Where to start with Dostevsky?

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Never read what of his books...which is the best one to start with, and is there really that big of a difference between the translations? If so, point out which is the best, too.

― Micheal, Sunday, 4 December 2005 15:29 (twenty years ago)

pevear/volokhonsky translations, read notes from underground because it's the only one that's short

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Sunday, 4 December 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

I second that, Notes from the Underground is short but really good.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 4 December 2005 16:03 (twenty years ago)

I clicked on this thread to say Notes from the Underground, and it turns out two people have already mentioned it. I will anyway, it's short and fantastic.

― cous cous cous cous, Sunday, 4 December 2005 16:06 (twenty years ago)

start with the best, karamazov

― Jeff-Beetle (Jeff), Sunday, 4 December 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

try the underrated essay "just another livejournal entry hehehehe ^__^*

― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!, Sunday, 4 December 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

esteban otm, as always

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Sunday, 4 December 2005 16:29 (twenty years ago)

The Gambler is good and also short. It's appended to Notes From The Underground in my edition.

― Michael A Neuman (Ferg), Sunday, 4 December 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

fuck Notes from Underground! just read Crime and Punishment already you baby.

― ryan (ryan), Sunday, 4 December 2005 17:07 (twenty years ago)

C&P is suspenseful and funny. Underground is short, but C&P goes by very quickly.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Sunday, 4 December 2005 17:21 (twenty years ago)

C&P isn't as good as Brothers Karamazov. (But if you read that first, you will be disappointed when the other books aren't as awesome.) Or read Demons because it's absolutely fucking insane.

― Maria (Maria), Sunday, 4 December 2005 18:22 (twenty years ago)

Good heavens, I'm just working myself up to C&P but slightly worried that with the seasonal darkness and the cold and grey weightiness of everything that I won't be able to bear up under it, but Kenan is the first person to use the word "funny" within about 7 sentences of the words "crime and punishment" so I'm encouraged.

― Laurel (Laurel), Sunday, 4 December 2005 18:26 (twenty years ago)

Read anything by Dostoyevsky - one of the greatest writers of any language in history - but as for starters, DON'T read The Brothers Kazarmarov - too laborious for a 1st time read of The Man... Try The Gambler, sure, or The Idiot - Notes From... is a great read, IF you're into what it's about, but you really need to be in the right frame of mind for it. As for Crime & Punishment, if you DON'T have to read it for college and a term paper, then go for it! What I mean is, as long as you're reading it for the pure pleasure of it, C&P is arguably the greatest novel ever writen! Good luck exploring The Man!

― David Easton, Sunday, 4 December 2005 18:28 (twenty years ago)

yeah, i need to re-read c&p because the last time i read it was for my high school senior english class. i think i'm in a more patient frame of mind to get through it now.

― tres letraj (tehresa), Sunday, 4 December 2005 18:30 (twenty years ago)

i'm not sure if C&P is funny, i can't remember it being particularly so, but as soon as you read the first 20 pages you will be completely hooked.

xp David is right, don't start with Karamazov.

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 4 December 2005 18:30 (twenty years ago)

c&p is funny!

i don't think brothers karamazov is laborious for a first-read. it was mine, and while it wasn't as fast-moving as c&p, i enjoyed it more. it's long, but it's incredibly engrossing.

― Maria (Maria), Sunday, 4 December 2005 18:32 (twenty years ago)

roughly half of Brothers is pretty boring.

i really like the suggestion of Demons though. but really, just read whatever you want!

― ryan (ryan), Sunday, 4 December 2005 18:38 (twenty years ago)

I was so sad when there was no more brothers karamazov to read. I wanted to immediately start reading it again, from the beginning

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Sunday, 4 December 2005 18:45 (twenty years ago)

anyone read the adolescent?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 4 December 2005 23:08 (twenty years ago)

Start by spelling the name right?

― ?, Sunday, 4 December 2005 23:24 (twenty years ago)

I am weirdly glad that I read The Brothers Karamazov in its awkward Constance Garnett translation, because now I can re-read it as a new, better book. (And even her version is more or less the best book I've ever read.)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 4 December 2005 23:31 (twenty years ago)

yeah, sometimes those translations are just fine, but i remember the first time i got notes from underground from the library the first sentences were: "i am ill. i am full of spleen and repellent." and everything else seemed to keep some inside-out sentence structure. it was unbearable. you really have to be careful.

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:04 (twenty years ago)

Notes From Underground fourthed or fifthed or whatever. Fantastic, reads just like a modern thriller.

― chap who would dare to tell uninteresting celeb spotting stories (chap), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:05 (twenty years ago)

"the double" is also really good, and pretty funny. dostoyevsky had a fine, dark sense of humor at times.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:07 (twenty years ago)

notes from underground has the best fourth sentence ever:

"i am a sick man...i am a spiteful man. an unattractive man. i think that my liver hurts."

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:09 (twenty years ago)

like tolstoy and joyce, chekhov and bunin, nabokov thought little of dostoevsky, and, as he insisted, was not enough of an academic to teach books he did not like. once an english graduate student who had learned russian from the army came to see him about a thesis on dostoevsky. "dostoevsky? dostoevsky is a very poor writer." "well," said the student, "isn't he an influential writer?" "dostoevsky is not an influential writer," nabokov replied. "he has had no influence." the student persisted: "hasn't he influenced leonov?" nabokov threw up his hands and said: "poor leonov! poor leonov!". the interview was over.

in mid-march, nabokov was lecturing in his survey of russian literature when a student rose to his feet and requested that he be allowed to talk about dostoevsky for a class period if nabokov would not. afterwards nabokov stormed to the english department office, quite apoplectic with rage, and demanded the student be expelled. he was not.

- vladimir nabokov : the american years

― oooh, Monday, 5 December 2005 00:15 (twenty years ago)

like tolstoy and joyce, chekhov and bunin, nabokov thought little of dostoevsky

shouldn't that be UNlike tolstoy, joyce, chekhov, and bunin? nabokov loved all of those four writers! he did despise dostoyevsky, though.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:20 (twenty years ago)

meaning that joyce, chekhov, and bunin also thought little of Dostoyevsky.

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:25 (twenty years ago)

Which I can believe, but I'd guess they all had different reasons.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:25 (twenty years ago)

Eh. Nabokov wrote like a dream, and Lolita is a great book, but he was just slight compared to Dostoevsky. I'm sure his whole deal with hating Dostoevsky had to do with the latter's difficult morality, etc., but it's always been hard for me to read it as anything except the anxiety of influence.

― horseshoe, Monday, 5 December 2005 00:28 (twenty years ago)

meaning that joyce, chekhov, and bunin also thought little of Dostoyevsky.

ok, that makes sense then. the classic nabokov bitch against dostoyevsky is in VN's lectures on russian literature.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:29 (twenty years ago)

Nabokov is an idioit. In his honor, read The Idiot.

― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Monday, 5 December 2005 02:30 (twenty years ago)

you made me sad, ally :-(

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 5 December 2005 02:31 (twenty years ago)

caitlin made the most important point: pevear/volokhonsky translations. after that it's up to you.

― Mitya (mitya), Monday, 5 December 2005 03:32 (twenty years ago)

Oh, and to actually answer the question: Pevear/Volokhonsky translations for sure, and my first Dostoevsky was Crime and Punishment, which I can't help feeling is the way to go for a first read. I love Notes from Underground, but it's kind of atypical. I dunno, the idea of someone reading it and thinking that was what Dostoevsky was about bothers me, for some reason. Brothers Karamazov is the best (really, one of the best books ever), but I think Crime and Punishment kind of teaches you how to read BK better. And is shorter.

I actually read all three of those, when I first read them, within a very short time period. I think if Dostoevsky works for you, you kind of get hooked (and a little crazy, but in a good way.) I hope you enjoy!

― horseshoe, Monday, 5 December 2005 03:41 (twenty years ago)

A good place tostart might be one his first and lesser known works, House of the Dead, about his years in a prison camp in Siberia. It is less 'philosophical' than most of his stuff, but makes the later works easier to grasp.

― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 5 December 2005 05:40 (twenty years ago)

I didn't read what everybody said above since I'm drunk and couldn't tolerate it right now but Notes from the Underground is my favorite book EVER. so start there!

p.s.
the copy of Notes from the Underground that I have has the short story "Dreams of a Ridiculous Man" in it too. that one sucks so skip it.

― Mickey (modestmickey), Monday, 5 December 2005 07:10 (twenty years ago)

Anybody who thinks Nabokov is "slight" compared to Dostoevsky needs to get past adolescence. That said, Fyodr is as funny as fuck, though it's up for debate how intentional that is. Notes from Underground is hilariously spiteful, and reading Crime and Punishment in that spirit Raskolnikoff is a great comic character too. It's all about the ridiculousness of self-important angst, people.

― Amity Wong (noodle vague), Monday, 5 December 2005 09:24 (twenty years ago)

That said, Fyodr is as funny as fuck, though it's up for debate how intentional that is.

yeah -- the chapter in bros karamazov where ivan meets satan is one of the most OMGWTFLOLROFFLE moments in world literature. or at least i thought so.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 5 December 2005 09:48 (twenty years ago)

you could start by learning to spell his name

― lolamirite (bato), Monday, 5 December 2005 10:25 (twenty years ago)

That excerpt does make Nabokov look like an idiot. Not for disliking Fydor, but come on, students have to *learn* about authors they dislike, all the time, no reason teachers shouldn't be obliged to teach about them.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 5 December 2005 11:17 (twenty years ago)

nabokov also hated don quixote, and that's pretty much the best book ever written.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 5 December 2005 11:27 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I'm not hating on Nabokov as a writer, he's an excellent writer. But that story is asinine!

― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Monday, 5 December 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

I'm currently reading Notes From Underground and it's pretty good. And funny. I get odd looks from people on public transit when I chuckle out loud and they see what I'm reading... But I also laughed a lot at Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying, so clearly I have an appreciation for this type of thing...

My book is a Penguin Classics translated by Jessie Coulson. Is this bad? Reads OK to me, but now I'm feeling like I'm missing out.

"The Double" is included in my edition as well. Looking forward to it...

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Monday, 5 December 2005 18:14 (twenty years ago)

Nabokov's voluminous notes on Lermontov's Hero of Our Time are hi-fucking-larious

― ZR (teenagequiet), Monday, 5 December 2005 18:24 (twenty years ago)

I am past adolescence. And I think Nabokov can be great; I just think, weighing his body of work against Dostoevsky's, on the whole, Nabokov is a little lighter. Reasonable people can disagree about this without resorting to ad hominem attacks, certainly.

― horseshoe, Monday, 5 December 2005 21:31 (twenty years ago)

heh. or in the spirit of Amity Wong's post, "anyone who doesn't think Dostoevsky's humor is intentional still reads like an adolescent."

― horseshoe, Monday, 5 December 2005 21:32 (twenty years ago)

The part where Raskolnikov pokes Lizaveta's brain with his finger is pretty damn funny.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 5 December 2005 21:51 (twenty years ago)

I think The Idiot is best.. lots of it is extremely funny, esp. the incidents where most of the major characters, through wildly implausible coincidence, all meet up in awkward city.

I don't like Nabokov at all.

― dar1a g (daria g), Monday, 5 December 2005 22:54 (twenty years ago)

You call out Nabokov and I kneejerk leap to his defence, rosalind. Can't help it if I get over-emotional. :p

In all serious I'm not sure what "lighter" or "heavier" means in this context, other than that Dostoevsky tended to write thicker books that deal with Big Themes in a kind of obvious way. But I'd take, say, Pale Fire as a richer and more complex treatment of the same themes as Crime and Punishment any day. And I love Dostoevsky, but I think Nabokov is all about precision and concision in a way that Fyodr rarely was, except NfU.

― Amity Wong (noodle vague), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:01 (twenty years ago)

Fair enough. I guess I get concerned that Nabokov was such a brilliant stylist that he gets a bit enchanted with his own voice sometimes. I'm willing to be convinced on Pale Fire, though. I shall search out a Nabokov thread.

Dostoevsky's greatest stuff is not concise, but it is fantastically emotionally resonant, I think. And funny!

― horseshoe, Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:56 (twenty years ago)

His 20th Symphony was his best, but I also liked his choral work quite a bit.

― Cultural Freakshow, Tuesday, 6 December 2005 00:58 (twenty years ago)

Notes From Underground was a big influence on me back in high school.

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 02:33 (twenty years ago)

I was going to recommend Notes From the Underground, as well. There was an article in the New Yorker last month about a couple who translate from Russian that made me think of Nabisco.

― youn, Tuesday, 6 December 2005 02:44 (twenty years ago)

That was a great article, esp. how it documented their total cluelessness with worldly fame after Oprah picked their Anna Karenina translnation for her BOTMC. ("Who's Oprah?")

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 02:52 (twenty years ago)

The couple would be Pevear/Volonaonasojdasky, presumably.

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 03:21 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

Well, I've decided that Dostoevsky is absolutely my favorite writer. I really want to own and read everything by him, which leads me to ask, is there no "box set" (are collections of books called box sets?) of Dostoevsky's work? I really can't find any. I'd much rather buy a nice little collection than each book individually.

If I do have to buy each individually, there's so many different options now. Any recommendations? All things taken into consideration -- translator, quality of paper, etc.

― Mickey (modestmickey), Monday, 2 January 2006 05:47 (twenty years ago)

I am just started on C&P (having only so far read the brothers k. and notes from underground). Jeez this guy's great.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 2 January 2006 07:01 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

Can anybody tell me anything about either of the film/television adaptations of Dostoevsky novels?

Notes From The Underground
The Idiot

― Mickey (modestmickey), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 16:08 (twenty years ago)

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