The scene where he commits the crime is an absolute stunner, edge-of-your-seat, thriller. Who does that? Who can pull that off? Dostoyevsky
A lot of 19th century novels were published as serials. The TV of their time I suppose.
With the final installment arriving by ship, crowds in New York shouted from the pier "Is Little Nell dead?" - https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/charles-dickens-old-curio...
I'm so glad I get to read the Russians and Kafka and Calvino and Murakami and Camus and Marquez and Homer and Plato and, heck, the Bible.
I do know the feeling. I struggled through the start of My Brilliant Friend because I ought to read it in Italian, because I speak it pretty well. So then I didn't read it for years. Finally I just read it in English and enjoyed myself.
Translation is an art I think equal to authorship. Someone below mentioned My brilliant friend which was originally written in a Neapolitan dialect but the English translation, at least for me specifically, is a monumental achievement.
Then again, so would reading Shakespeare in Spanish - even though I'm more comfortable reading in eng, I'm better in Spanish than i am 500 year old English
I loved excerpts of Karamazov (The Grand Inquisitor, Dimitry's troika ride, any passage with Grushenka) but I also found it rough to get through. I really don't think I was ultimately able to appreciate it as a whole.
C&P felt much smoother and finally I devoured The Idiot. Those novels felt like night and day compared to Karamazov.
With Karamazov, I feel like there is some subtext or context I'm missing and would have loved to have had a companion text or course to help me.
When I first Master and Margarita, it came with incredible footnotes, and rereading it again I found I sometimes recalled the footnotes more than the text. I recommended the book to a friend, but their edition didn't have the footnotes so they bounced right off it.
Anyway if anyone knows of an edition better than the Penguin Classic of BK I'm all ears.
edit: I read the Barnes and Noble translation. And I would encourage reading some passages aloud.
But if you're 600 pages in and it's a slog you might have lost the train of thought of the novel.
It is a lot to keep in your head!
To give you one idea of the approach - the accurately translated title is The Karamazov Brothers. Every other translator chooses the usual way because it sounds grander or eccentric or just because that’s how others did it before them, even though it’s simply incorrect as a translation.
P&V - one of them edits without even knowing Russian, a polar opposite
Karamazov is basically YA fiction though. Find other works if you’re not into it as an older adult, it’s fine
As he wrote to his brother the same day:
"When I look back into the past and think how much time has been wasted, how much of it wasted in delusions, mistakes, idleness, in the inability to live; how little I cherished it, how many times I sinned against my heart and my soul — my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute could have been a century of happiness. Si jeunesse savait!"
The murder scene itself is so vivid that it's easy to forget that the long middle of the novel is the cat-and-mouse game between him and the detective whose name I forget.
* I think I remembered. Thank you Roman! https://www.dignitymemorial.com/en-ca/obituaries/calgary-ab/...
I also had the same reaction to Crime and Punishment as the OP did.
I’m sure it’s good but I don’t think I have it in me to try again.
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?
Edit: except for The Double.
Prefered Demons, personally. Probably becuase I read it when more mature.
(I used to be a professional translator for the relevant languages, so I have opinions™)
When I'm starting to read a non-English novel, the process of deciding which translation to use is half the fun. The Kent and Berbera (revised Garnett) version of Anna Karenina was mesmerizing.
I found Dostoyevsky a slog to get through and it might have been made worse because he was sold to me as this 'great psychologist' when psychological realism is often missing from his stories and characters become page-long megaphones for some version of Orthodox Russian nationalism or Christianity.
I'm currently reading Karamazov and it's good to have something a bit more jovial and dry witted.
The main difficulty is the names. The names make it so hard.
I love the Space Trilogy by Lewis but I lose my place when he describes a place. Dostoevsky is better at describing people (and bringing them to life in your mind) than Lewis is at describing a landscape.
Those who find time later in their adult life will re-read the classics and appreciate it, but many will not, and that's probably a result of forcing the kids to deal with something most of them are not ready for.
Tamil translators have done astonishing efforts in presenting the worlds and sentiments of Dostoyevsky, yet I cannot compare it with OG Russian versions as I do not know Russian. I might one day be in a position to read his classics in native versions (I want to learn Russian for this).
I’d like to say the story stayed with me, but alas it was the reaction of adults to my reading matter that I remember.
Part of growing up was realizing that being precocious really isn’t a thing anymore at some point.
Same. TIL this is not just me being lazy.
I read his writings because they read like my own thoughts from the very start and I never had any trouble finishing. He is the only writer who's works I've read countless times (never thought about counting, but Idiot, Karamazov at least 20 times). That would make him what would normally be called my "favorite writer", although I do not say that either. On the other hand, I have difficultly reading most other writers.
Pretty relevant for the contemporary tech world, if you ask me.
But the average person in the US atm can't even read a children's book, and this includes recent college students:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-eli...
https://futurism.com/future-society/college-students-losing-...
We're becoming an oral and pictorial society.
Here's some of Norm's thoughts about Russian literature and how to read it:
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016
Tolstoy is the best writer who has ever lived. Some people are intimidated
by that fact.
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016
Read, in chronological order if possible, everything Tolstoy has ever
written.
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016
People think Tolstoy would be too difficult to understand since he is the
greatest writer to ever have drawn breath.
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016
Since I am asked about Tolstoy I will suggest all read him. Read all he has
written. Here's the thing about Tolstoy.
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016
Tolstoy could write a massive book like War & Peace and have every word be
necessary.
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016
Dosto is a fine writer. Better are Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev and
Pushkin.
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016
To be a great writer you must be able to communicate with the reader.
Tolstoy communicates better than anyone else ever.
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016
Dostoevsky was far the inferior to Tolstoy, he was inferior to most of the
great Russians.
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016
Agree completely. Should read both actually. and P&V have not translated
most Tolstoy, so then go to Constance.
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 7, 2018
Well, Jocelyn, I don't know of what other authors you refer to, but Tolstoy
isn't a nihilist. X.com/FLEURdian_slip...
T.L. States @epmornsesh · Dec 21, 2018
@normmacdonald Any authors you would recommend that are writing killer
comedic fiction?
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Dec 21, 2018
Tolstoy, Chekhov, Philip Roth, Salinger, me.
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Jan 21, 2019
@GaryGulman Read great works of Literature out loud. If you do not
understand what you are reading, stop, figure out what it means, then
repeat the exercise. Do this an hour a day and in time, your own voice,
your own thoughts will become the same as Tolstoy, Faulkner, Twain.Why are the classics classic? I doubt being a great read is sufficient or necessary; I struggle to read most classics, Dickens being the only exception.
I'm not reading to study, I want to be entertained! I want engagement, I want clarity, I want suspense! I don't want to wrestle with the author's intentions, I want to be gripped by the character and their situation.
A somewhat gifted teenager will race through it, as will an average adult.
If ever we needed you...
Looks like there are English subtitles that are quite decent.
"Oh? Not even Dostoyevsky?"
"Oh come on now, he was the main offender."
- The Guard
I'm sure many books offer this experience, but War and Peace explores the human condition across a lifetime in a way few novels do.