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

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ivlad 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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

	▲	dang an hour ago \| parent [-]
		You've touched on my favorite Dostoevsky anecdote! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21152240. A lot of 19th century novels were published as serials. The TV of their time I suppose. With the final installment arriving by ship, crowds in New York shouted from the pier "Is Little Nell dead?" - https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/charles-dickens-old-curio...

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NoMoreNicksLeft 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Dunno. I can't read Russian for shit (pre-kindergarten level, I'd guess), but it seems like cheating to read it in English.

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SamBam 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I can't imagine how much amazing and important literature you'd miss if you were snobby enough to think that you could only read things in their original language.

I'm so glad I get to read the Russians and Kafka and Calvino and Murakami and Camus and Marquez and Homer and Plato and, heck, the Bible.

I do know the feeling. I struggled through the start of My Brilliant Friend because I ought to read it in Italian, because I speak it pretty well. So then I didn't read it for years. Finally I just read it in English and enjoyed myself.

	▲	TimorousBestie 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Aww, I loved My Brilliant Friend (but I've never studied Italian at all, it was translation or nothing for me).

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summa_tech 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you can read more than one language, try reading translations into two or three different ones. It'll give you a different view of a book you enjoy: the translations will all have a different feel, in my experience.

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analog31 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A translation is by necessity a work of both the author and the translator. There have been some amazing pairings such as Kafka translated by Edwin and Willa Muir. I don't think a translation necessarily diminishes the original work or the reader.

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crypttales an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I know the feeling. Reading Don Quixote in English would be cheating.

Then again, so would reading Shakespeare in Spanish - even though I'm more comfortable reading in eng, I'm better in Spanish than i am 500 year old English