I also stumbled onto Crime and Punishment at 18 and expected it to be difficult and was blown away with how Dostoyevsky wrote one of the greatest novels of all time, to be sure, but as the author here says, also how engaging he made it.
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
Dostoyevsky was originally published in magazines chapter by chapter, so he would end the December’s on a cliffhanger so that the readers re-subscribed
Funny, I'm just reading War and Peace myself (the Anthony Briggs translation) and having the same reaction, gushing occasionally to people I know how approachable it is, and how darkly funny and modern it feels. Well, at least after passing through the first ~200 pages which are a slog. I didn't find even Tolstoy's historical musings boring, although he tends to repeat himself. And I usually suck at names, but the main characters are done so well I find them easy to remember. There aren't that many important ones despite how it seems at the start. It also serves as a fascinating peek into the daily lives of Russians of all stripes in the early 1800s.
I also had the same reaction to Crime and Punishment as the OP did.
Read those first 200 pages 10x could never get past it. 300 characters with names that I’ll never remember, some woman and her son, a general or something. A guy that keeps saying “Capital!”, standing around at parties.
I’m sure it’s good but I don’t think I have it in me to try again.
This rings a bell, because I decided to tackle Don Quixote (English translation). At 200 pages in (of around 1000, I think), it’s funny and entertaining and feels fresh.
LMAO he's saying russian lit is readable when using the most bastardized, westernized translations available, Garnet. That was the point of her work and what P&V sought to rectify when they put out their vastly more faithful renditions.
I recently worked my way through (in order) Anna Karenina, Crime & Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. Each time seeking Garnett translations as I found the usual recommendations just not hitting the spot. That said, and for context I'm English, and new to the classics- so not sure if the writing style just clicked more. I did switch half way to McDuff for The Idiot and wasn't too far from Garnett.
From the circles I am exposed to Pevear and Volokhonsky's translations are not seen as the most natural ones (although they are the only ones I have read because of the cool abstract paperback covers). I have heard they miss anecdotes and humor in favor of word accuracy. Characters are always "twisting their mouth" and similar. I'm looking forward to re-reading Demons in some other translation. He might have been well served by Garnett.
One thing is a lot of common television/movie tropes are instantly recognizable in one form or another in there, the murder in Crime and Punishment is a series of coincidences and lucky timing for him to initially get away with it that would not be out of place in modern thriller or comedy. I had the same issue with the names so I took notes and bookmarked the Wikipedia page for the books to refresh my memory of whom was whom until it stuck. Audiobooks (most of the russian classics are free from my local library)help a lot with the pronunciation if one is like the writer and pattern matches names - hearing them a few times initially is very helpful. Side note - not a sea person but only from audiobooks learned i didn’t know how to pronounce English words boatswain, gunwale and forecastle.
He isn't difficult but I always thought Nabokov (in his fairly incendiary reviews http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendations) was on point that he was sentimental, preachy and mediocre as an artist.
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.
War and Peace is one of those books I've reread every decade since I was a teenager. It's one of my favorite novels because, as I've matured and moved through different stages of life, the parts that resonate with me change significantly. Each rereading feels like encountering a different book, not because the words have changed, but because my own life experiences have shaped what draws my attention.
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.
I fell into War and Peace and couldn't stop. The opposite was true with crime and punishment for me.. I just couldn't get into it. There are such fundamentally different works
I have never read a book I hated more than The Brothers Karamazov. I never read a book that depressed me more than Crime and Punishment. No more Dostoevsky for me.
You're doing it wrong. I bumped into this 'Short Guide to Russian literature':
"Russian literature consists of suffering. Either writer suffers, or protagonist, or reader. If all three suffer simultaneously--then it is a masterpiece. In every difficult situation always read Russian classic literature--it is even worse in there."
Lol, remember being in my early 20s on a train and trying to read Crime and Punishhment, and just kept skipping random 5 pages here and there, before going back to playing Durak with some random Tajiks (who got kicked off the train in some random place...). The huge pages of French didn't help.
Prefered Demons, personally. Probably becuase I read it when more mature.
I thoroughly enjoyed Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and White Nights, but I'm finding myself slogging through Karamazov. I'm about 600 pages in and its picking up at least. Banking on it all being worth it in the end. Normally I subscribe to the quote "life's too short to read a bad book", but making an exception for Dostoyevsky.
I liked The Possessed by Elif Batuman. I had read The Idiot in high school, a death march for a term paper. But I liked Batuman's reading of it better than mine (but not enough to re-read it).
The Pevear and Volohonsky "translations" are an affront to english prose, russian literature, and the craft of translation in general. A heavily quantized LLM with an aneurism would provide the reader with a better translation than that trash.
(I used to be a professional translator for the relevant languages, so I have opinions™)
As a matter of tangent-(ial relation), have you ever come across or read any of Silverman's translations of mathematics or science from Russian? Supposedly they were slanted by opinion, a mis-informed Westerner's perspectives, and had a number of liberties such as re-arrangement (in a mathematics text!). I wanted to read the (more recent) original and asked a classmate to buy it on an exchange but have not met up afterward.
I have not, but you can verify for yourself - https://github.com/nika-skybytska/fa/tree/master/books has a copy of Komogorov/Fomin's text that's well known vs Introductory Real Analysis in his translation available on the Internet Archive. A cursory glance at the respective TOCs shows that there is reordering.
First couple of chapters match up, then it diverges heavily.
I see a lot of praise for Dostoevsky in here, personally, my attempt to read Crime and Punishment resulted in me giving up after a couple hundred pages, it read kind of like a crime novel if it was mostly slice of life and random characters rambling about the goings on of their personal lives, which I did not have interest in and so I dropped it. Maybe I am too stupid for it, but I can't say it is my cup of tea.
As someone who only gets time to read when tired at the end of the day: I can't get past the first 50 pages of any Dostoyevsky work.
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.
79 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 89.8 ms ] threadThe scene where he commits the crime is an absolute stunner, edge-of-your-seat, thriller. Who does that? Who can pull that off? Dostoyevsky
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.
"Oh? Not even Dostoyevsky?"
"Oh come on now, he was the main offender."
- The Guard
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.
Also lol the guy who wrote Lolita criticizing Death in Venice as obscene.
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.
"Russian literature consists of suffering. Either writer suffers, or protagonist, or reader. If all three suffer simultaneously--then it is a masterpiece. In every difficult situation always read Russian classic literature--it is even worse in there."
Prefered Demons, personally. Probably becuase I read it when more mature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elif_Batuman
If ever we needed you...
Looks like there are English subtitles that are quite decent.
(I used to be a professional translator for the relevant languages, so I have opinions™)
First couple of chapters match up, then it diverges heavily.
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.