Nabokov was right

[Anonymous No.18880267]

Dostoevsky should’ve been a playwright instead of a novelist.

[Anonymous No.18880274]

Dostoevsky is more cherished and remembered than Nabokov so I’m not so sure about that

[Anonymous No.18880356]

>>18880274
>Dostoevsky is more cherished and remembered than Nabokov
lmao

[Anonymous No.18880376]

>>18880356
Is he not?

[Anonymous No.18880388]

>>18880356
Dostoevsky is regarded as one of the greatest novelists of all time. Nabokov is someone only literature nerds know about and he’s regarded as a largely irrelevant pedophile and academic.

[Anonymous No.18880414]

>>18880388
i guess that's one way of revealing that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about

[Anonymous No.18880430]

>>18880414
Cope. I’ve read both of these authors and I’m looking at a copy of pale fire right now, which by the way is not a particularly good book. Nabokov was a mental midget in Dostoevsky’s shadow.

[Anonymous No.18880436]

>>18880414
Uhhhhhhhhhh—muffuckin uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

do you actually think Nabokov is read or known as much as Dostoevsky? Like actually

[Anonymous No.18880451]

>>18880436
>>18880430
>>18880414
>>18880388
>>18880376
>>18880356
>>18880274
>>18880267
Circumstantial but everyone I ever went to college with knew of Lolita. Only the greasy haired, 4-eyed kids knew or talked about Dostoevsky

[Anonymous No.18880457]

>>18880388
https://youtu.be/uQQW7YYMCHc

[Anonymous No.18880465]

>>18880451
You are fucking delusional or your college was a total anomaly then. Dostoevsky is one of the most well-known authors in all of literature. This indisputable. To even suggest that Nabokov is regarded similarly is so far beyond absurd I can’t even entertain it.

[Anonymous No.18880475]

>>18880465
Not in my understanding. Nabokovs literary presence was huge in his time and after. His novels (specifically Lolita) are enormous. I'm not saying Dostoevsky isn't well known, only I never met a single person who read him in college. A few in high-school, but mostly because they lucked into it.

[Anonymous No.18880483]

>>18880475
Every single dumb art ho I have ever met liked Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Its like there is a memo that goes around and tells them to namedrop those two

[Anonymous No.18880495]

>>18880451
Lol whatever you make up bud

[Anonymous No.18880497]

>>18880483
>>18880465
Looked into the Google trends (for whatever thats worth) and you're right. Dosto is seemingly more popular, though it doesn't look like by much

[Anonymous No.18880542]

>>18880388
Nabokov exerted a great influence over the development of Japanese culture in the form of the loli-meme.

[Anonymous No.18880548]

>>18880483
Women in Sweden who want to appear intellectual read Dosto.

[Anonymous No.18880865]

>>18880497
>google trends
Dosto is much more popular. Nerd searching them on the interwebs says fucking nothing

[Anonymous No.18881428]

>>18880451

Dostoy is shit, but who the fuck cares what (((college))) kids think?

[Anonymous No.18881648]

>>18880267
So Goethe was an abortive painter, Schiller was an abortive orator, Wagner was an abortive actor, and Dostoevsky was an abortive playwright?

[Anonymous No.18881655]

A lot of Dostoyevsky's dialogue feels very play-ish but his works would be vastly inferior without everything else he puts into them

[Anonymous No.18882000]

>>18880483
>>18880548
I dont get it, in what context do they read it? They're obviously heathen and couldnt possibly agree with the strict (sexual) morality posited in his works. Do they just read the Great Inquisitor or do they read the rest too but as a purely academic exercise? Even still I wonder how they manage to be so unmoved by it.

[Anonymous No.18882016]

>>18880356
lmao at your life you tourist

[Anonymous No.18882026]

>>18880267
If someone even tries to imply that this verbose pedophile is even mildly close to Dosto's status, I will fucking track there location and reduce them to atoms with my Taliban buddies

[Anonymous No.18882209]

>>18882026
simply epic

[Anonymous No.18882392]

>>18882000
>Even still I wonder how they manage to be so unmoved by it.
my guess is they’re above 16 years of age

[Anonymous No.18882411]

>>18880542
Japanese loli isn't too similar (according to my sources)

Nabokovian loli = 12-14, disproportionate, clumsy but in an attractive way, legs starting to grow into adult legs, body still small but with budding breasts. just starting to grasp the power that female bodies have over men
Not real pedophilia

Japanese loli = completely prepubescent, flat chested, small, everything childlike (short legs), innocent, pure, no sexiness
True pedophilia.

[Anonymous No.18882452]

>>18882392
college art hoes and swedish women? You sure?

[Anonymous No.18882457]

>>18882452
yes. not about you, though

[Anonymous No.18882487]

>>18882411
The fuck are you talking about? Almost all Jap lolis have adult hips.

[Anonymous No.18882492]

>>18882487
That isn't loli though.

[Anonymous No.18882501]

>>18882492
Yeah she is.

[Anonymous No.18882508]

>falling for the nabokov disliked dostoevsky meme
he was a clear influence on a lot of his earlier work

[Anonymous No.18882530]

>>18882501
Out of these three girls I would say only the middle one is a true loli. The other two are young adults. Left looks 16, right looks 14 or 15. Middle looks about 9

[Anonymous No.18882629]

>>18882530
They're the same character. Sorry, but your personal preferences don't dictate what is and isn't a "true loli".

[Anonymous No.18882691]

>>18880267
Dostoyevsky has atrocious style and his themes are shallow. He's more accessible to a wider audience and is taught in a highschool. So Dosto is nowhere near Nabokov and the theme of a mediocre artist doing better than a talented one is frequent in Nabokov's works. Anyway I'm not Dostoevsky hater, his early work (Gogol worship) is good and C&P is a good book.

[Anonymous No.18882722]

>>18880356
go laugh your ass off over on reddit you faggot

[Anonymous No.18882736]

>>18882691
>his themes are shallow

Could you elaborate? Does Nabokov have any deep themes? From what I read I can conclude he's the ultimate style-over-substance writer.

[Anonymous No.18882741]

>>18882722
dilate

[Anonymous No.18882755]

>>18880267
And Nabokov was a coward who fled Russia because the Soviets raped his and his daddy degenerate ass.

[Anonymous No.18882758]

>>18882691
hIS thEmEs aRe sHalLoW

[Anonymous No.18882765]

>>18882755
would it be based and redpilled to stay behind and be shot in some ditch?

[Anonymous No.18882785]

>>18882765
Yes

[Anonymous No.18882790]

>>18882765
Dosto took it like a man and survived.

[Anonymous No.18882813]

>>18882736
I guess it's a matter of taste but, for example, I found Nabokov's themes (in Pale Fire) about reality, fiction and difference between "thing-in-itself"and our perception much more interesting than any Dosto repentance.
>style over substance
Nabokov often hides his themes, he never speaks it clearly on the pages.

[Anonymous No.18882831]

>>18882691
>suggesting Dosto is shallow while defending fucking Nabokov
LMAO.
And Lolita is literally every YA reading girl's favorite "literary" novel. Tolstoy and Chekhov are also taught in high school, so are many other Greats. Your rejection of them only reveals that you are a high schooler sperging out against curriculum.

[Anonymous No.18882837]

>>18882813
Oh, you are that "it all means something even though I get nowhere" autist.

[Anonymous No.18882856]

>>18882392
Have you ever been moved by a piece of literature and if so which was it?

[Anonymous No.18882859]

>>18882837
>even though I get nowhere
??
It doesn't make me autist if I can analyze a text and have my own thoughts. Didn't expect a better reaction from a dostodrone.

[Anonymous No.18882864]

>>18882790
the circumstances weren’t even remotely the same

[Anonymous No.18882872]

>>18882813
>Nabokov often hides his themes, he never speaks it clearly on the pages.
you say that like it's a good thing.

[Anonymous No.18882876]

>>18882856
dozens. contrary to what many shall we say intense young men believe, dostoevsky doesn’t have the exclusive rights to ’moving’ literature

[Anonymous No.18882881]

>>18882876
Certainly not. But are your dozens to remain anonymous?

[Anonymous No.18882882]

Nabokov is reddit now please get with the times

[Anonymous No.18882883]

>>18882859
Yet Dostoevsky is shallow, even though you never analyzed him so forcefully as to churn out meaning like you do with Nabokov. Pale fire's themes couldn't be more overt unless you are a complete brainlet. Grand Inquisitor alone has more to sift through than Nabokov's whole body of work, but keep them reductive claims coming.

[Anonymous No.18882893]

>>18882872
It's not a bad thing also

[Anonymous No.18882905]

>>18880267
Sadly no-one would read him then. How many anons here have read Chekhov or Strindberg? He ensured his longevity by being a novelist.

[Anonymous No.18882910]

>>18882872
/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18882941]

>>18882883
since we appear to have an expert on both works in the house, could you list the themes from them?

[Anonymous No.18882954]

>>18882864
Yes, one had a heart, and lived and thrived under the same government who unjustly kept him in Siberia for years, the other was a shallow and coward bourgeois.

[Anonymous No.18882955]

>>18882941
After you. Prove Dosto is shallow>>18882691

[Anonymous No.18882962]

>>18882893
>>18882910
covering some generic theme under bunch of shit like it's some puzzle to solve is literally the definition of fake deep

[Anonymous No.18882981]

>>18882954
Nabokov was 18 and fled with his parents from a completely new repressive government. Dostoesvky was 28 and had no money, connections and even hope (since Russian Empire had diplomatic agreements with other european countries) to run.

[Anonymous No.18883001]

>>18882962
>generic theme under bunch of shit like it's some puzzle to solve
Yeah, this is the definition of Dostoevsky. Nabokov never wrote a "puzzle".

[Anonymous No.18883044]

>>18882962
>doesn't see difference between puzle and context
Typical dostoevsky fag

[Anonymous No.18883050]

>>18883001
gayest post on this board right now

[Anonymous No.18883088]

>gayest post on this board right now

[Anonymous No.18883128]

>>18882000
I have never met a single normie who thinks of Dostoevsky as some religious reactionary writer. They see him as 'le depressing existentialist Russian' or something like that. The way people on this board, for or against, describe him is simply bizarre.

[Anonymous No.18883195]

>>18882411
>>18882487
>>18882530
Seek help.

[Anonymous No.18883217]

>>18882691
Is Lolita supposed to be deep? 'Woah bro the narrator...he might not be being totally honest....pedos....misrepresent their abuse....'

[Anonymous No.18883241]

>>18883128
sadly, dostoevsky has been fully subsumed into the culture war shit that has swept this board for half a decade now. jbp hasn’t helped either. by now that warped perception is established truth

[Anonymous No.18883290]

>>18883241
I really do not know what TheYouth have been up to these last few years so I have to take your word for it but it is still so strange seeing people refer to him as if he were Julius Evola or something. Same thing has happened to Mishima also it seems; with him it's a little bit more understandable because he's a bit more niche and political, but he was also not viewed that way when I was younger.

[Anonymous No.18883311]

>>18882837
>Oh, you are that "it all means something even though I get nowhere" autist.
I'm the autist refered to here and I'm not the other anon. I wasn't saying it all means something, but that all the connections add up or paint a bigger picture. PF's themes are indeed complicated but unlike the other anon I don't think its making a statement about something outside the work, but using the theme to build the work itself. And while examining the connections, I've definitely achieved a greater understanding of the novel than I did before. You barely care about PF enough to at least entertain the more concrete details.

[Anonymous No.18883345]

nabby is like arabic calligraphy. i dont know why people are still trying to reduce his books to stupid generalizations or life lessons when its only supposed to be beautiful.

idk why we still have this mindset when it comes to literature. every other artform accepts that the ultimate goal is beauty

[Anonymous No.18883485]

>>18883345
An author still can evoke interesting themes. It's not like he's preaching or try to teach someome. I disagree that Nabokov is writing just for writing. There is a certain set of themes he uses through all his bibliography.

[Anonymous No.18884217]

>>18883128
>depressing existentialist Russian
And you think the normies got it right? Clearly all his writings have as their first objective to edify and uplift, with secondary aims to rebut nihilism, determinism and anarchism. How does he not qualify as reactionary (which is a good thing btw)?
>>18883290
And assuming this is also you, perhaps a more productive question is: what camp do you fall into and how would you like Dosto to be seen?

[Anonymous No.18884236]

>>18880267
I hate reading translated russian so much. All of dostoevsky's books blow cock.

[Anonymous No.18884269]

>>18884236
What books do you like?

[Anonymous No.18884297]

>>18884217
>How does he not qualify as reactionary (which is a good thing btw)?
He wasn't a fan of the old system of servitude/slavery in Russia, neither did he like capitalism. His views were still a bit on the socialist side, I believe he would identify a lot with liberation theologists today, probably disliking more the fact that they are roman catholics rather than the other things.

[Anonymous No.18884325]

>>18884217
If you mean am I right or left wing i dont really know. I'm racist and sexist but those are empirical questions not political ones. I dont really care about politics that much though it's a lot of fun to argue about. I think communists are completely retarded but I also am skeptical about le traditional monarchy or whatever(it did at least exist though). Honestly I see the idea of 'having political opinions' as kind of pointless, you are just born into a situation and you do what you can in it. If you're a king or something well then your political opinions matter because you can enact them, otherwise...what's the point.

I think 'existentialist' and 'psychological' are fine descriptors for Dostoevsky. For most people he just raises questions about these subjects rather than giving clear answers.

[Anonymous No.18884367]

>How does he not qualify as reactionary (which is a good thing btw)?

[Anonymous No.18884402]

>>18880267
Next up on /lit/: another predictable episode of "No, They Can't Both Have Merit", where you can see the dialogue of forced dichotomy like a speech after lobotomy. Featuring your favorite wacky characters

>>18880451
MR. ANECDOTE

>>18880542
CLOSET WEEABOO

>>18882026
THREATMAN

>>18882411
AND AN ACTUAL PERVERT

Thanks for tuning in!

[Anonymous No.18884518]

This board is a den of pseuds and retards

[Anonymous No.18884767]

>>18883485
>An author still can evoke interesting themes.
didnt disagree. evoke is a good word
>I disagree that Nabokov is writing just for writing.
didnt say this
>There is a certain set of themes he uses through all his bibliography.
thats what he likes writing about

[Anonymous No.18885092]

>>18884518
Best post in the thread.

[Anonymous No.18886069]

>>18884402
kek

[Anonymous No.18886521]

>>18880356

[Anonymous No.18888347]

>>18880267
I don’t know either of these people.

[Anonymous No.18888810]

Looking at Goodreads stats...

Dostoevsky
1,694,407 ratings
80,698 reviews

Nabokov
1,284,939 ratings
51,144 reviews

So, Nabokov is more popular than Dostoevsky.

[Anonymous No.18888816]

>>18888810
Lol oops. Wrong way around.

*Doestoevsky is more popular than Nabokov.

[Anonymous No.18888855]

>>18883345
There is a strain of metaphysics throughout his entire oeuvre. Treating him just as a pretty prose stylist and nothing more is to miss out on this.

A good primer on it is "Nabokov: The Mystery of Literary Structures" by Leona Toker. (Currently free on Kindle!)

[Anonymous No.18888861]

>>18888855
checked

[Anonymous No.18888915]

Essentially Nabokov's main focus was "potustoronnost", a similar principle to the Kantian sublime - the idea that art (literature in this case) is what allows us to reach beyond our world into the great unknowable noumenal world beyond our own - that world from which we draw artistic inspiration.

Nab's prose being godtier, and his plotting/structure/formalism being godtier chess puzzles, were all just cogs in the wheel of his greater design.

[Anonymous No.18888991]

>>18880267

>Nabocuck

[Anonymous No.18889775]

>>18888855
The only thing pretty isnt the prose. Everything serves the pretty at the end. I wouldn’t say his books are vessels for metaphysical lessons but that the metaphysical layer is another part of what gives the work its pretty pretty shape.

His view of “pretty” was something sublime and transcendent and metaphysical itself as >>18888915
said. It’s not reductive imo to say that that was his goal, to make something pretty, keeping in mind what pretty means for him. If you feel like you have to find some value in his works connecting them to real life, there’s plenty to be found. But I believe he was trying to create an independent universe where the value comes not from the application of anything learned to the real world but the independent bubble of pretty experience it provides.

Id rather talk to you guys about the books

[Anonymous No.18889811]

God, this guy only has pointless hot takes to offer, doesn't he?

[Anonymous No.18889835]

>>18889811
Not really. The Gift, Invitation to Beheading and Real Life of Sebastian Knight are all great.
Lolita is great as well, but you need to detach completely of everything you heard about it, and it requires at least two reads to understand it properly; even then it doesn't reach the heights of his earlier works.

[Anonymous No.18889875]

>>18888855
thanks for the rec anon!

[Anonymous No.18890431]

>>18889811
Yes

[Anonymous No.18890446]

>>18890431
filtered :^)

[Anonymous No.18890521]

If I where to create a Venn diagram showing both the people who adore Dostoyevsky and the people who adore Nabokov you would have almost a complete circle.
Both writters are incredibly praised and charished by anybody who scratched the surface beyond the bestsellers and both are considered titans of literature. To imply that somehow one is more popular or more beloved than the other is absurd.

[Anonymous No.18891527]

>>18880388
>>18880430
>>18882736
>>18882872

Any Dostofag care to explain why in Dmitri's trial there was no mention of the weapon that actually killed the father?
Dusty was sloppy and doesn't respect the reader. He's only good if you're 15.
Also reminder that, during the trial, a judge says that Ivan represents the westernized Russia while Dmitri the traditional Russian spirit. Disgusting and lame, the symbolism of the characters does not need to be made explicit so cheaply.
DUSTY WAS SLOPPY AND A COWARD

[Anonymous No.18892310]

>>18889775
Haha well, I'm both >>18888855 and >>18888915, but I yeah I completely agree with you. Nab always said style WAS substance. Which is why I'm always a little O_o whenever anyone just gushes about how nice his prose is, but ignores the aesthetic contributions that his formalism and potustoronnost interests contribute. (Which to be fair, you weren't doing.)

As we know from his description of good readers:

"In order to bask in that magic a wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle even though we must keep a little aloof, a little detached when reading. Then with a pleasure which is both sensual and intellectual we shall watch the artist build his castle of cards and watch the castle of cards become a castle of beautiful steel and glass."

This part, specifically: "...pleasure which is both sensual and intellectual..."

Structure can be beautiful. Theme can be beautiful. Those moments of the "telltale tingle" I've had when reading Nab's work have usually been when I see the tapestry he is weaving, and marvel at the sheer complexity of it. THE GIFT absolutely blew my mind when I read it.

This is why I prefer him to Dusty. Dusty's books are entertaining, but they lack this beauty.

[Anonymous No.18892429]

>>18889811
For perspective, this is what he said about him:

>"Dostoevsky 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."

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

A few more quotes (entire thing is worth reading):

>"In all my courses I approach literature from the only point of view that literature interests me - namely the point of view of enduring art and individual genius. From this point of view Dostoyevsky is not a great writer, but a rather mediocre one - with flashes of excellent humor, but, alas, with wastelands of literary platitudes in between.

>"A good third [of readers], I should say, do not know the difference between real literature and pseudoliterature, and to such readers Dostoyevsky may seem more important and more artistic than such trash as our American historical novels or things called ''From Here to Eternity'' and suchlike balderdash."

>"In the light of the historical development of artistic vision, Dostoyevsky is a very fascinating phenomenon. If you examine closely any of his works, say ''The Brothers Karamazov,'' you will note that the natural background and all things relevant to the perception of the senses hardly exist. What landscape there is is a landscape of ideas, a moral landscape. The weather does not exist in his world, so it does not much matter how people dress. 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. But there is something more striking still about Dostoyevsky. He 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. The novel ''The Brothers Karamazov'' has always seemed to me a straggling play, with just that amount of furniture and other implements needed for the various actors: a round table with the wet, round trace of a glass, a window painted yellow to make it look as if there were sunlight outside, or a shrub hastily brought in and plumped down by a stagehand."

[Anonymous No.18892529]

>>18882872
better than contrived unrealistic characters only existing to hammer the author's cognitive bias into the readers.

[Anonymous No.18892539]

>>18882736
Style is substance, pseud.

[Anonymous No.18892587]

>>18892529
but enough about nabokov

[Anonymous No.18892598]

>>18888810
>arguing about popularity
Ok, let's check James Joyce. I'm sure he is less popular than them, but he is better than them both...

[Anonymous No.18892665]

>>18892587
I walked right into that one.

[Anonymous No.18892694]

reminder people actually want to ban the philosophy/religion threads from /lit/ so they can have more retarded hipster posturing threads like this

[Anonymous No.18892699]

>>18892598
Not arguing, educating. Plenty of Anons in this thread have been saying neither author was widely-read and I wanted to correct.

Here's Joyce:
446,294 ratings
24,050 reviews

To be expected. Fewer works. Ulysses and FW complicated for the lay reader compared to Dostoevsky (and surface-level readings of Nabokov, I guess).

[Anonymous No.18892747]

>>18892539
Style over the themes then?

[Anonymous No.18892749]

>>18892699
OK. My bad, anon. Can you check Tolstoy?

[Anonymous No.18892765]

>>18892694
based people

[Anonymous No.18892800]

>>18892598
>>18892749
Never mind, I just checked it. I assumed Tolstoy was more popular.
>Dostoevsky
1,694,680 ratings · 80,713 reviews
>Tolstoy
1,340,668 ratings · 64,871 reviews
Apparently Dostoevsky is more popular as a whole, but for their two masterpieces/Well known works (Crime and Punishment, and Anna Karenina and War and Peace) Tolstoy is more popular.
>Anna Karenina
716,608 ratings
>War and Peace
283,938 ratings
>Crime and Punishment
695,140 ratings
>The Brother Karamazov
265,474 ratings
Maybe because outside of Tolstoy's two Novels, besides Resurrection, the rest are short stories?

[Anonymous No.18892819]

>>18892310
i can see how youd think i was refering to only his prose with my calligraphy comparison. though i suppose arabic calligraphy specifically does have metaphysical significance :) anyways my favorite part is also the overall structure of his books. you walk back from them, and shapes start to emerge. more obvious in pale fire especially. although i did notice the chapter lengths in pnin were symmetrical, i dont know what to make of that

[Anonymous No.18892950]

>>18892529
Dostoevsky characters are affected. They are easily angry, some are confused, and they speak as arquetypes from the epoch the author lived. But the consequences they suffer are the consequences Dostoevsky apply to the nihilism itself. Demons, for example, could be a historical novel, but it is an analysis from inside the events. There are merits when you know the moviments of your society. Less than 200 years later, the anon say that you are hammering ideologies, but you are just criticizing the source of the problems of your country.

[Anonymous No.18892956]

>>18892747
He didn't give primacy to anything. To Nabokov, every composite part of a novel was equally important. The reason so many people over the years have claimed Nabokov's aesthetic merit is purely based on the prosody/cadence/etc of his prose is because the beauty of his writing is obvious, and his themes/ideas are well hidden.

[Anonymous No.18892983]

I like Nabokov, but haven't read Dostoevsky. Where should I start?

[Anonymous No.18893063]

>>18892819
Doubling, mirrors, reflections, the butterfly, etc are all present in Pnin. Nab even appears as a character Vladimir Vladimirovich in the novel. Symmetrical chapter structure would fit in with all of this.

That said, why symmetry in particular, though? (His other novels that involve "doubling" don't have it, after all.) I'm not entirely sure. Maybe to draw attention to the artifice of the story similar to Brecht's use of the Distancing effect? (We notice the structure. It does not allow us to become fully immersed in the story. We ask "why is this formalist device used?" and begin to question the motives of the narrator. So the structure would act as a trigger for the attentive reader.)

Then again, we know Nabokov adored Goglol's use of irrelevant details to hide the truth of his novels. So the symmetry could just be a red herring. (The best kind, one draped in his regular motifs, that is more than capable of turning an educated reader into a conspiracy theorist.)

I mentioned it earlier, but Leona Toker's book "Nabokov: The Mystery of Literary Structures" is good for this sort of stuff. It's also currently free on kindle. (And on all the usual libgen sites.) Well worth a read IMO. Even has a chapter on Pnin!

>>18892983
The Double. It was one of Dostoevsky's novels that Nabokov actually liked.

[Anonymous No.18893072]

>>18892983
notes from underground, gambler and the double are short, fun; notes being the o.g. schizo rant

white nights is his most underrated work imo

crime & punishment is the classic, but beware that some of it is beyond ridiculous/cliched. very much a young man's novel i feel

house of the dead is a long book about his stay in a siberian prison. absolutely horrifying, probably his most interesting book

karamazov bros is his biggest one, it's a world heavweight champion of literature so you have to read it sometime. i wasn't really drawn into it, but a lot of people love the high drama. hope you like characters talking in uninterrupted monologues at each other for pages at a time

the idiot and demons will take you to slogtown and beat you down. not good starting points

[Anonymous No.18893216]

>>18893063
>Doubling, mirrors, reflections, the butterfly, etc are all present in Pnin
it seemed to me that pnin had a lot less of those compared to his other stuff. even if the whole novel can be seen as a mirror reflection of lolita (this has lots of merit) i havent found enough internal symmetries to warrant something like that.
>that is more than capable of turning an educated reader into a conspiracy theorist
you almost have to be a conspiracy theorist with him. the coalmont dates in lolita, the telephone number in sings and symbols, the identities in PF all completely reframe the stories. would he use a red herring? maybe its just a cute thing to do to make the chapters like that
>Nabokov: The Mystery of Literary Structures
i read the lolita and pnin chapters but desu it was a terrible read. i feel compelled to read these because they point out those hidden details that reframe the whole thing, but they are buried under so much repetition and pompous erudite language that my eyes start to glide over the page like its stream of consciousness. if i see the word symptomatically again, im out the window. and the thesises were a bit messy and without enough concrete evidence. like the narrator when imagining pnins fascination with the washing machine was inspired by the propeller of a toy plane? i dunno, maybe im just hungry

[Anonymous No.18893376]

>>18893072
How does The Gambler compare to the rest?

[Anonymous No.18893472]

>>18893063
>>18893072
Thanks, I'll check out the double then move onto the rest.

[Anonymous No.18893493]

>>18884402
Honestly

[Anonymous No.18894208]

>>18880451
I got permanent brain damage from reading your comment. Like jesus, are you serious? Dosto's fame is on the level of Tolstoy. Both are frequently grouped together as the two greatest Russian writers. Nabokov is far from the most famous.

[Anonymous No.18895648]

>>18894208
Many who have no interest in literature still know about Lolita because of the movie. That said, almost everyone I know know the name Dostoyevsky at least. So don't know what kind of college he went to.

[Anonymous No.18896327]

>>18893072
>notes being the o.g. schizo rant
Notes are Gogol rip off (like The Double also). Check out "Diary of a Madman" (a part of Petersburg Tales).

[Anonymous No.18896638]

>>18880267
Nabokov is a faggot and his writing sucks

[Anonymous No.18896653]

>>18880267
nabokov is a master and his writing owns

[Anonymous No.18897934]

>>18893376
it's pretty inconsequential but iirc it's super short, can be read in an afternoon. dosto was a degenerate gambler so it might be 'closer' than a lot of his bigger works

[Anonymous No.18898195]

>>18880267
Dostoevsky might not be as good as Tolstoi, Gogol, Goethe, Shakespeare and other great writers. In fact, he is several leagues below them in terms of writing skills and even Nabokov was better but Dostoevsky, despite all his limitations, managed to grasp something transcendental about human condition and that justifies the high regard around him. Nabokov can be all the artsy he wants but he will never touch the heart of humanity as Dosto did.
Same goes for Nabokov's critic about Cervantes and Don Quixote.

[Anonymous No.18899476]

>>18898195
>Dostoevsky, despite all his limitations, managed to grasp something transcendental about human condition and that justifies the high regard around him. Nabokov can be all the artsy he wants but he will never touch the heart of humanity as Dosto did.
yawn. such a soppy and hackneyed take, befitting dostoyevsky

[Anonymous No.18900244]

>>18880356
This is how I know you spend too much time on 4chan.

[Anonymous No.18900266]

>>18900244
>the place where users who think they're too smart for /pol/ have a 24/7 circlejerk around their favorite feels from brothers karamazov and wave away nabokov's entire oeuvre because muh pedo book/critical of daddy dosto/some other lame excuse
i mean sure

[Anonymous No.18900333]

>>18882411
Dispite their looks they're still lolita aged. They just look younger because the teenagers look 12 and they need to clearly divide them.

[Anonymous No.18900349]

>>18900266
You are actually obsessed lol

[Anonymous No.18900361]

>>18900349
ok

[Anonymous No.18900366]

>>18884402