Submitted by True-Abbreviations71 t3_z8zjhn in books
I was expecting a great read when I borrowed Dostoevskys "Notes from the underground" but when I started reading it felt like swimming through mud. I thought he was supposed to be a great thinker and author but now I'm not so sure on the author part. Pleas help me understand. I want to enjoy his work.
Yeah, this is the correct answer to an absolutely ridiculous post.
It's my honest opinion but ok
Dostoyevsky is widely considered one of the greatest authors of all time. I wouldn’t say it’s easy to read and it requires more thinking, not to mention it’s translated, but he’s definitely a great author. You might not like him though 🤷♂️
> I wouldn’t say it’s easy to read and it requires more thinking
This is my take. Crime & Punishment was good, but also a bit tough to read. I imagine some is lost in translation (as well as cultural assumptions that don't exist in the wester world)
Honestly I find a lot of literary classic tough reads. Which isn’t to say there are bad, it just requires a lot of brain power.
Which to me is sort of why they are classics. The books that really pay off the effort & give a lot back (even if they are tough to read) are the ones that get translated into a bunch of languages and stick around.
The "potato chip" reads come and go because it's not worth the effort to put yourself in a different time/place/language when the same quality can be had in the native language/culture.
Good point of view. I like that. I definitely think they are worth the read like you said. I just go into it knowing like hey this isn’t gonna be a super seamless and easy read you’re gonna have to work for this one.
I'm not saying i don't like him. I can't make that judgement of one book and a translated book aswell. I simply wanted some experienced to enlighten me
You can dislike something or not understand it, but that doesn’t make the author “bad”. Seriously. If you don’t like it , it’s fine not to read that author.
I think that the broad opinion is that he is not a bad author. That doesn't mean you have to enjoy his work. Additionally, unless you're reading in the original Russian, you are reading a translation, which means you are also dealing with someone else's particular style and approach to writing and translating as well. If you're determined to read his work, you might try a different translator.
Am i right in assuming that a translation can be so different its like a different book?
this is a good question and the answer - it depends. But translation is critical to the nuances and impact of the book - e.g. Proust and translations; or Homer as another example. Sometimes can seem like a big difference - especially in the case of Dostoevsky.
The context is important. He was spoofing a certain type of “revolutionary” who thought they could create their own values. His point is that rather than becoming supermen, they were becoming subhuman, human cockroaches. He deals with the same kind of delusional revolutionaries in many of his books, but Notes is the most extreme. I recommend reading it back to back with Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, about another human cockroach.
Maybe he just takes time to get into, a lot of authors are an acquired taste
Is that the first thing you read by him? Everyone praises it, but I didn't enjoy it much when I read it. Try "The Double," "White Nights," or Crime and Punishment.
"White Nights" is the most beautiful of the three.
Also...what translation did you read?
Yes it was the first thing of him i read and i read it in Swedish
Take more time to digest the idea. Notes from the underground is a tough book. Let yourself be open to it.
Bad ? He's consideired one of the best ever and some do consider him the best
That's why I am so confused. I expected to enjoy every page and that it would read like cutting through melted butter. But what i got was more like chopping through a wooden log with a butter knife
I LOVE Dostoyevsky but I do not think that he is necessarily easy or even enjoyable to read. But I did find Crime and Punishment genuinely transformative and I learned a lot about how to write from him as well. I think the power of his work is less in the pace or the prose and more in the powerful concepts and how he carries the reader to new destinations
People mean different things when they say a great read. Any book from before the 20th century is going to be slow. But people still appreciate paintings even though we now have television. The stories can be worth the effort.
But for classic novels I would start with something shorter like the death of Ivan Ilyich
Is it the case with every novel pre 1900 because i read Candide by Voltaire and it was the opposite of Dostojevsky in the sense that it was a very comfortable read
There are always exceptions. It tends to be more universally true for books written originally in English. For translation the translator can choose a more modern style and vocabulary than a contemporary English speaking author would have used.
Try another translationski?
Can't, i have to read it in my language for academic reasons
No. Nyet.
Not a bad author - writer. Although not exactly a role model for upstanding human either. The novel - Notes from the Underground - is your literary gateway to thinking about the the dynamic of the "Self" rejecting the clouds of Platonism - but spending way too much time in the Cave - as a result the individual can be crushed "beneath the wheel" or make it out to the sun - but just barely. Hermann Hesse and 'Steppenwolf' running on similar themes.
That’s just how anything translated from russian is. You get used to it.
Sad
noknownothing t1_iye9it5 wrote
OK Troll.