522
I've seen you make this comment before. Poor opinion no one agrees with you.

>>19385818
>Poor opinion no one agrees with you.
/lit/'s taste is well known to be garbage, as exemplified by the praise of the likes of Dosto

>>19385864
Taste is subjective, even Nietzsche called him "the only psychologist from whom I had something to learn".

>>19385950
Nietzsche is also trash, no wonder he liked Dosto

>>19385964
Dostoevsky and Nietzsche are trash and you are a genius?

>>19386000
It doesn't take a genius to realize those two are hack frauds

>>19386012
According to you not the rest of the literary world.

>>19382562
Dostoevsky went through almost of decade of forced labour in Siberia, which is an experience which, needless to say, really affected him. His works before and after this decade have a huge jump in quality, IMO.
I have seen people praising White Nights here, but I didn't really get the appeal either. It's too fantastical, in a way. The narrator is merely an idealist kid, but maybe that's just a mirror of the author at that time.
Notes From Underground, Crime & Punishment, the Idiot, Demons, and the Brothers Karamazov are the main works he wrote after Siberia, and they are the ones that we discuss most of the time, because they are masterful.

>>19386029
There are lots of people "of the literary world" who have been outspoken on how overrated Dosto is

>>19385274
anon, it's a pasta

>>19386035
Well Tolstoy, Hesse, Hemingway, and Joyce enjoyed his works

>>19386055
And Nabokov derided him, name dropping is pointless, the fact remains the actual quality of the work leaves much to be desired

>>19386060
Whatever

>>19385522
I genuinely feel bad for you

>>19386111
I feel bad for the simpletons who eat up the tripe Dosto churned out to meet his word quota so he could get paid and then gamble it all away.

I'm glad /lit/ is still capable of having a good Dostoevsky thread every now and again.
I made a strange decision with my first reading of Dostoevsky and read Brothers Karamazov before any other, and I began knowing nothing about it except the title. I picked the book up on a total whim, and it ended up affecting me more deeply than any other I've read in my life so far. The Elder Zosima chapters in particular are what struck me most, and I still read them occasionally.
I then read C&P, Notes From Underground, and am now reading the Idiot. Finding it the most difficult of his novels so far, but also the funniest. Next will be Demons

>>19384416
My ranking of what I've read so far
>TBK
>Notes
>C&P
>The Idiot

>>19386111
Don't feed the troll, anon. There's nothing to be gained by arguing with stubborn words on a screen.

>>19381846
Dosto x Soren xD

>>19383199
You can't just say that and not explain anon

>>19384584

Embrace communism, replace belief in divinity with belief in the future of mankind

>>19385759
It's not my take, but I agree with it: Dostoevsky was a bad writer, but a genius. Tolstoy was a great writer, but a fool.

Demons vs TBK - which one should I read first, preferably the less complex first.

>>19387320
Demons. It must feel eerie to you Americans how similar the characters look to the kind of leftists you see around you now, in 2021.

>>19387376
Not really. There's no divergent nutjob ideology like Shigalyov/Kirillov/Shatov's among modern "revolutionaries" (they're pretty ideologically consistent) and leftists who are violent aren't as smart or charismatic as Pyotr.

>>19381442
cringe

>>19387040
Why are you even in a Dostoevsky thread?

>>19387532
I guess he meant people like the female student or the seminarist, or Yuliya Michailovna (superficially interested in new ideas but actually just an opportunist dependent on greater people)

>>19384799
Isn't it!

>I would give you a thousand pounds down to start life afresh, but I'm giving you ten louis d'or rather than a thousand pounds because at the present time a thousand pounds and ten louis d'or is all the same to you - you will lose the one amount as easily as you would the other. So take the money, and goodbye.

>My goodness, I'll never forget the spectacle that followed! Just before our entry, the General had been holding forth to the company, and De Griers had been correcting him. I may also mention that, for the last two or three days, Mademoiselle Blanche and De Griers had been making a great deal of the young Prince, under the very nose of the poor General. In short, the mood of the company, though formal and conventional, was happy and conversational. But no sooner did Grandmother appear than the General stopped dead in the middle of what he was saying, and, mouth agape, just stared at the old lady, his eyes almost popping out of his head and his expression frozen as if he had just looked a basilisk in the eyes. In return, Grandmother stared at him silently and without moving, though with a look combining challenge, triumph, and ridicule in her eyes. For ten seconds the pair of them remained like that, just looking at one another amidst the profound silence of the company; even De Griers sat there frozen, an extraordinary look of uneasiness creeping over his face. As for Mademoiselle Blanche, she too stared wildly at Grandmother, with her eyebrows raised and her lips parted, while the Prince and the German savant contemplated the tableau in complete bewilderment. Polina looked utterly surprised and bewildered, but in a moment she too turned as white as a sheet. Truly, Grandmother's arrival seemed to be a catastrophe for everybody!

>>19387040
>detach the stone of allegorical mumbo jumbo
>attach the stone of hermetic mumbo jumbo

>>19387320
>Demons vs TBK - which one should I read first, preferably the less complex first.
TBK is more consistent, demons takes a while to get going but the best parts are as good as the best parts in his other novels.

>>19387721
I didn't get the sense Yuliya was an opportunist of von Lembke so much as a pawn of Pyotr. Her idea was that she could tame the radical youth and bring them into the fold. Definitely a limousine neoliberal useful idiot type. The female student I can definitely see in people today, but I don't think it's a sign of the times as much as an archetype. Don't remember the seminarian besides the fact he was at Virginsky's party.

I think a country who could really use Dostoevsky is japan. Their situation with nihilism is so pervasive that he might have a massive effect on them

>>19386174
The most horrible historical injustice is that they didn't know of each other.

>>19387769
They like him a lot.

>>19388271
Really? It doesn't appear so. Can you provide any instance (I actually want to see how japan likes Dovsto)

>>19388292
Being a weeb, I encounter him here and there in anime. One example I can recall is Koi wa Ameagari. I also recall stories that some of the japanese classics of XX century were fond of Dosto, though cannot confirm.

For me, the fascinating thing about Dostoevsky - who I consider to be in writing what Michelangelo is in sculpting - are the moments where he suddenly ups the ante. I've never seen (read) anything quite like it, and you always know when it happens. Like the party in Nastasya Filipovna's apartment. Or the audiences in the first book of Karamazovs. The relentless pace of Crime and Punishment. Even when his books seem to go nowhere in particular, like Demons - with much of it being dedicated to shitting on Turgenev - and you don't particularly care about the characters, nonetheless: here comes the second part, it's like you can feel the writer going "and now I'll really show you what I meant when I called the book 'Demons.'" It's a particular relentless quality of his narrative I have not seen anywhere else. I disagree with Bakhtin's analysis where he states that each of Dosto's character exists as a psyche unto itself and that it's this layered manifestation of inner ideas clashing what gives his words such potency, but it might be that he's not far off either.

What I want to say above all is that apart from visiting Florence and seeing David and the Medici Tomb in person, I have never felt like I'm witnessing genius than while reading Dostoevsky's books.

>>19388314
I'm a ton more ignorant so please don't make too much fun of me, but after stuff like Nier Automata, Vinland Saga or Golden Kamuy, and after reading some stuff about modern japanese culture, it seems that The Japanese are massive nihilsts

>>19387769

Welcome to the NHK was literally inspired by Notes from Underground

>>19385629
Try the Michael Katz translation of Fathers and Sons. My favorite passage is Turgenev's epitaph for Bazarov.
>However passionate, sinful, rebellious the heart buried in this grave, the flowers growing on it look out at us serenely with their innocent eyes: they tell us not only of that eternal peace, that great peace of "indifferent" nature; they tell us also of eternal reconciliation and life everlasting...

I maintain the problem could just as easily be you, although you're certainly entitled to your opinion. Turgenev's prose is widely renowned for his realistic descriptions of nature and the common folk, especially in Sketches from a Hunter's Album.

>>19388802
Where is it written?

>>19382855
I remember walking through blood and bones at Zosima's, trying to get my inheritance from my father. Turns out he was in Omsk.

>>19382935
50 years it's a lot of time to be remembered already.

>>19381442
fag

>>19389272
kek

>>19388292
Akira Kurosawa was a big fan and adapted The Idiot. He also did some work with the Soviet film industry.

Cannot believe what a good adaptation this film is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RbMsU2WElM&ab_channel=Y%C3%BCkselY%C4%B1ld%C4%B1z

>>19392290
Soviet movies are kino

>>19392290
Speaking about adaptations, westerners don't know about this absolute gem of a film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXbJ-CyJQj0
https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=895876 here's the version with english subtitles

bump

>>19392290
>>19392361
>>19392474
OP here. Mosfilm recently put up an english channel on youtube, highly recommended if you want easy knowledge to top kino. i myself cannot stand most western at this moment, they all look.. slutty.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm5U4zqpahzyNXBv5ZT51Jw

He was a Mary worshiping pagan.

>>19393464
thanks for sharing that.

Dosto, crime and punishment was hard to read at the time but extremely
rewarding, you were my first foray into Russian literature. Love you my sweet good boi.

>>19385759
Gogol is a far superior novelist than Dostoevsky, midwit.

>>19381090
Fully sick cunt eh

>>19385950
>Nietzsche
Nietzsche sucks
his self skepticism he got from Lichtenberg and Schopenhauer
His racial thought from Jacolliot and what was in the air in his life
His idea of Grecian life, again, already in the air, he got from Winckelmann
His idea of a great artist was someone like Byron or Poe or even the fradulent Ossian author Macpherson

His skepticism is shit and was just a minor version of Ockham and Butler had done

He's popular because in this day and age no one is familiar with the canon, so he looks massive standing on the shoulders of giants.

>>19393473
Do you ever shut the fuck up, Prottie?

>>19382971
i bet 50 dollars you won't, corrected for inflation

>>19394123
I bet you 0.000025ADA that you will not follow up on that bet.

I’m happy that you lived well. The world is still being supported by your faith in goodness.

>>19381090
I miss this nigga so much. Ya I am 300 years old

>>19383199
Got that Dostobussky

>>19381090
hes a legend, changed my life