Nabokov on Crime and Punishment

[Anonymous No.19106765]

>Because he can spin a yarn with such suspense, such innuendoes, Dostoevski used to be eagerly read by schoolboys and schoolgirls in Russia, together with Fenimore Cooper, Victor Hugo, Dickens, and Turgenev. I must have been twelve when forty-five years ago I read Crime and Punishment for the first time and thought it a wonderfully powerful and exciting book. I read it again at nineteen, during the awful years of civil war in Russia, and thought it was long-winded, terribly sentimental, and badly written. I read it at twenty-eight when discussing Dostoevski in one of my own books. I read the thing again when preparing to speak about him in American universities. And only quite recently did I realize what is so wrong about the book.
>The flaw, the crack in it, which in my opinion causes the whole edifice to crumble ethically and aesthetically may be found in part ten, chapter four. It is in the beginning of the redemption scene when Raskolnikov, the killer, discovers through the girl Sonya the New Testament. She has been reading to him about Jesus and the raising of Lazarus. So far so good. But then comes this singular sentence that for sheer stupidity has hardly the equal in world-famous literature: “The candle was flickering out, dimly lighting up in the poverty-stricken room the murderer and the harlot who has been reading together the eternal book.”
>“The murderer and the harlot” and “the eternal book”—what a triangle. This is a crucial phrase, of a typical Dostoevskian rhetorical twist. Now what is so dreadfully wrong about it? Why is it so crude and so inartistic?
>I suggest that neither a true artist nor a true moralist—neither a good Christian nor a good philosopher—neither a poet nor a sociologist—should have placed side by side, in one breath, in one gust of false eloquence, a killer together with whom?—a poor streetwalker, bending their completely different heads over that holy book.
>The two are on completely different levels. The inhuman and idiotic crime of Raskolnikov cannot be even remotely compared to the plight of a girl who impairs human dignity by selling her body. The murderer and the harlot reading the eternal book—what nonsense. There is no rhetorical link between a filthy murderer, and this unfortunate girl. There is only the conventional link of the Gothic novel and the sentimental novel. It is a shoddy literary trick, not a masterpiece of pathos and piety. Moreover, look at the absence of artistic balance. We have been shown Raskolnikov's crime in all sordid detail and we also have been given half a dozen different explanations for his exploit. We have never been shown Sonya in the exercise of her trade. The situation is a glorified cliche. The harlot's sin is taken for granted.
—Nabokov, Lectures on Russian Literature, p. 112–113

[Anonymous No.19106802]

murder bad. Dont compare murder to other sins.

[Anonymous No.19106814]

>>19106765
Dosto was a degenerate pulp fiction writer who was paid by the word to fuel his insatiable gambling addiction. People who like him are the literary equivalent of a soccer mom picking up a harlequin romance novel in the check out line at the local super market.

[Anonymous No.19106844]

>>19106765
Also, the entire story serves to illustrate that, had Raskolnikov been a psychopath or even just a sociopath, he would have succeeded in stepping closer to the great man he admired in Napoleon. The core of the book boils down to "if you have a conscience, you can't be great like Napoleon". It's as if Dosto didn't realize that there are people in our world who absolutely would have murdered those two women and never given it a second thought. Again, if you're a pussy who is going to cry about it afterwards, don't take action. Apart from that, the ubermensch are going to shape the world how they see fit and you, weak as you are, must simply accept it.

[Anonymous No.19106853]

>>19106814
yawn

[Anonymous No.19106895]

>>19106844
>if you're a pussy who is going to cry about it afterwards, don't take action
How can you know that beforehand?

[Anonymous No.19106901]

>>19106895
If you have to ask, you're probably a pussy

[Anonymous No.19106912]

>>19106765

[Anonymous No.19106917]

Lolita was good but ultimately soulless. Nabokov very accurately imitates a highly literate ESL so the prose is although beautiful in a sense, is also stilted and awkward and just doesn't flow. Humbert was a funny guy, too bad he also had to be a rapist, a pedophile and a murderer.

Crime and Punishment is however, an infinitely better novel and actually has something to say. Nabokov basically wrote pulp novels with word games thrown in for pseuds. Dostoevsky is true high brow lit. But he is right about Dostoevsky's prose. I think this applies to most Russian lit in translation. The writing is awful. Tolstoy is even worse.

[Anonymous No.19106926]

>>19106814
>>19106917
this board is just bots playing the hits now huh

[Anonymous No.19106937]

>>19106926
/lit/ has been especially shit the past week; I was hoping all the freshmen would have left due to school starting but it seems they've all been replaced with literal bots

[Anonymous No.19106956]

>>19106814
Is this copypasta, do you make the same comment on every Dostoevsky thread, or is it simply a mind-numbing cliche that several /lit/ mediocrities latch onto? You tell us!

[Anonymous No.19106967]

Nabokov is an overrated writer and an even more overrated critic and educator. If Lolita wasn’t about a pedophile, no one would care about him.

[Anonymous No.19107004]

But prostitutes are often killed. Or killers often kill prostitutes. Quite the mystery. Very much the mystery indeed.

[Anonymous No.19107058]

Nabokov wanted to read about Sonya getting dicked by Raskolnikov. A degenerate cynical critic couldn't appreciate a sincere expression of faith.

[Anonymous No.19107093]

>>19106912
Dostoevski? Indeed he doesnt.

[Anonymous No.19107238]

>>19107093

[Anonymous No.19107394]

>>19107093
Doesn't miss a chance to gamble away his last dollar! HA!

[Anonymous No.19107618]

>>19106937
>past week
Try the past year. Im seeing fucking wojaks on /lit/, it was never this bad

[Anonymous No.19107699]

>>19106765
>a girl who impairs human dignity by selling her body
>The harlot's sin is taken for granted.
brilliant critical work

[Anonymous No.19107723]

Nabokov enjoyed being a polemic for the sake of it. There's nothing more to it. He would probably post here.

[Anonymous No.19107739]

the amount of cope in this thread is revealing
not a single attempt to refute his point or explain why they think otherwise, just a ton of butthurt anons crying about "well nabokov was shit anyways" and posting copypastas

[Anonymous No.19107868]

I wish Nabo was still alive to shit on modern things. His criticisms are always amusing.

[Anonymous No.19107902]

>>19107868
I wonder what he'd think of the diversity craze

[Anonymous No.19107932]

>>19107902
the entire lake geneva region is powered solely by nabokov's spinning corpse

[Anonymous No.19108586]

>>19106967
an attack on the person does not make what he said any less true

[Anonymous No.19108662]

>>19106937
It's been bad for at least a couple months now. Or maybe the honeymoon phase is over for me and I see that this place has been shit all along

>>19107618
Wojaks and Apus have been around a while but this board sometimes feels like it's trying to be /v/ for books.

[Anonymous No.19108718]

>>19106814
Go to bed, Nabokov.

[Anonymous No.19108743]

>>19106814
>>19106917
>>19106967
based. fuck nabokov.

[Anonymous No.19108776]

>>19108662
>It's been bad for at least a couple months now. Or maybe the honeymoon phase is over for me and I see that this place has been shit all along
Any small thread that doesn't have a meme author as the OP or topic will be fine. Avoid all philosophy and Christianity threads.

[Anonymous No.19108784]

Nabokov is such a shit writer but his opinion on all other books is nearly always correct.

[Anonymous No.19108840]

>The candle was flickering out, dimly lighting up in the poverty-stricken room the murderer and the harlot who has been reading together the eternal book

when you compromise on your aesthetic pussy and let in the tip in your moralizing ass, and he swears just the tip...that sentence, that sentence is the thick shaft bone pressed.

[Anonymous No.19108845]

>>19106765
Who?

[Anonymous No.19108855]

>>19106765
>Why didn't I get to see Sonya fucking filthy drunken Ivans! Not even once!
>Writes paedo fanfic--hides behind the idea that a pederast being artful and sensitive filters literary types because they're artful and sensative.

[Anonymous No.19108864]

no one would even know who this guy is if it wasn't for him writing about a certain controversial topic

[Anonymous No.19108865]

>>19106765
What kind of daughter would the murderer have?

[Anonymous No.19108896]

>>19108865
>Sex worker mother
>Absent/criminal father
The type that would be targeted by pederasts and pornographers. The type Nabokov thought about while jerking off (without a pen in hand).

[Anonymous No.19108903]

>>19106765
He is literally sperging out because muh poor prostitute lol

[Anonymous No.19108911]

>>19108855
C&P would be infinitely improved by a Sonya sex scene or two. Don't deny it.

[Anonymous No.19108933]

>>19106765
I really can't believe how dumb this. Dostoevsky is not saying the crimes are equal, but they are in fact both crimes, both sins, and Nabokov has to ride in on his horse and save the poor damsel from this implied slight on her honour. Like what an enormous faggot

[Anonymous No.19108964]

Checked >>19108911
but
Also Checked >>19108933

[Anonymous No.19109070]

>>19108933
I think it's more the fact that Rasky chose to murder instead of working like his school friend whereas Sonya has literally no options at all and is doing something much less bad than murder, yet in Dosto's retarded eyes they are the same.

[Anonymous No.19109526]

>>19106765
Nabocope coping as always.

[Anonymous No.19109540]

>>19109070
Dosto is not equating them. Nabokov is literally just inventing this based on some fantasy of grammatical implication. The murderer is far worse than the harlot, both are still bad. Its not like the rest of the book even implies that Sonya is as bad as Raskolnikov, hr is just inventing this out of one sentence, and Dosto notoriously doesnt construct his sentences that carefully so he is clearly not implying that. And I mean this guy is obsessed with prostitutes who are actually good people, he is not trying to condemn them in any way, and the entire point of Dostoevsky's entire ethos is universal forgiveness and sin, meaning he can treat people of differing levels of crime and sin the same way.

It's just such a dishonest sneaky thing to say about some inelegant sentence he wrote

[Anonymous No.19109603]

>>19106844
But you have to understand that Life was a mystery at that time.
Today, we know that we are just animals with high intelligence.

[Anonymous No.19109814]

>>19109603

[Anonymous No.19110142]

>>19106765
>The two are on completely different levels. The inhuman and idiotic crime of Raskolnikov cannot be even remotely compared to the plight of a girl who impairs human dignity by selling her body.
Different levels, sure, but sinners none the less

[Anonymous No.19110208]

>>19106844
>had Raskolnikov been a psychopath or even just a sociopath, he would have succeeded in stepping closer to the great man he admired in Napoleon.
He would've been as close to being like Napoleon as you would of having a harem.
Don't compare fighting wars for your men and country, to killing two women for some "rainy day" money, even if it were all for starting something greater than oneself, which doesn't justifies it, we both know that Raskolnikov was only doing it for himself, using her mother's dwindling pension and her sister's arrange marriage as an excuse, just so he could ease his penniless life, while proving to himself, with his own made up thesis, that he is no scoundrel, but a man, a great man like Napoleon.

>It's as if Dosto didn't realize that there are people in our world who absolutely would have murdered those two women and never given it a second thought.
Yes, and those people are called murderers, and in no history book or story are they mention as heroes.