/lit/ - Literature

>>19440957
>When will it become riveting?
Never. I am sorry but this one's a dud. Maybe you'll get something out of the finale and the socialists bashing

>>19441045
that's not what most anons told me.

>>19440957
It's a satire of 19th century Russian radical politics. Unless you have a detailed knowledge and interest of that, the book will be a quagmire of boring ass people walking around town drinking tea and talking about each other

>hurr blurr At Tikhon's
>hurr durr lefties BTFO

Dostoevsky is a dogshit writer and /lit/lets only like this book because they think it is some forceful defence of their own poorly thought out political fashions

Awesome book anon. Tbh though it is made more interesting if you have a knowledge of the 1940s-1960s Russian thinkers and radicals. Read the wiki for cherneshevskys “what is to be done”. Demons is largely a reply to this.

>>19441053
youre basically still in the over extended intro. the book starts in earnest once pytor and stovrogin show up and the ball starts rolling. dont listen to these culture war faggots trying to stop you from reading further. the first part is a little oddly long in my opinion but for what its worth there is some pretty heavy hitting moments that make for good pay off to that specific thread of the story.

>>19441409
But Demons is a righty's preference in Dosto - as it's his only book that goes "rebellion bad".

>>19441426
>Dosto
>1940s-1960s

>>19441450
Also I think the abnormal amount of time spent on Stepan and varvara catches more flak than it deserves because people approach it like its meant to be a traditional introduction, but what it really is is an important portion of the greater narrative, an important part of the commentary of the evolution of ideas and their unintended consequences, steppan and varvara are important to establish thoroughly because exploring their generation gives critical context to their kids, pytor and nikolai.

showing the main story of pytor and nikolai in a vaccum would make the book basically exactly what faggots like these brainlets think it is, aka some generic "leftists owned" thing, adding the context of steppan and varvara is important for expanding that narrative to communicate more ideas

>>19441469
*more expanded ideas

>>19441409
I really dont think you need detailed knowledge or interest in that period for it to be very relevant and enjoyable, so much of the book is basically timeless, generations hundreds of years after and probably generations before can appreciate a lot of its content as a reflection of persistent aspects of the human experience

>>19441469
Okay, it is important for me to know that, thanks. Contrary to the general negative opinion on the intro, i don't really find it tedious and lengthy. I enjoyed the shatov andecdote.
>>19441409
what articles related to the things you mentioned do you recommend I should read about to maximize my enjoyment out of this novel?

>>19441493
im not going to pretend its the most action packed or thrilling novel ever but if helps you to know, basically the further you get into the book the more things are revealed going on behind the scenes of the benign domestic drama, and the more things continue to escalate more and more in stages, culminating with all sorts of shit happening, and its ll a bit of a roller coaster of emotions causing me personally to laugh my ass off, almost cry, feel disturbed, and angry, reflective, all sorts of feels

>>19441469
>>19440957
Demons works both as a denouncement of nihilists/early communists, and as a parody of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.

Stepan and Pyotr are almost direct parodies of the main characters in that book (Bazarov and the old bachelor uncle), taken to a ridiculous extreme. Turgenev himself shows up as a faggy, self-important writer who is only there to be made fun of by Dosto, since iirc they were estranged when he wrote the book.
Stepan might be a self-insert for Dosto himself, as well, with his blind devotion to art and the way he has to be supported by a patient woman (but this is just me thinking aloud).

>>19441460
The ideas Dosto is mocking come from the 40s-60s, yes. He was almost shot for having those same revolutionary ideals in the late 40s, and later came to the opposite view, lambasting Chernishevsky in this book and also, more directly, on Notes from the Underground.

There are a few other subplots that turn up elsewhere in his books, like Kirillov's views on suicide (echoing Ippolit's on Demons, with the difference that Ippolit views suicide as a cowardly escape rather than a rational attainment of freedom) and Shatov's denouncement of the Catholic Church, Orthodoxy being the one true faith, etc.

Sorry if this sounded too rambling, I'm sort of spewing out what I remember from these books

>>19441555
>echoing Ippolit's on Demons
I meant Ippolit on The Idiot, my bad.

>>19440957
Great book! I liked it more than "Brothers", although there should have been a second part (of BK) that he did not have time to write. Yes, this book is not in a hurry, it gradually immerses us in the Town and the world of its inhabitants, so there is an "suspense"-effect. Here there is such an effect as if you listen to the muttering of a madman and seem to stop listening to this nonsense. And then suddenly, with horror, you realize that everything is true. At first I laughed a lot when it described the gathering of Verkhovensky's circle, especially when Shigalev was reading his idiotic theory from a notebook. Then I suddenly ceased to be funny - I realized that all this is true to the last word and that what happened in Russia in the last century and is in some way happening now all over the world.

>>19441657
the first meeting of the group of 5 was so hilarious but of course disturbing at the same time. and not at all what I expected going into the book. you can tell dostoyevsky actually spent time with these sorts of people, and the same archetypes and the bickering between them and what not are still around to this day

>>19441657
Shigalev was fucking chilling.
The way he proposed all those ridiculous atrocities with an absolutely straight face explains a lot about Russia and how they could and did happen in real life.
He could have been Stalin's grampa.

>>19441053
Most anons in this board have a raging boner for dosto ever since they read memories from the underground when they were late teens. Add the fact that this one is also """topical""" and you can see why most anons would ride its dick
Think for yourself sheeple

This book is known to have the best slow burn in literature. Act 3 is great.

>>19440957
This one was a slog for me. Took me months to finish it. It never really picks up until probably the last 15% of the book, but it is important. And the omitted chapter should have really been put into the book in its proper place as it clears up a lot of Stavrogin’s murkiness.

>>19440957
Once Nikolai and Pyotr arrive and Pyotr blows up his father's little marriage scheme. From there on, it's kino.
>>19441409
At Tikhon's really tied the novel together.

>>19441555
He's saying you got the dates wrong. Dostoevsky was long dead by 1940

>>19442455
Checked and that wasn't me, but I didn't even notice the obvious typo

>>19441409
Thoroughly filtered by Dosto, huh
Many such cases

It's the ultimate deconstruction of the radical mind. The novel's riveting character is founded in its meaning and implications. Think about what this says to today's post-revolutionary world. It's demon-haunted.

>>19442357
There is a lot of debate where that chapter should go. It makes more sense chronologically and plot wise to have it in the middle of the book. However, as an epilogue, it is a perfect explanation and conclusion. Demons has a lot of “stage setting” chapters as all Dostoyevsky novels do. Generally the payoff is with it

>>19440957
Stavrogin (the son) is the one you want to pay attention to, but like all best characters he's in the background for most of the book. Otherwise you can enjoy the straight up dabbing on communists.

>>19441555
>Dostoevsky
>1960s

>Perhaps the most surprising essay in the new volume - at least for readers who know Nabokov as the master stylist but not as the iconoclastic lecturer - is composed of his classroom lectures on Fyodor Dostoyevsky, part of which is reprinted here. In these lectures, the Russian-American modernist looks at the 19th-century Russian giant and finds him to have feet of clay. This article is excerpted from ''Lectures on Russian Literature,'' by Vladimir Nabokov, to be published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc./Bruccoli Clark. By Vladimir Nabokov My position in regard to Dostoyevsky is a curious and difficult one. In all my courses I approach literature from the only point of view that literature interests me - namely the point of view of enduring art and individual genius. From this point of view Dostoyevsky is not a great writer, but a rather mediocre one - with flashes of excellent humor, but, alas, with wastelands of literary platitudes in between. In ''Crime and Punishment'' Raskolnikov for some reason or other kills an old female pawnbroker and her sister. Justice in the shape of an inexorable police officer closes slowly in on him until in the end he is driven to a public confession, and through the love of a noble prostitute he is brought to a spiritual regeneration that did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be received a little cynically by experienced readers. My difficulty, however, is that not all the readers to whom I talk in this or other classes are experienced. A good third, I should say, do not know the difference between real literature and pseudoliterature, and to such readers Dostoyevsky may seem more important and more artistic than such trash as our American historical novels or things called ''From Here to Eternity'' and suchlike balderdash.However, I shall speak at length about a number of really great artists - and it is on this high level that Dostoyevsky is to be criticized.
Dosto is probably the most overrated author of all time. He wrote pulp novels to fuel his gambling addiction. He was a hack.

I'm reading it rn too. I like this 'prince henry' kid. Pulling noses and biting ears. Pretty based.

>>19443226
>being filtered by fucking Dostoevsky
Oh no no.no. this is like being filtered by Charles Dickens lmao

>>19443226
>In Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov, for some reason or other, kills an old female pawnbroker
>for some reason or other
Holy shit. This is filtration to an unfathomable degree.

Dosto really started making people butthurt lately, huh?

>>19443477
it's Nabokov
>>19443256
Not filtered. I get it, I just don't think he's that great.

>>19440957
>When will it become riveting?
When you realise the characters made up in this book were actually the proto-communists that caused millions of deaths.

>>19445651
>it's Nabokov
I really dont understand why you think this is supposed to mean anything to anyone. Nabokov was a talented writer of prose, but he has never in any way proven himself to be in position of authority the way he presents himself in your quote, and how you present him.
frankly he shows himself as absolute pseud faggot when he unironically critiques someone like dosotevsky for not producing "genius" and "enduring" art despite the absolute timeless nature of his writings and his outright universal exploration of the human experience, which rings so universally and timelessly true to the point that his art could have effectively been used as a blue prints to chart the next century (so far) of the struggles of civilization and the human experience that followed long after his life and death. not to mention, for what its worth, the more literal enduring nature of his fame as an artist.

>>19447603
Well said.
And you: >>19445651
You had the audacity to reply "It's Nabokov" as if that is some sort of trump card requiring no elaboration or reply to the objection/rebuttal to his criticism. Bad form.

>>19440957
I am literally stavrogin

>>19448528
Well, there's this utter lack of judgement:
>>19443477

I happened to read his essay on C&P and his hatred boiled down to the pulpy style (fair enough) and to Dosto equating Raskolnikov's crime with Sonya's, since prostitution could never be on the same level as murder.
Raskolnikov's "redemption" at the end through Sonya does seem kind of shoehorned in, and it gives off the impression that he learned nothing at all through his punishment.

Nabby does make some fair points, but on an emotional level, I'd argue that it's just hard to hate Dosto, he's just too good despite his flaws.
The Idiot and Demons are much deeper anyway when it comes to the ideas he's trying to convey - on religion, suicide, the ultimate meaning of life, etc. (haven't read BK yet)

>>19448588
I'll admit i cant comment on crime and punishment yet since I haven't read it yet, but having read his other novels and some shorter fiction, it seems insane to me to walk away from his writing with these sorts of broad attacks on him as an artist, not just critiques of that specific book.

>>19441668
>>19441888
In general, there are many interesting characters, in general there is nothing insignificant in the book. Well, like Kirillov - I see his monologues in many 4chan threads.
Or Captain Lebyadkin - this is the foresight of the entire absurdist culture of the 20th century, when Verkhovensky Jr. brings him to a charity ball, where he drunken reads his vulgar, stupid, but so charming (I don't know how in translation) graphomaniac verses. Unity of the cultural avant-garde and revolution.
>He could have been Stalin's grampa.
Yes,
+Fed'ka the Convict. As an image of the common people, Verkhovensky Sr., a fucking liberal, sold him for debts, the state turned him into a criminal, and Verkhovsky Jr. figured out how to use him in the needs of the revolution. Only they will not succeed, Fedka will eat them himself in due time.
>>19442455
1840-1860s . The tough regime of Nicholas 1's rule when Verkhovensky Sr. flashed as a Russian liberal. Then in the 55-60s of the reign of Alexander 2, reforms began in the country and Verkhovensky Sr. decided to return to the Olympus of the liberal thought of St. Petersburg, but was not understood by the radical youth that had grown up in 20 years and returned with shame to the Stavrogin estate. Since the reforms of Alexander begin to curtail (and then the Kont-reforms of Aleksaendra 3 and the new strict regime will go), then Verkhovsky Sr. expects that he can be sent to Siberia in prison.
That is, as a Russian liberal who, on the one hand, thinks that now the government will call him to carry out the Great Reforms. Or flogged and sent to jail. What then repeated under Stalin (the old hard regime) - Khrushchev (liberal reforms and then stopping them) - Brezhnev (counter-reforms).

>>19448588
Well, if Nabokov praised Dostoevsky, who would remember this now? And if you scold, the descendants will remember, they will wonder why.

>>19449765
I always thought it was funny that stepan was so paranoid about getting gulaged for his milquetoast boomer liberal ideals. it reminds me so much of the modern liberals who consider themselves the #resistance for parroting sentiments already endorsed and some cases outright enforced by the government and just about every capitalist

>>19450201
The Russian reality is always ready to surpass your worst fears.
So any paranoia is justified.
As Ataman Platov recalled about the time of Paul I: "The Tsar summoned me and told me to go to conquer India. I immediately agreed. I was in prison then. For what reason I don’t know. However, then no one knew why he was in prison."
I remember reading about a Chinese official from Sun's time. He was exiled from the capital and exiled to the border, while he went into exile, orders came (in turn) to extend the exile, replace the exile with the death penalty, full pardon, appointment as a second minister, and exile again to another place. In fact, the struggling parties in the capital took turns signing conflicting orders with the emperor. So the same official could be awarded and executed on the same day. Both for no reason.

>>19448588
The particular thing I commented on was "he kills a pawnbroker for some reason or other." This is like saying, "The Joads decided to leave Oklahoma, for some reason or other." It suggests that the thing was done for an unexplained or arbitrary reason, whereas in the novel there is extensive elaboration on the thought process of the protagonist in making the decision.

>>19440957
Filtered

ITT:
>ew this shit tastes like shit
>filtered by shit lol

>>19440957
The beggining of this book is fucking boring.

>>19453296
It's very well-established by the vast majority of people qualified to comment on such matters that Dostoyevsky's major novels are monumental literary accomplishments.

Are we supposed to feel sad for most of the key characters? I could not help but to read most parts tragically.