I'm worried that after I read Karamazov that everything that comes after will pale in comparison. Should I just get over it and read the damn book? I've read every other major work of Dostoevsky.
>>24810063I had the same worry when I was finishing up Moby-Dick. But then I read Joyce, Gaddis, Pynchon and I realised just how silly my worrying was. Read it, at most you'll reread the book every X years. Rereading is a joy, as you always uncover new, hidden meanings every time.
>>24810063this being a common attitude among dostofags proves that they don't actually like literature
>>24810063It's an excellent book, but there are lots of other excellent books out there. Slop will pale in comparison, but good books won't. Dosto is probably the first literary author you've taken a deep dive into. Keep reading and you'll find other writers you'll want to get to know just as intimately.
>there's this gorgeous woman that wants to sleep with me but I think I won't do that because it would spoil all the other future women in my life
It did affect my standards for sure
>>24810063If 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.
Honestly, Demons > Karamazov Brothers Great book tho, defo doesn’t spoil reading other books. Currently working through Tolstoy after finishing Dostoevsky and honestly after finishing Dostoevsky I wasn’t sure if Tolstoy could fill the Russian literature hole in me but he has
>>24810162Dostoevsky is the man more than any other who has created modern prose, and intensified it to its present-day pitch. It was his explosive power which shattered the Victorian novel with its simpering maidens and ordered commonplaces; books which were without imagination or violence. I know that some people think he was fantastic, mad even, but the motives he employed in his work, violence and desire, are the very breath of literature. Much as we know has been made of his sentence to execution, which was commuted as he was waiting for his turn to be shot, and of his subsequent four years' imprisonment in Siberia. But those events did not form his temperament though they may have intensified it, for he was always enamoured of violence, which makes him so modern. Also it made him distasteful to many of his contemporaries, Turgeniev for instance, who hated violence. Tolstoy admired him but he thought that he had little artistic accomplishment or mind. Yet, as he said, 'he admired his heart', a criticism which contains a great deal of truth, for though his characters do act extravagantly, madly, almost, still their basis is firm enough underneath... The Brothers Karamazov... made a deep impression on me... he created some unforgettable scenes... Madness you may call it, but therein may be the secret of his genius... I prefer the word exaltation, exaltation which can merge into madness, perhaps. In fact all great men have had that vein in them; it was the source of their greatness; the reasonable man achieves nothing.
>>24810151How dramatically?
>>24810164I should also read Karenina
>>24810164Maybe overall but Demons is very unevenly written
>>24810063I had the same worry before reading Proust and I was right.
>>24810063It's not the best book. The Garnett translation is better as it has a great choppy style that improves his prose.
>>24810168It 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.
>>24810177Got Karenina lined up, was gonna read it before war and peace but my brother already had a copy of war and peace so I just grabbed it and started reading it
>>24810188That’s why I always tell people it’s my favourite book but if I’m recommending someone a book it’s usually never gonna be demons
>>24810243Are you fucking daft? P&V forever.
>>24810094This
>>24810867You have no sense of taste.
>>24810063Its a fairly mid book honestly.
>>24810168It 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.
>>24810910You haven't two brain cells to rub together.
>>24810063I used to think the same way, but literature has many peaks. Think of it as a great mountain range rather than a single hill. You will find another peak, and then another, though your first will always be special. For me, it was Moby Dick.
>>24811143That's a great comparison. Thanks anon.
Fucking Nabokov posters wouldn't understand great lit if it beat them over the head with a steel pipe.
>>24811455Dosto is NOT "great lit". Dosto essentially perpetuates a kind of Samsara, a constant cycle of animal impulse outbursts followed by shame, guilt, and regret, but since these mechanisms are woefully insufficient to actually affect a better way of expressing these impulses, it simply fuels a further cycle. It is a hedonistic sadomasochistic loop analogous to trashy erotica that young women enjoy.
>>24811519>hedonistic sadomasochistic loop analogous to trashy eroticaMaybe I should give Dosto another try...
>>24811590The mainstream is popular for a reason, but don't pretend popularity makes something "great lit".
>>24811519Of all the dumb shit I've read today this might be the dumbest, and I poked my head into the webnovel general earlier
>>24810063I still have a clear memory of reading it when I was 18, at night by myself, and I started to get into the Grand Inquisitor section. This was years ago, I was entering the section cold, with absolutely no foreknowledge or setup for it. I knew instantly: "this is the good shit. This is one of the great passages in world literature." I still feel very smug and pleased that I figured that one out for myself, organically as it were. After I read it I once came across a tiny, pamphlet-sized volume for sale in a bookstore which was just The Grand Inquisitor, vindicating my taste.
>>24812052You are such a simpleton you can't even begin to advance a case as to why you disagree with what I said. Embarrassing, but then again, Dosto is basically aimed at readers like you.
>>24812090Anon, you don't need external validation which just inflates your ego. Enjoy those moments for their own sake, not because you're insecure and need to be able to pat yourself on the back.
>>24810063Fyodor Pavlovich is LITERALLY just like me frfr
>>24810867I read Notes from them and enjoyed it. Started Idiot a million years ago but never finished by them too and didn't think it was that terrible
>>24810063I've actually thought the same thing and it's the reason I haven't read it yet. I'm trying to read it last after reading all his other main novels first
>>24810063He's too much. Every book is the same rigmarole, something like this:>There's one nihilist character that the whole store revolves around because they reflect the author's "bad", pre-siberia persona. (Ivan, Raskolnikov, Stavgrogin)>This character has to either die, go insane, go to siberia, or something like that. They have to be maimed and destroyed>There's one good character that gets juxtaposed against the nihilist one (Alexey, Razumikhin, Shatov). This is who the nihilist character "should've" been if they were a "good christian">The character deliberately does something stupid to trigger a massive guilt cycle and subsequently goes crazy>At the end, we wrap it all up with some sentimental crapIt's better to just read prose for the sake of prose, this prose for the sake of jesus crap (or prose for the sake of the author's mental illness masquerading as religion) is too tiring
>>24811678TBK is great lit thoughIt does have all of the Dostoisms but it's very meticulously written and you can't grasp it on the first read
>>24812571Total white noise. This is like saying Fifty Shades of Grey is "great lit" and you can't grasp it on the first read. Sorry, you just have bad taste.
>>24810144>there's this gorgeous woman that wants to sleep with me but I think I won't do that because it would spoil all the other future women in my lifethis is a valid concern
>>24812492Absolutely correct in every aspect. Dosto was a total head case, I bet he would go on one of his infamous gambling/whoring binges and then wake up the next morning wallowing in his shame and guilt and just write whole sections of his novels in this sadomasochistic stupor of delicious hypocrisy and self punishment. It's the very essence of a hedonistic lurid indulgence dressed up as piety to hide how perverse it really was. Like a lustful glutton who enjoys the animistic impulses of his lower order self, but then equally revels in the self flagellation of a self righteous zealot. Fantastically repulsive and disgusting to any person of normal moral character.
>>24812680Man you're really hung up on TBK aren't you? I suppose you've seen too much of yourself in it.
>>24813165>r u liek having a heckin normal one right now my dudescratch a dostofag and you'll find a redditor
>>24810080>>24810094These are both true. I finished TBK when I was 18 and thought I knew what literature was all about.
>>24813207What to your mind has reached those same heights?
>>24813211In truth, a lot has.Ulysses is by far my favorite work of literature though. I’d say start getting comfortable with reading prose writers and get to reading Faulkner, Joyce, Pynchon, etc (even Proust, though translated).
>>24812492>It's better to just read prose for the sake of prosePleb shit
>>24810978I am actually the CEO of India and much higher IQ than Timmies like you.
>>24812492Prose for the sake of prose, give me a break. Grow a soul.
>>24813165Dosto enjoyers are really terrible at actually discussing the material in his books, huh? It's always a personal attack on the one criticizing his work. Sad.
>>24813165What he's saying is biographically true, it's also reflected in a bunch of the charactersIt's a pattern, he (or the character representing him) triggers a guilt cycle then spends the rest of the book in some weird penitential spasmWhen you read Dosto, you're just getting pulled into this crazy cycle that the author goes through
>>24813244This is the proper way to read imo, it's how Joyce writesWhenever it's prose for the sake of something else, usually that something else is the author's mental illness. It's why reading Dosto is so much more emotionally exhausting than reading someone like Joyce
>>24813424Lul, "Grow a soul" while discounting prose. Prose is the soul of literature. Moral lessons are for children, go read aesop's fables.
>>24810063Just do it. You'll grow out of it. We all do
>>24813844Leaning on the bible is a crutch. People shit on postmodernist intertexutality but cream over "muh bible". Just go read the damn bible instead you fucking morons.
>>24813856Just read poetry instead in that case
>>24814104A very nuanced take. Prose for the sake of prose is not poetry. If you read Joyce, it's not poetry but more so embodying another person. It cuts at the heart of what makes literature truly special, the ability to empathize truly with a character because you are them, thier conciousness is yours while you read.This is why plotfags are hollow shells. Why moral lessons are so two dimensional in relation to the possibilities of what literature can be. Poetry is a display of language, prose a display of conciousness. If only you all weren't autistic, if only you could appreciate true art and not just lessons... I feel sad for you all, you are missing the point.
>>248142431. You're wrong about many assertions2. Then that's not prose just for the sake of prose retard
>>248142691. Kiss a2. Penis
>>24814289Just don't let me catch you spewing your nonsense anymore around these parts, capiche?
>>24814303kiss pee pee faggatoni
>>24812673>the book is bad... because I compare it to fifty shades of greyWhat a non-argument
>>24812090>>24813207You're not supposed to read it at 18.
I felt this way after reading Gravity's Rainbow
