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.

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jszymborski an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I started with Karamazov, then C&P, then the Idiot.

I loved excerpts of Karamazov (The Grand Inquisitor, Dimitry's troika ride, any passage with Grushenka) but I also found it rough to get through. I really don't think I was ultimately able to appreciate it as a whole.

C&P felt much smoother and finally I devoured The Idiot. Those novels felt like night and day compared to Karamazov.

With Karamazov, I feel like there is some subtext or context I'm missing and would have loved to have had a companion text or course to help me.

When I first Master and Margarita, it came with incredible footnotes, and rereading it again I found I sometimes recalled the footnotes more than the text. I recommended the book to a friend, but their edition didn't have the footnotes so they bounced right off it.

Anyway if anyone knows of an edition better than the Penguin Classic of BK I'm all ears.

	▲	reg_dunlop 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Ha. I love Karamazov. To me, it boils down to a love affair/triangle and case of mistaken identity and ultimate justice. But in true Russian lit fashion, you must pass through the absurd with a detour through morality and human nature. edit: I read the Barnes and Noble translation. And I would encourage reading some passages aloud.

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yalue an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I had the same experience, lol. I started with Crime and Punishment expecting thinly veiled philosophy where each character is a mouthpiece for one of the author's thought processes. Granted there's some of that, but I wasn't expecting such an exciting murder drama. Went into Karamazov expecting an exciting murder drama, and got the type of Russian literature I initially expected Crime and Punishment to be! Really it's a question of expectations.

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crypttales an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Karamazov is amazing.

But if you're 600 pages in and it's a slog you might have lost the train of thought of the novel.

It is a lot to keep in your head!

	▲	still-learning an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah I've picked it up and put it down multiple times over the past year, might have had some context loss. Theres been a few very lucid monologues I've enjoyed, but I haven't felt the same level of internal revelation as the previous novels.

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wahnfrieden an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Try the Ignat Avsey translation, it’s great

To give you one idea of the approach - the accurately translated title is The Karamazov Brothers. Every other translator chooses the usual way because it sounds grander or eccentric or just because that’s how others did it before them, even though it’s simply incorrect as a translation.

P&V - one of them edits without even knowing Russian, a polar opposite

Karamazov is basically YA fiction though. Find other works if you’re not into it as an older adult, it’s fine

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HDThoreaun an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Nabokov didnt like Dostoyevsky either, especially Karamazov https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/magazine/nabokov-on-dosto...

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wahnfrieden an hour ago | parent [-]

He was a noted hater of many great authors and works so naming one target of his doesn’t carry much weight

	▲	dang an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It's true, but he was such a good hater that one has to love him for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8OwyqvSh2g#t=438