How do I avoid being Raskolnikov?inb4 don't axe murder people
>>24084944never go to collegedon't be a nihilistfind god
stop masturbating
>>24084944Why wouldn't you want to be like him? He is literally Napoleon.
>>24084944What's wrong with Ras? He had sovl and eventually found God. Anyway, bitter old usuers deserve to die!
>>24085002Cool it with the antisemitic remarks.
>>24084944Only kill with good reasons.
>>24084944If you are alluding to Dostoevsky’s worst novels, then, indeed, I dislike intensely The Brothers Karamazov and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigamarole. No, I do not object to soul-searching and self-revelation, but in those books the soul, and the sins, and the sentimentality, and the journalese, hardly warrant the tedious and muddled search. Dostoyevsky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity – all this is difficult to admire. I do not like this trick his characters have of ”sinning their way to Jesus” or, as a Russian author, Ivan Bunin, put it more bluntly, ”spilling Jesus all over the place." Crime and Punishment’s plot did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be received a little cynically by experienced readers. Dostoyevsky never really got over the influence which the European mystery novel and the sentimental novel made upon him. The sentimental influence implied that kind of conflict he liked—placing virtuous people in pathetic situations and then extracting from these situations the last ounce of pathos. Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoevsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist. He was a prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. I admit that some of his scenes, some of his tremendous farcical rows are extraordinarily amusing. But his sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes are not to be endured for one moment—by this reader anyway. Dostoyevsky 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.
>>24084944He reminded me of holden caulfield with all his bitching and moaning
napoleon shot grapeshot into crowds of unarmed civilians and you don't see him crying about it. who care about some mean old bitch?
>>24085299yeah the other day when a commuter got shoved in front of a train in manhattan i had to wait to see if i approved of his job or not before deciding if the perpetrator should face justice. it turned out he was a "music programmer" or something so everyone agreed it was a tragedy and that his assailant should be arrested, but for a little while there it was like uh oh my fellow democrats are we for or against this murder?
>>24085398I bet you like Stephen King
>>24085421It is questionable whether one can really discuss the aspects of ''realism'' or of ''human experience'' when considering an author whose gallery of characters consists almost exclusively of neurotics and lunatics. Besides all this, Dostoyevsky's characters have yet another remarkable feature: Throughout the book they do not develop as personalities. We get them all complete at the beginning of the tale, and so they remain without any considerable changes, although their surroundings may alter and the most extraordinary things may happen to them. In the case of Raskolnikov in ''Crime and Punishment,'' for instance, we see a man go from premeditated murder to the promise of an achievement of some kind of harmony with the outer world, but all this happens somehow from without: Innerly even Raskolnikov does not go through any true development of personality, and the other heroes of Dostoyevsky do even less so. The only thing that develops, vacillates, takes unexpected sharp turns, deviates completely to include new people and circumstances, is the plot. Let us always remember that basically Dostoyevsky is a writer of mystery stories where every character, once introduced to us, remains the same to the bitter end, complete with his special features and personal habits, and that they all are treated throughout the book they happen to be in like chessmen in a complicated chess problem. Being an intricate plotter, Dostoyevsky succeeds in holding the reader's attention; he builds up his climaxes and keeps up his suspenses with consummate mastery. But if you reread a book of his you have already read once so that you are familiar with the surprises and complications of the plot, you will at once realize that the suspense you experienced during the first reading is simply not there anymore. The misadventures of human dignity which form Dostoyevsky's favorite theme are as much allied to the farce as to the drama. In indulging his farcical side and being at the same time deprived of any real sense of humor, Dostoyevsky is sometimes dangerously near to sinking into garrulous and vulgar nonsense. (The relationship between a strong-willed hysterical old woman and a weak hysterical old man, the story of which occupies the first hundred pages of ''The Possessed,'' is tedious, being unreal.) The farcical intrigue which is mixed with tragedy is obviously a foreign importation; there is something second-rate French in the structure of his plots.
>>24084944Stop seeing yourself as being above others. Work to get rid of your delusions of grandeur and supremacy. Read Alfred Adler's works, they'll help.Engage with people around you, and embrace it that people are weird, often stupid, and think very differently to you.
>>24085398Is it true that Russians don't like Dostoyevsky as much as Americans do, or was he talking out his ass here? I know he's certainly not seen on the same level as Pushkin, but most Russians have at least read and enjoyed one of Dostoyevsky's works, I imagine?
Why wouldn't you want to be like him? Raskolnikov is one of the most complex and best characters ever written in fiction. Unless you have some sort of schizophrenia that really needs to be treated.
>>24084944I can't believe a man from the 1800s exposed my personality and vices more than anyone in the modern age could. Raskolnikov is LITERALLY ME (except I decided not to kill anyone).
>>24085834Those four years of penal servitude Dostoyevsky spent in Siberia he spent in the company of murderers and thieves, no segregation having been yet introduced between ordinary and political criminals. He described them in his ''Memoirs from the House of Death'' (1862). They do not make a pleasant reading. All the humiliations and hardships he endured are described in detail, as also the criminals among whom he lived. Not to go completely mad in those surroundings, Dostoyevsky had to find some sort of escape. This he found in a neurotic Christianism which he developed during these years. His emotional life up to that time had been unhappy. In Siberia he had married, but this first marriage proved unsatisfactory. In 1862-63 he had an affair with a woman writer and in her company visited England, France and Germany. This woman, whom he later characterized as ''infernal,'' seems to have been an evil character. Later she married Rozanov, an extraordinary writer combining moments of exceptional genius with manifestations of astounding naivete. (I knew Rozanov, but he had married another woman by that time.) This woman seems to have had a rather unfortunate influence on Dostoyevsky, further upsetting his unstable spirit. It was during this first trip abroad to Germany that the first manifestation of his passion for gambling appeared which during the rest of his life was the plague of his family and an insurmountable obstacle to any kind of material ease or peace to himself. Just as I have no ear for music, I have to my regret no ear for Dostoyevsky the Prophet. The very best thing he ever wrote seems to me to be ''The Double.'' It is the story - told very elaborately, in great, almost Joycean detail (as the critic Mirsky notes), and in a style intensely saturated with phonetic and rhythmical expressiveness - of a government clerk who goes mad, obsessed by the idea that a fellow clerk has usurped his identity. It is a perfect work of art, that story, but it hardly exists for the followers of Dostoyevsky the Prophet, because it was written in the 1840's, long before his so-called great novels; and moreover its imitation of Gogol is so striking as to seem at times almost a parody. 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.
>>24084944>How do I avoid being Raskolnikov?ctrl+w, simple as
>>24087544>>24085794>>24085398tl;drWatch me say the same thing but in two words "aristotelian prose"
>>24085398>>24085794>>24087544shut the fuck up
>>24087655>>24087657It is, as in all Dostoyevsky's novels, a rush and tumble of words with endless repetitions, mutterings aside, a verbal overflow which shocks the reader after, say, Lermontov's transparent and beautifully poised prose. Dostoyevsky as we know is a great seeker after truth, a genius of spiritual morbidity, but as we also know he is not a great writer in the sense Tolstoy, Pushkin and Chekhov are. And, I repeat, not because the world he creates is unreal -all the worlds of writers are unreal - but because it is created too hastily without any sense of that harmony and economy which the most irrational masterpiece is bound to comply with (in order to be a masterpiece). Indeed, in a sense Dostoyevsky is much too rational in his crude methods, and though his facts are but spiritual facts and his characters mere ideas in the likeness of people, their interplay and development are actuated by the mechanical methods of the earthbound and conventional novels of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
>>24087667Nobody likes you. You are incapable of understanding why, too.
I killed people for college money too and I feel fine
>>24087674Heart-to-heart talks, confessions in the Dostoevskian manner, are also not in my line
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4-oJEKjyUo
>>24085830Where do you recommend starting with Adler?
>>24084944read the greeks
>you shouldn't kill bad people, because you will also hurt good people>bad people will harm others, but that's ok, because they are badYeah nah, fuck that. He had the right idea, only the execution was lacking.
>>24084944you grow out of it eventually
>>24084944I disagree with the popular claim that Raskolnikov is saved by Christianity. He never even becomes Christian, he entertains taking on Sonya’s belief, or living for others, but never quite acquiesces. Consider the fate of the Christians and do-gooders in C&P (including even Sonya).Not committing murder could actually have been a good first step - Raskolnikov’s worldview doesn’t necessitate it, just don’t get lost in the sauce of feeling personally justified in any action by values you’ve arbitrarily measured the world against.If you must murder, the second step is to not doubt yourself, this is how Raskolnikov was caught.If you mean - how can I not become as solitary and wretched as Raskolnikov - this is less clear because if you’re the sort of person that thinks like him (this can’t be helped) then a degree of misanthropy and isolation is inevitable. Learn to love it
>>24084944unironically, with the utmost sincerity, have sex
>>24085398Based
>>24085299Pic unrelated? Or are you a shitski- worshipping imbecile fresh from reddit? Well?
>>24085398Cхopoнил. Бyквaльнo oпиcaл вcё, чтo мeня тaк выбeшивaeт в Дocтoeвcкoм (ecли этo, кoнeчнo, нe oчepeднoй кoпипacт лeкций Haбoкoвa o pyccкoй литepaтype, лeнь пpoвepять).
>>24084944Pay your rent.
>>24084944get laid.
>>24085299Ressentiment isn't a good reason.
>>24090078>ecли этo, кoнeчнo, нe oчepeднoй кoпипacт лeкций Haбoкoвa o pyccкoй литepaтypeУ мeня для тeбя ecть нoвocть.
>>24090078Dosto is essentially sadomasochistic, he loves dwelling on characters who revel in how depraved they are, but who also prostrate themselves in the just punishment or humiliation of their depravity. Again, sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes imply the exact situation he adored, all the violence and sexual intrigue he desired so much, but with the approval of his super ego since they ritualistically degrade themselves in a kind of spiritual fetishistic pleasure in confessing, being punished, and then being "redeemed". It's lurid and partakes of a sick kind of gratification in self flagellation.I think his criticism is absolutely devastating to Dosto. If you read Dosto's novels, they are chock full of a grotesque macabre fascination with suffering and shame, with murder and sex and the subsequent groveling misery of those who find themselves in such situations. This type of tripe is 100% on the level of a typical harlequin romance novel, but because it's some old Russian who added Christian Orthodox themes as an accent to the sadomasochism, /lit/ eats it up. It's perverse.How does Dosto purport to redeem these aspects of humanity? Is it to integrate them? To accept that they are rightful parts of the human experience and to work with them to self actualize; to transcend and include? No. His worldview firmly states that they must be brought before a higher power, judged as sinful, and repressed forever. As I said before, this enterprise is utterly futile, since its objective is to destroy what is human, to snuff out the very spark that is humanity. Thus the cycle of indulgence (the inescapable humanity) and self flagellation (the divine judgement that such things are sinful and abhorrent). There is nothing profound, nothing transcendent here, just shallow fetishistic pleasure taking of the lowest tier followed by the harshest condemnation and repentance. Both sides of this coin forever restrict the other to its worst form, forever traps the victim of this ideology to a lifetime of misery and self hatred. It's vile in the extreme.
>>24090742Congratulations, you understand why a writer like Dostoevsky is leagues above hacks like tolstoy.
