It's so boring. When does it get good?

>>24521058 (OP)
what translation are you reading?

>>24521058 (OP)
Read the Katz translation instead.

>>24521059
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

>>24521058 (OP)
>P&V
Yea, I see the problem there.

>>24521068
Oof, no wonder. Get pic rel. It reads better.

Not op but whats the major difference between p&v and others? Why is it so unreadable?

>>24521107
Well, basically it's as if you used google translate to translate a literary work. The result is literal, ugly, awkward. As if made by a robot.

>Reading about normal mundane world bullshit
>It's boring!
No shit, moron.

>>24521113
Lol, I can imagine it becomes stiff, not even a literal one on one.
Is Katz the preferred reading? It's available to me but I'd have to wait a week or 2 it seems, whilst Garnett is readily available.

>>24521129
Katz or Garnett are both better. Katz is more modern if you're into that.

>>24521138
Danken

>>24521058 (OP)
If you are alluding to Dostoevsky’s worst novels, then, indeed, I dislike intensely The Brothers Karamazov and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigamarole. No, I do not object to soul-searching and self-revelation, but in those books the soul, and the sins, and the sentimentality, and the journalese, hardly warrant the tedious and muddled search. Dostoyevsky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity – all this is difficult to admire. I do not like this trick his characters have of ”sinning their way to Jesus” or, as a Russian author, Ivan Bunin, put it more bluntly, ”spilling Jesus all over the place." Crime and Punishment’s plot 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. Dostoyevsky never really got over the influence which the European mystery novel and the sentimental novel made upon him. The sentimental influence implied that kind of conflict he liked—placing virtuous people in pathetic situations and then extracting from these situations the last ounce of pathos. Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoevsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist. He was a prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. I admit that some of his scenes, some of his tremendous farcical rows are extraordinarily amusing. But his sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes are not to be endured for one moment—by this reader anyway. Dostoyevsky seems to have been chosen by the destiny of Russian letters to become Russia’s greatest playwright, but he took the wrong turning and wrote novels.

>>24521075
>>24521069
Yall still hating on P&V in the big '25?

>>24521065
Going for the Katz translation. Thanks anon.Only on chapter 7 so all is not lost.

>>24521145
Always.

>>24521141
Nabby was always such a seether, not that I disagree.
And idc but the noble prostitute always does well with me.
Im not even a simpish guy but there's something interesting about the whore with a golden heart. For me, it's Celine's Molly.
Maybe all you really gotta do is place it in its timeframe. I'm gonna be an asshole and presume even Nabby didnt think of the prostitute of the 19th century, but kept the floozies of his own time in mind.
I never understood the appeal of cancan dancers because I just thought of our own moulin rouge performers. Too las vegas imo. But then I saw a performance with the outfits, seethrough lace undies and all, of 120 years ago and I was sold.

>>24521175
It is questionable whether one can really discuss the aspects of ''realism'' or of ''human experience'' when considering an author whose gallery of characters consists almost exclusively of neurotics and lunatics. Besides all this, Dostoyevsky's characters have yet another remarkable feature: Throughout the book they do not develop as personalities. We get them all complete at the beginning of the tale, and so they remain without any considerable changes, although their surroundings may alter and the most extraordinary things may happen to them. In the case of Raskolnikov in ''Crime and Punishment,'' for instance, we see a man go from premeditated murder to the promise of an achievement of some kind of harmony with the outer world, but all this happens somehow from without: Innerly even Raskolnikov does not go through any true development of personality, and the other heroes of Dostoyevsky do even less so. The only thing that develops, vacillates, takes unexpected sharp turns, deviates completely to include new people and circumstances, is the plot. Let us always remember that basically Dostoyevsky is a writer of mystery stories where every character, once introduced to us, remains the same to the bitter end, complete with his special features and personal habits, and that they all are treated throughout the book they happen to be in like chessmen in a complicated chess problem. Being an intricate plotter, Dostoyevsky succeeds in holding the reader's attention; he builds up his climaxes and keeps up his suspenses with consummate mastery. But if you reread a book of his you have already read once so that you are familiar with the surprises and complications of the plot, you will at once realize that the suspense you experienced during the first reading is simply not there anymore. The misadventures of human dignity which form Dostoyevsky's favorite theme are as much allied to the farce as to the drama. In indulging his farcical side and being at the same time deprived of any real sense of humor, Dostoyevsky is sometimes dangerously near to sinking into garrulous and vulgar nonsense. (The relationship between a strong-willed hysterical old woman and a weak hysterical old man, the story of which occupies the first hundred pages of ''The Possessed,'' is tedious, being unreal.) The farcical intrigue which is mixed with tragedy is obviously a foreign importation; there is something second-rate French in the structure of his plots.

I found Pevear to be enthralling and poetic

>>24521187
I'd prefer if you didnt just lift whole sections of his lecture on sentimentalism....
Still cool though.
Also
>It is questionable whether one can really discuss the aspects of ''realism'' or of ''human experience'' when considering an author whose gallery of characters consists almost exclusively of neurotics and lunatics
This has been bothering me recently, maybe he was unaware but one in five people has mental issues (suffers it at least once in their life) and this number only gets higher when you add trauma or depression.
We just dont see them act out on it, but it is realistic to have that many? Kinda.

>mfw going from book 1 to book 2 of Dead Souls
I didn't read the introduction, so I didn't know that Gogol burnt the manuscript for book 2 twice and the process of trying to write it effectively killed him. Ironic that the first part about the problems of Russia is so complete, and the second that's supposed to represent his solutions to those problems is an unfinished mess.

>>24521141
>pre-Freudian
Stopped reading there

>>24521120
Hah, yep. Russians rambling about the soul is thrilling stuff. It’s because of the translation I chose.

>>24521140
I found the epub on Anna’s-archive brother

>>24521210
The point is that Dosto over relies on these mental disorders to add melodrama to his narratives. It's entirely exploitative and taxes the reader's patience. Sticking with this theme of exploitative bad taste, I genuinely think people who like Dosto are drawn to the sordid, the salacious, the sick and twisted thrills, but because they know this temptation should be denied, they have to soothe their super ego by some pretext, which is where the Christian overtones come in. It combines to make an abomination of religious sadomasochism, shame, lust, murder, sex, debauchery, and, of course, the finale of spiritual fetishism: prostrating before the lord in the final thrill of humiliation and judgement so that the reader can insert themselves and say "YES! YES I AM A BAD BOY LORD, PUNISH ME AND I SHALL REPENT". It's actually extremely disgusting. Dosto enjoyers should seek help.

>>24521218
Those four years of penal servitude Dostoyevsky spent in Siberia he spent in the company of murderers and thieves, no segregation having been yet introduced between ordinary and political criminals. He described them in his ''Memoirs from the House of Death'' (1862). They do not make a pleasant reading. All the humiliations and hardships he endured are described in detail, as also the criminals among whom he lived. Not to go completely mad in those surroundings, Dostoyevsky had to find some sort of escape. This he found in a neurotic Christianism which he developed during these years. His emotional life up to that time had been unhappy. In Siberia he had married, but this first marriage proved unsatisfactory. In 1862-63 he had an affair with a woman writer and in her company visited England, France and Germany. This woman, whom he later characterized as ''infernal,'' seems to have been an evil character. Later she married Rozanov, an extraordinary writer combining moments of exceptional genius with manifestations of astounding naivete. (I knew Rozanov, but he had married another woman by that time.) This woman seems to have had a rather unfortunate influence on Dostoyevsky, further upsetting his unstable spirit. It was during this first trip abroad to Germany that the first manifestation of his passion for gambling appeared which during the rest of his life was the plague of his family and an insurmountable obstacle to any kind of material ease or peace to himself. Just as I have no ear for music, I have to my regret no ear for Dostoyevsky the Prophet. The very best thing he ever wrote seems to me to be ''The Double.'' It is the story - told very elaborately, in great, almost Joycean detail (as the critic Mirsky notes), and in a style intensely saturated with phonetic and rhythmical expressiveness - of a government clerk who goes mad, obsessed by the idea that a fellow clerk has usurped his identity. It is a perfect work of art, that story, but it hardly exists for the followers of Dostoyevsky the Prophet, because it was written in the 1840's, long before his so-called great novels; and moreover its imitation of Gogol is so striking as to seem at times almost a parody. Dostoyevsky characterizes his people through situation, through ethical matters, their psychological reactions, their inside ripples. After describing the looks of a character, he uses the old-fashioned device of not referring to his specific physical appearance anymore in the scenes with him. This is not the way of an artist - say Tolstoy - who sees his character in his mind all the time and knows exactly the specific gesture he will employ at this or that moment.

>>24521187
>Realism
>Characters changing their entire worldview over like 5 days

Critics be immolated in boiling tar. They bitch if a story isn't realistic because 'uh, that's OOC'. They bitch if a story has development in the manner that people change, which is very slow, as 'boring', and 'predictable'. Nothing makes them happy. Critics, in general, are parasites that have nothing good to say outside the most amateurish observations. And if I wanted to hear that, I'd just ask my brother. He doesn't bitch about how his job is 'necessary to culture' or demand that people listen to his bloviating, ivory tower opinions.

>>24521238
this actually explains why that S&M freak nietzche liked dosto so much. It never clicked until now.

>>24521242
And Tolstoy's approach is infinitely worse. War and Peace is still the only book I ever dropped out of boredom.

>>24521058 (OP)
>It's so boring.
you can just skim over msot of the religious stuff at the monastery

>>24521371
Anna K, Confession, and some of his short stories are superior to anything Dostoevsky ever wrote. I liked Dosto as a teen, but when I finally read T, I was perplexed that Tolstoy vs Dosto is even a debate.

>>24521319
There is, perhaps, no greater irony than being a critic of critics. I wonder if you had even the tiniest shred of self awareness as you typed this. Probably not.

>>24521371
Tolstoy was an actual artist, expressing elements of the sublime. Dosto's work, on the other hand, is on the level of penny dreadfuls or harlequin romance novels.

>>24521221
Nice!

I Dostoevsky and Tolstoy

>>24521058 (OP)
For me it was "it's always interesting to speak with an intelligent man" and then Mitya book that really got me, but if you find it boring already you probably shouldn't read it

>>24521654
>you have to let manchildren lecture you about what art is without having the insight or skills required to contribute anything to the arts because, because you just do okay?

>>24523833
Nabokov offers an extreme level of literary insight. Cope and Seethe.

>>24523841
Nabokov is a filthy little farthuffer who was emboldened by his success into thinking he him himself alone was the ultimate authority on literature, pointing his self important claws at the greats in history only to shriek like a menopausal woman in distress about how bad it be.
An irrealistic romantic who cant envision anything unless he suckled the cock of it for arbitrary reasons. A russian anglophile at the east west divide era, you might as well listen to a north korean defector.

>>24523921
The coping and seething is delicious

>>24523954
To be fair Nabokov copypastas do read like it contains envy for Dosto's fame, especially the "Non-Russian readers.." bit. He could've been shitposting or shitposting to cover the fact that he was in fact angry at Dosto being "overrated". Well, there's always an opposition to anything popular and in this case it had to be Nabokov.

>>24523954
>Zero effective pushback
Lol
>That time Nabokov was given an anthology of the New Yorker's short stories from between the years 1940- 1950 and graded (nobody asked him to) only 2 books with a perfect A+ : Salinger's "Bananafish" and "Colette" written by himself.
I like his work but if he could suck his own cock he would have never written anything, obviously. One only has to look at his criticisms of the greats to understand you gotta take his opinion on anything with a pinch of salt.
He is just not that important, and if someone told this fin de siecle liberal cosmopolitan (how gauche) that once he would have deflated and sputtered around.

>>24523976
Not just dostoyevskys fame but it does seem like he has a stronger hateboner for him than the rest.

what gave you the impression think it gets good at some point

>>24523976
Btw nabo loved dosto's The Double and called it a great work of art.

>>24523988
That's because Dostoyevsky belonged to a political group that later took Nabokov's family manor and forced him to wander the world like a jew forever in exile. Did you know that Nabokov's uncle (or other type of relative) was in charge of Dostoyevsky's mock execution?

>>24523921
>A russian anglophile at the east west divide era
that's based though

>>24524066
It can be, but one doesnt need to be a lapdog like gimp as he could be.

It's extremely funny and entertaining from the get go
I can only assume you're reading a trash translation or are an idiot

>>24524056
>Birthright of living in high society taken away to be forced into, comparitively, upper middle classhood

>>24524071
You're ignoring the part where he was a naturalised American who wrote in English?

>>24524122
Are you asking that? Dont worry, I kept that in mind.
You're ignoring the part where he was an anglophile before he even left russia for germany and that he had to flee his homeland.
Yeonmi Park is also a naturalized US citizen who makes her work available in English primarily.

>>24524134
I got the order wrong, he went to england first, then germany.
Regardless, he only spent 20 years of his 78 in america, and he spent almost as much time when he was in germany and later on in just switzerland.

It has very good portraited, extremely intense, characters.
I'm sorry for you.

>>24524205
is that pic real?

>>24523983
His criticisms are devastating and insightful, you just personally disagree because you have some neurosis that Dosto speaks to, thus leading to your sperging out and coping and seething. Continue though, it's highly entertaining.

>>24524553
I'm literally pissing and shitting my pants with rage that you insulted my GOD, DOSTOYEVSKY

>>24524567
It is, as in all Dostoyevsky's novels, a rush and tumble of words with endless repetitions, mutterings aside, a verbal overflow which shocks the reader after, say, Lermontov's transparent and beautifully poised prose. Dostoyevsky as we know is a great seeker after truth, a genius of spiritual morbidity, but as we also know he is not a great writer in the sense Tolstoy, Pushkin and Chekhov are. And, I repeat, not because the world he creates is unreal -all the worlds of writers are unreal - but because it is created too hastily without any sense of that harmony and economy which the most irrational masterpiece is bound to comply with (in order to be a masterpiece). Indeed, in a sense Dostoyevsky is much too rational in his crude methods, and though his facts are but spiritual facts and his characters mere ideas in the likeness of people, their interplay and development are actuated by the mechanical methods of the earthbound and conventional novels of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

>>24521059
english

>>24524553
I dont care for dostoyevsky and I like nabokovs work. Him thinking the double is dosto's best work and a perfect work of art, him doing pseudshit like
>>That time Nabokov was given an anthology of the New Yorker's short stories from between the years 1940- 1950 and graded (nobody asked him to) only 2 books with a perfect A+ : Salinger's "Bananafish" and "Colette" written by himself.
and him wishing his students adopt his opinions on specific books, preferably word for word, reveal he thought far too much of himself.
You think your criticism of me is as scathing as his by association but you talk like a faggot and you may keep your therapistbabble.

>>24524662
>>24525721
Interesting btw, how you have had nothing yourself to say throughout this entire thread.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/magazine/nabokov-on-dostoyevsky.html

>>24525726
NTA but fuck you, you just spoiled C&P for me.

when the white boy gtfo's, is always the answer. who whitey is can depend on the day

>>24525726
I would refer you to >>24521238
Dosto is essentially sadomasochistic, he loves dwelling on characters who revel in how depraved they are, but who also prostrate themselves in the just punishment or humiliation of their depravity. Sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes imply the exact situation he adored, all the violence and sexual intrigue he desired so much, but with the approval of his super ego since they ritualistically degrade themselves in a kind of spiritual fetishistic pleasure in confessing, being punished, and then being "redeemed". It's lurid and partakes of a sick kind of gratification in self flagellation.

>>24521107
Dosto is unreadable everywhere but Garnett.

>>24521075
>>24521065
>>24521068
>>24521059
Anything that isn't PV reads like every character is a british faggot, specially those that claim to be "natural english". It breaks the immersion when somebody says "don't mind if I do" or whatever retarded idiom basedglish has.