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/lit/ - Literature

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5720943 No.5720943 [Reply] [Original]

>there are people browsing /lit/ RIGHT NOW that haven't read Brothers Karamazov

>> No.5720949

Post the first paragraph

>> No.5720957

>>5720949
Why?

>> No.5720960

>translated

>> No.5720962

I read the first third of The Idiot and it was rich people fucking around.

Is there a better Dostoyevsky to start with?

>> No.5720963

Why is it that Americans are obsessed with Dostoyevsky? His native country thinks nothing special of him at all

>> No.5720967
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5720967

>>5720962
Crime and Punishment is probably the best starting point.

Or Notes From Underground if you want something shorter.

>> No.5720969

>>5720963
Elaborate

>> No.5720970

>>5720943
Crime and Punishment was better.
Bring the mob

>> No.5720971

>>5720962
I started with Notes, found it highly enjoyable.

/r9k/ is basically the underground man.

>> No.5720973

>>5720970
I agree.

>> No.5720975

>>5720969
elaborate on what?

>> No.5720980

>>5720975
On the "his native country thinks nothing of him" part. Might as well do the same for "Why is it that Americans are obsessed with Dostoyevsky" when I have no idea where you get this from.

>> No.5720982

>>5720963
His native country is pretty embarrassed by how how much he exposes the dark side of Russia. The present regime, and the previous one prefers bright positive messages.

>> No.5720986

>>5720957
so I can see if it's good

>> No.5720992

>>5720982
preposterous. writing should be about life or sadness, but not happiness - for happiness is an end in itself

>> No.5720993

>>5720963
Maybe if you read Demons and see the state russia is in the last 300 years and you'll maybe see why russians dont like him, russians are extreme nacionalists
Dosto is def. one of the greatest ever.
I started with Notes from Underground - > House of The Dead - > Crime and Punishment -> TBK -> Demons

>> No.5720997
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5720997

>>5720943
Russian Soap with nothing in particular to say except
"i wish I could fuck god in love and have his children"

fucking sad ass russian fuck

>> No.5721000

>>5720962
notes from undergound
crime and punishmtn

>> No.5721005

I see House of The Dead rarely mentioned here, what did you think of it /lit/? I enjoyed it, it's not as thought-provoking as some of his other works (in my opinion at least), but it was a really enjoyable read.

>> No.5721025

>>5721005
Its an easy read, its really cool, its just an auto biography and those kinds of books are never discussed in here

>> No.5721633

>>5720943
Very few people on lit have read shit, they mostly see GR, BM or that fucking mess IJ; read them; then report back with what bullshit opinions they have. Which gives them too much credit, it's usually a very miserable 'What did you guys think of this?'

This is my first day back on lit after a year during which I studied literature almost exclusively, I also learned latin, italian and polished my french and irish for around 12 hours a day (After emigrating, no social commitments) and it is a cesspool of aspiring dilettantes. Seriously, if anyone sees this and wants to gain any understanding of literature, get out of here and study it on your own and draw your own conclusions.

>> No.5721667

>>5720963
I read on Youtube from a Russian commenter that Dostoyevsky novels are in most of Russia's Secondary-School literature courses, so I always assumed his novels are required for reading for most Russian high-schoolers like Edgar Allen Poe or Mark Twain is for Americans.

>> No.5721692

>>5721667
Careful with the generalizations. I was never required to read Twain or Remarque or a lot of "required reading."

>> No.5721710

>>5721633
I agree /lit/ is fucking embarrassing. Don't know why I come here, everyone has just terrible things to say about the same group of 10 books

>> No.5721716

>>5721692
"Required reading" is almost never meant 100% literally.

>> No.5721746

>>5721692
I didn't mean required in a literal sense, but it's among the top writers which most Russian students learn about.

>> No.5721805

>>5720943
So what? It's unfinished.
I've put priority on others Dosto works (crime and punishment, the double, the adolescent, white nights, notes from the underground)
Someday I will read even the brothers karamazov

>> No.5722135

I finished The Idiot and liked it a lot. Currently reading Crime and Punishment. I couldn't find the household's copy of Brothers Karamazov, sue me.

>> No.5722234

>>5720943
Gotta read The Idiot and Notes from the underground first

>> No.5724110

>>5720982
>>5720993
Dostoyevsky was not exposing "the dark side of Russia" in his novels at all.
At the time of Dostoyevsky's life, the majority of the Russian intellectuals were divided into two big groups. One of them (Westernizers) tended to follow the Western world, and the other (Slavophils) was antagonistic to everything that's coming from the West, defending Slav's "eastern" traditions and ideals. Dostoyevsky developed his own concept which was similar to the later, and could be described as Slavophilia without directly opposing the West. He believed that the Russians are chosen by God and only them, while sticking together, through suffering and with the help of Orthodox church could mystically understand each other to a point of overcoming the fear, hate and soulless state of the modern world. He did not expose the dark side of Russia, as Russians - utterly pessimistic nation - know it very well themselves, and such exposition would be trivial. But he thought that because of that side, and the suffering it brings, Russians are closer than anyone to redemption. So in a manner of speaking, Dostoyevsky was quite nationalistic himself.
However that does not make him a good writer as far as most of his novels are broaching his doubtful ideas. Dostoyevsky's characters - all of these blessed whores and noble murderers - are on the path of redemption, that exists only in their master's head. That type of personalities never existed, especially not in Russia. Dostoyevsky's novels are full of naive ideas and fictitious characters, while bringing you nothing of that splendid imagination of Gogol or masterly built fictional Russia of Tolstoy.
Perhaps few Russians are subtle enough in literature, to certainly distinguish masterpiece from mediocrity, but most of them after all these years are able to feel the falsity of Dostoyevsky's fiction and naivety of his ideas - which were originally directed to them after all. And so, Dostoyevsky will never be considered to be the greatest writer by Russians. Which is for the good I suppose.

>> No.5724260

>>5721633
At least 90% of /lit/ hasn't actually read those books, but they post their retarded opinions on it anyway.

>> No.5724666

>>5720997
Classic example of someone who hasn't read the book they're "critiquing"

>> No.5724683

>>5720963
I'm friends with lots of Russians, they love him so stop spreading misinformation.

>>5720962
The Idiot is perhaps his most philosophical novel, not much action if that's what you're looking for.

The Brthers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment are more exciting.

>> No.5726070

Reading TBK at the moment. At first I was bored by him going into every single character's history but the story is actually quite intriguing.

I feel like a pretentious dick when I say that TBK is easy to read but it actually is once you get into it.

Fuck Ivan's long-ass 'poem', though. That was boring as fuck. I skimmed the whole second half of that chapter.

>> No.5726107

I read half and then had to give it back to the library

>> No.5726138

>>5726070

Most of Dostoevsky's books are like that.

>> No.5726246

>>5726070
>Fuck Ivan's long-ass 'poem', though. That was boring as fuck. I skimmed the whole second half of that chapter.
I pity you.

>> No.5726370

Can you imagine how great this would have been if Dostoevsky hadn't died 4 months after The Bros K was published?
If he had finished the full trilogy?

Forgive the 4chan parlance, but that would have been "epic".

>> No.5726428

>>5726370
yawn

>> No.5727228

>>5720943
Meh i only really read >300 page books.
Why should i stop re-reading Shakespeare for karamazov.

>> No.5727240
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5727240

>mfw I read slightly over halfway through The Brothers Karamazov and War & Peace before dropping them

Both were excellent of course, come to think of it, I cannot remember why I stopped, but it was at least a year ago

>> No.5727256

>>5720943
>there are people browsing /lit/ RIGHT NOW that haven't read Brothers Karamazov
you mean
>there are people browsing /lit/ RIGHT NOW who haven't read Brothers Karamazov

>> No.5727262

>>5727228
Because Dosto is the greatest writer to ever walk on earth

>> No.5727330

>>5726370

Everything happens for a reason. Maybe Dostoyevski was never meant to do that? The Brothers Karamazov as we know it is masterpiece and let it remain as such.

>>5724110

I absolutely agree with the first paragraph. Dostoyevski was a nationalist himself and viewed Tsarist power as a "katechon" the patriarchal regime which secures the tenants of orthodox paradigms, natural law even if it's flawed and these flaws themselves cause suffering that has a "redeeming quality" for Russian folk.

The second paragraph I cannot agree with. First of all, for instance in my country, Poland and in Germany Dostoyevsky is held in a higher regard than Gogol and Tolstoy, seen as a pinnacle of Russian lit. His characters are way too complex to brand them as only "blessed whores and noble murderers" and certainly the latter existed in 19th century Russia, you shouldn't look further than Lermontov and whole concept of "lishniy chelovek", basically the pessimistic version of Byronic hero. Such people were in Russia and they were epitome of the "Russian soul", Dostoevsky himself recalls them by names. The blessed whore is basically the paradoxical salt of the earth in Russia also, in the poverty-ridden land of people forced into sinful conduct such women remain deeply connected to tenants of moralistic, orthodox tradition what often is the last thing keeping them alive. Dostoyevski searches for this almost biblical (parable of the Sower) spark of light, the worthy seed overwhelmed by burden of systematic suffering, reality.

To understand Dostoyevski you need first to be familiar with orthodox anthropology and the real condition of life in 19th century Russia. This is not naivity speaking through Dostoyevski, it's rather experiance of genuine misery of a brilliant reader of human psyche.

>> No.5727343

>three The Brothers Karamazov threads on the catalog at once

Good Lord, either Dostoyevski was truly a goat or something is wrong with people

>> No.5727356

>>5720943
I tried reading it, I got 30 pages in before I gave up, I tried twice more, getting to 170 pages. I just started my fourth attempt today.

This'll also be the third non-kids book I've ever read. I feel like I'm starting with something too difficult.

>> No.5727408

I read this shortly after having finished In Search of Lost Time. I don't know if it's because Proust is a superior writer (I suspect so) or because the P&V translation isn't all it's said to be, but it felt like going from Shakespeare to John Green. Passages of Proust, with his shrewd observations, left me in awe. Descriptions of Dostoevsky's predictable archetypal characters left me unimpressed. The highlights for me were the chapters on the children.

>> No.5727420

>>5720982
Kek. Has Russia ever seen one of its films? Even if it is a comedy it exposes the "dark side of Russia."

>> No.5727453

>>5726070
do you mean The Grand Inquisitor? Are you retarded?

>> No.5727454

I have only read Notes from Underground, should I read Crime and Punishment next just because its chronological or does it not matter much and I should just skip to Bro K. I mostly just am asking if Dostoevsky matures as a writer and it would be better to read his earlier works to see the change.

>> No.5727457

>>5720963
Since when is Russia the judge of what is great or not?

>> No.5727487

>>5721633
>they mostly see GR, BM or that fucking mess IJ; read them; then report back with what bullshit opinions they have.

Steps one and three happen, but you're making a grave mistake if you think anyone here actually read any of those books.

>> No.5727597
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5727597

>you will never read The Life Of a Great Sinner
So what does /lit/ imagine he had planned for the brothers in the next two novels?

>> No.5727600

>>5727356
It was my first big boy book too, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It becomes a chore at a few points, but overall it's still my favorite book.

>> No.5727612

>>5726070
Most of the classics are easy to read as long as you understand them in their historical context

>> No.5727614

>>5726070
If you're talking about the Grand Inquisitor then you basically skipped the main attraction of the story.
nice going gayboy

>> No.5727621

>>5727600
Mine too, other than I think, Walden. Definitely got stuck at a few points, ended up taking me about three weeks to read, I pretty much flew through the last 2/3rds of it though.
I'll have to read again eventually and see if I still love it as much as I did, or find out if Dostoevsky is better when you're young like Borges says.

>> No.5727623

>>5726070
>Fuck Ivan's long-ass 'poem', though. That was boring as fuck. I skimmed the whole second half of that chapter.


i'm straight up laughing out loud

>> No.5728237

>>5727330
>in my country, Poland and in Germany Dostoyevsky is held in a higher regard than Gogol and Tolstoy, seen as a pinnacle of Russian lit
Which is a big shame. I know a lot of people - even those who dare to say they enjoy Russian lit - overlook much of Russian most brilliant masterpieces. You almost never see anyone here talking about "Petersburg" by Bely or "Oblomov" by Goncharov, even Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" or Gogol's "Petersburg tales" are getting little attention. Sometimes it seems like no one knows who's Yuri Olesha, or that Nabokov's written a fair amount of excellent Russian novels. Yet it's always Dostoyevsky they are talking about. Frankly that does not surprise me, as popularity rarely indicates quality and people would always prefer "Fifty Shades of Grey" - or "The Brothers Karamazov" we are talking about here - to "Anna Karenina". Fortunately in this particular case, that doesn't work exactly the same for Russians.
>Such people were in Russia and they were epitome of the "Russian soul", Dostoevsky himself recalls them by names.
These are the prolonged and projected qualities of the few, which Dostoyevsky tended to stretch on the entire nation. If you want to learn the meaning of so-called "Russian soul" you need much more, or better say different, approach than reading Dostoyevsky's novels. Studying Russian history and culture while living for a long term among the Russians might help, and if you want some help from the literature then go for Goncharov's "Oblomov", Nekrasov's poem "Who is Happy in Russia?", as well as some bit of poetry from Pushkin and Lermontov to Esenin. The formers are the best literary insight of Russian psychology - towers above everything Dostoyevsky's written on the topic.
Also the Russians have never been the most sincere believers, hence that kind of "sin then preach for forgiveness" occurred. The Orthodox church was indeed seen as a way to escape from despair, but a rather inferior one. Inferior to the only true religion of the Russians - vodka and alcoholic oblivion.
>To understand Dostoyevski you need first to be familiar with orthodox anthropology and the real condition of life in 19th century Russia.
Dostoyevsky is fairly easy to understand, and we are arguing about the different problematic here: the acceptance. From all my experience, knowledge of Russian history, Russian traditions, Russian art, my connections with actual Russians and visits of that country, I do not believe Dostoyevsky. From where I'm standing his mumbles are bluff, signifying nothing.
And if it's working the other way around for you, please, I don't ask you to call Dostoyevsky a nobody - just don't raise him over likes of Gogol and Tolsoy, as that would be a big insult to Russian literature. Praise the man if you want, but let him where he stands.

>> No.5728357

>>5728237
Nabokov is shit.
Also you're butthurt because Dostoyevsky is that much accepted as one of the greatest writers ever.
He's better than Gogol, he's better than Tolstoy, he is the best Russian writer (Chekhov being a close second), and you can't deal with it.
Now go and continue crying in your corner.

>> No.5728387

>>5728357
And here, ladies and gentlemen, is your typical Dostoyevsky worshipper.
Thanks for attending, sir, without you the picture would be incomplete.

>> No.5728388

>>5728387
I already have you to thank for the attending, because everyone can see a typical butthurt person.

>> No.5728417

>>5728237
>Inferior to the only true religion of the Russians - vodka and alcoholic oblivion.
Drinking was a thing only in the 1970's and 1980's, and that only because hippie-themed attitudes and lifestyles became immensely popular while drugs where unavailable due to the Iron Curtain.

What you consider 'russianness' is a caricature of the true state of things outdated by 30 years.

>> No.5728418

>>5728237
>These are the prolonged and projected qualities of the few, which Dostoyevsky tended to stretch on the entire nation. If you want to learn the meaning of so-called "Russian soul" you need much more, or better say different, approach than reading Dostoyevsky's novels. Studying Russian history and culture while living for a long term among the Russians might help, and if you want some help from the literature then go for Goncharov's "Oblomov", Nekrasov's poem "Who is Happy in Russia?", as well as some bit of poetry from Pushkin and Lermontov to Esenin. The formers are the best literary insight of Russian psychology - towers above everything Dostoyevsky's written on the topic.

Dead Souls bothered me in this regard - every other sentence was about how this or that was so typical of Russians and how uniquely mediocre Russians are. I get the point, but goddamn.

>> No.5728421

>>5726070
>Fuck Ivan's long-ass 'poem', though. That was boring as fuck. I skimmed the whole second half of that chapter.
Oh jesus, even for 4chan, this is.. weird

>> No.5728440

>>5724110
I take it you only ever read Crime & Punishment.

And what are characters if not fictitious? They're works of fiction, you moron. Questions of authenticity are irrelevant when all of his characters are so incredibily strong and well-defined. I think David Foster Wallace said it best:

>The thing about Dostoevsky's characters is that they are ALIVE. By which I don't mean that they're successfully realized or developed or "rounded". The best of them live inside us, forever, once we've met them.
>These and so many other FMD creatures are arlive - retain what [Joseph] Frank calls their "immense vitality" - not because they're just skillfully drawn types or facets of human beings but because... they dramatizr the profoundest parts of all humans, the parts most conflicted, most serious - the ones with the most at stake. Plus, without ever ceasing to be 3-D individuals, Dostoevsky's characters manage to embody whole ideologies and philosophies of life...

>> No.5728608

>>5727356
Why did you have to remind me that I share this place with people such as yourself?

>> No.5728639

Dostoevsky is overrated. He is the Russian Charles Dickens who focuses on spiritual poverty over actual poverty. His novels are too much like Christian propaganda for my liking. I read him in translation though, so maybe I have missed many of his more subtle points, but I do not appreciate his more overt themes and points.

>> No.5728691

>all this Dostoevsky hate in the thread
Holy shit, since when is /lit/ this shit?
Let me guess, Dostoevsky is too mainstream, plus he was a christian, that's why he's getting all this hate. Kill yourselves, special snowflake fedora tipper faggots.

>> No.5728708

>>5720943
its on my to read list. ill get to it eventually

>> No.5729058

>>5726070
Either you're a good troll that knows how to get on my nerves really well, or you're the single dumbest person ever to be on 4chan and you just skipped the greatest part in the history of world literature.

>> No.5729416

Didn't like Bros. K because all of the characters acted in an entirely irrational way except for Alyosha.

Fyodor was the most maddening character -- within a paragraph he would jump emotions like 3-4 times and it was *brutal* to read.

>> No.5729453

>>5729416
They're russians, what did you expect?

>> No.5729515

Do I just have a fucked up sense of humor or is Notes from Underground fucking hilarious? I was sitting in my office laughing my shit off as Chinese people scowled at their computer screens wondering why I get paid 3 times more than them.

Funny parts: mainly, the use of the word "deliberately", and saying he punched the cab driver in the back of the neck to his response of "why did you strike me?"

>> No.5729637

>>5729416
I think that was to emphasize that Fyodor was a shallow character who wasn't invested in anything but his hedonism. He starts arguments for fun, doesn't care about any legitimate conversation, and acts like an ass basically all the time. He didn't have anything to say, he was essentially comic relief, except you were laughing at him instead of with him.
Although I agree that it was hard to get used to.

>> No.5729712

>>5720962
The first Dostoevsky (hell, first novel full-stop I read after coming back to reading in adulthood) was The Idiot, and I thought it was amazeballs.

>> No.5729716

>>5729515
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X6VoFBCE9k

>> No.5730730

>>5726370

>you will never read about Alexei's loss of faith, as his beliefs hit rock bottom

life is cruel

>> No.5730736

Give me one reason why I should stop reading Pynchon to read this

>> No.5730745

>>5721633
>if anyone sees this and wants to gain any understanding of literature, get out of here and study it on your own and draw your own conclusions
No shit man. If people are getting their understanding of literature from 4chan then they're idiots.

>> No.5730747

>>5728608
Sorry

>> No.5730751

>>5730745
But I think the reason I still come here is because occasionally there are decent conversations about literature.

>> No.5730965

>>5720963
>Why is it that Americans are obsessed with Dostoyevsky? His native country thinks nothing special of him at all
russ-anon doing a degree in literature at the moscow state university reporting in

what the fuck are you talking about?

>> No.5730981

>>5728237
>Nekrasov's poem "Who is Happy in Russia?"
no

>> No.5732659

>>5730965
Don't you see that he's a retard? Why did you even reply seriously?

>> No.5732666

>>5728417
The Russian state had a monopoly on vodka in the 19th century and it made up 20-25% of the budget

>> No.5732691

>>5730965
The whole "Russia doesn't think much of Dostoevsky" thing is something I've seen mentioned on /lit/ a number of times, which undoubtedly means other people have seen it as well and will repeat it as fact in order to appear as though they have intimate knowledge of Russian literature, leading to more people repeating it, and so on.

>> No.5732749

>>5732666
Yes. Drinking is a thing that waxes and wanes in popularity in Russia. The late 19th century was also a time when abstinence was very popular. (Due, in large part, to the 'state monopoly' thing.)

>> No.5733005

>>5730736
He's got a better name.