[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 64 KB, 400x474, wladimir_klitschko_2[2].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4318163 No.4318163[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

How patrician do you need to be to like Dostoevsky books? I read C&P once and it was the definition of bleh. I tried to read it again a few years after and got bored way less than halfway through (first reading was garnett, the second was P&V).

I've read for 4 years, read almost all of the popular entry level books recommended on here plus many that aren't talked about and am uninterested in philosophy.

What am I missing? The way people go on about him you'd think he was Jesus. 2.

>> No.4318184

>>4318163
As a teenager I had a very short attention span but I read Crime and Punishment when I was 15 and loved it. That book was just so fascinating to me. Dostoevsky is amazing but I can see why some people would have difficulty reading his work.

>> No.4318190

>>4318163

It's not even attentions span m80, I just dun gettit

>> No.4318222

>>4318163

I started with The Gambler, one of his shorter works. I fell in love with the characters after a few pages, they're so detailed and really peculiar. Getting used to his language was no problem, I quite like how he psychoanalizes his own characters. The Gambler I think should do really well as a starting read, I was done with the book after less than two days.

>> No.4318301

>>4318222
This is good advice. Maybe also check out Notes from Underground if you happen to be a social pariah in need of a good kick in the pants.

>> No.4318331

>>4318163
why the fuck don't you try a different book of his you autistic manchild

>> No.4318334

>>4318222
>Getting used to his language
lel
i bet you also read a translation

>> No.4318792

>>4318163
You can be more confident in yourself OP.
You're probably on the right track pointing out this plebeian / patrician opposition.
I liked the 1st part of Crime and Punishment, because I've been in the same situation of Raskolnikov. He's ambitious, from a high social class but has no money. So he considers killing an old woman. I liked how he calculates that with her money, he will eventually do more good than bad from killing her.
I guess Dostoevsky really thought about this as a struggling writer.
Honestly, it's well written, and the plot is entertaining (how he hesitates about killing her, tries to find more justification, the fact that actually doing evil is much more difficult than fantasizing about it).

But I didn't like the second part of the book, which is moralizing.
I guess D wrote it because of fear of censorship.
I already wrote it that it leaves you with the bad impression that C&P is just another book about the evil of hybris.

When I say you have to be more confident in your judgement : I too do *not* consider Dostoevsky's works as huge classics.
You think you didn't get something that patricians do?
Only thing you didn't get, is that people who worship him only do so because it's been fashionable for a few decades among university teachers to worship Doestoevsky. So their students only follow the trend.
Really, it's just that.

If you don't see the awesomeness, maybe it isn't there.
Move on and read something else.
Don't waste your time reading more of his work like I did.

>> No.4318796

>>4318301
>check out Notes from Underground if you happen to be a social pariah in need of a good kick in the pants.
What is that supposed to mean?

>> No.4318813

>>4318334
>i bet you also read a translation

I bet you read him instead of recreating him verbatim.

>> No.4318816

>>4318796
Read Notes from Underground if you happen to enjoy long incoherent rants which were not supposed to be published.
Read NfU if you want to be able to say "I did it" and thus graduate hipsterdom.

>> No.4318820

>>4318816
>which were not supposed to be published
Are they just shit or 2honest4society?

>> No.4318822

>>4318796
The book reks you if you're the typical person who browses 4chan.

>> No.4318825
File: 32 KB, 387x378, 1306062528408.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4318825

>>4318816
>long incoherent rants

Don't blame Dosto for your lack of knowledge.

>> No.4318867

>>4318816
>implying Dostoyevsky = the underground man

>> No.4318880

The Brothers Karamazov. Do it.


Also, I may be the only one who actually prefers Garnett's translations. I don't understand why some people seem to think she's boring. Dostoyevsky's humor still comes through just fine.

>> No.4319145

I read The Idiot a while back. It was like an overacted daytime soap opera. Easily one of the worst books I've ever read. I have no idea why people suck up to the guy.

>> No.4319173

>>4318822
or if you're a combination of dostoevsky and a 19th century rakhmetov-worshipping angsty university age revolutionary
lol
dosteovsky was a perpetually guilty beta who spent his wohle life sucking the dick of his overactive conscience, begging for money, and generally doing nothing other than writing some fairly legit fucking books
notes from underground was as much that gay self-flagellation nerds to becaues they think it's SeLf-AwArE as anything else
inb4 someone brings up the freud thing

overall don't bother reading this bullshit just lift weights and get laid and make money

>> No.4319191

>>4319173
lol

>> No.4319260

>>4318880

I like Constance Garnett's translations. They get the point across. Unless you're planning on reading and rereading Dostoevsky's stuff, it's not worth worrying about who translated it.

I'm in the middle of the Brother's Karamazov now and it's interesting. I like his short stories, Crime and Punishment is okay too. The Double is the only thing I haven't liked.

It's nice to have supplementary material to help guide you through some of his books. They're large, they're full of analysis and if you care about anything other than saying you've read the book, than it's great to have something to lubricate some of the more buttfuckingly dense ideas into your brain. Dartmouth has a pretty interesting online resource for those willing to take the time to actually care about what they're reading (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~karamazov/resources/))

>> No.4319283

I'm afraid OP suffers from a chronic case of pleb.

>> No.4319301

>>4319283
wow. great response. so enlightening and patrician

>> No.4319348

What did Jesus even do to warrant such intellectual reverence by the many writers and thinkers across the centuries? To me, it seems like Dostoevsky contributed far more actual intellectual content than Jesus the man did. Religious people on /lit/, please enlighten me.

This is an honest question, no fedoras were tipped during the production of this post.

>> No.4319384
File: 64 KB, 384x454, dostoevsky.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4319384

I just started reading Crime and Punishment. All I want to do is give Fyodor a big old hug. What a beautiful human being.

>> No.4319400

>>4319348

You should try reading some Dostoevsky. Might help ya with them Jesusy thoughts ya got there.

>> No.4319408

>>4318163
Having read NFU, C&P, and TBK, I can say TBK was by far his most enjoyable and readable book.

But this is subjective and disagreeable so I am leaving this thread before I am inevitably taunted to defend my awful opinion

>> No.4319421

>>4319400

I won't deny my ignorance on Dostoevsky but it seems like his body of work is far more impressive than Jesus'. My point is that Jesus was some bloke who fucked around in the first century but the myriad ideas read into his life and works seem a lot more impressive than what he actually accomplished.

>> No.4319445

>>4318792
>not liking the second part
>not thinking Porfiry is a fucking badass

His works are like good ol' thrillers but with philosophy and psychological depth.

>> No.4319753

C&P is not the most... eh... "patrician" of his books in that sense of the word, although that's a fucking stupid way to characterize the experience of reading. It's true that Dostoevsky was not the best writer, per se, but his works are so full of spirit and ecstatic genius that he produced some of the most powerful ideas in all of literature. He was a master psychologist and hugely influential in existentialist philosophy.

If C&P is one of the first books you read, it should be exciting because it's like a thriller with awesome philosophy, as someone mentioned. Although, it's true that much of C&P may be filled with "literary platitudes" as Nabokov says. Reading C&P alone, one might be really disappointed if they expected literary genius. These readers probably don't understand the place of C&P in historical and political context. Dostoevsky uses Raskolnikov to characterize nihilists, and there are some deep threads of discussion going on at the time he wrote the book. The example of Raskolnikov probably can't be understood completely until you see a true exposition of Dostoevsky's thought in Brothers Karamazov.

>> No.4319776

>>4319753
>"was a master psychologist"

plagiarizing from somewhere...

>> No.4320002

>>4319173
>spent his wohle life sucking the dick of his overactive conscience, begging for money,
he also went to prison in Siberia, right?

>> No.4320008

>>4320002
>he also went to prison in Siberia, right?

Indeed, and before that he faced a mock firing squad.

>> No.4320011
File: 76 KB, 445x600, Dostoevskij_1863.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4320011

Anyone have a crush on him? I would be apt to fall in love with him if I ever met him irl. no homo

>> No.4320054

>>4319145
>being this pleb

>> No.4320122
File: 61 KB, 513x474, 1364246239817.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4320122

>>4318792
>I guess D wrote it because of fear of censorship.

>reading Dostoevsky
>not knowing Dostoevsky is hella religious

>> No.4320133

>>4320002
>prison in Siberia

He wrote of this experience in Notes from the House of the Dead, a shorter work that should be mentioned/read more.

>> No.4320144

>>4319283
>>4320054
>pleb

Really tiring of the labels. Everyone has their own path.

>> No.4320159

>>4320144
wrong

>> No.4320160

>>4320144
Yes. They can take the pleb path or the patrician path.

>> No.4320182

>>4318163
I don't think it necessarily has to do with you being patrician or pleb, I think it has more to do with you general interests. I tend to think about the topics that he deals with (tortured intellectual blah blah blah). I don't think he really has anything to offer in terms of prose or a challenge to the reader, but if you find it interesting you should read it. If you don't like something don't force it. I think that's more pleb than patrician

>> No.4320565

People who pretend to like Dostoevsky are the worst kind of plebs. If you exchange the characters for dwarves and elves and the setting to a fantasy world, you'd think you were reading a shit tier D&D book.

Deal with it nerds.

>> No.4320569

>>4320565
The Village of Stepanchikovo was probably his best campaign.

>> No.4320573

>>4319421
A lot of the things that makes a lot of Dusty's work so amazing stems from some of the shit Jesus stood for and even preached about.
>The battle between Grace and Nature

>> No.4320657

I loved the book because i could relate to raskolnikov so well - murderous, paranoid and insane.

>> No.4320810

>>4318163
Nigger, the fuck you talking about?

I read The Brothers Karamazov last year, and it's one of the best books I've ever read.
>The motherfucking Inquisitor
>Any chapter with Ilusha in it
>Goddamn Smerdyakov

>> No.4321712

>>4320810
yes. I was just introduced it ilyusha. sure is an interesting character. and smerdyakev hasnt been in it much so far, but I can tell he relates to me more than any other character.

>> No.4321715

>>4318163
Is it normal to get an urge to hug others everytime I see someone post a pic of Wladimir?

>> No.4322285

Last night I picked up my copy of Notes from the underground and got to chapter 4, personal best!!!!
I have no clue what that nigga is talking about so I just put that shit down and started some Fountainhead lol....

>> No.4322997

>>4321712
It's just gonna get better from there.