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Some time back I decided I should branch out my reading beyond mostly sci-fi stuff and check out some time honoured great American authors in other genres. This was partially an intellectual development exercise and partially because I literally was running out of even half decent sci-fi. Like if you pulled up a list of "100 greatest sci-fi novels of all time" I've probably read the vast majority of them. I am well aware that's goony as gently caress and frankly a little bit embarrassing.  Read me a bunch of Hemmingway as that seemed a good place as any, really enjoyed it, good poo poo. Some Mark Twain, some Melville, all good. Lots of Kerouac, Bukowski, Vonnegut, top notch poo poo. So I figure the experiment is going pretty well, my tastes are getting a little better rounded, time to check out some famous dudes outside of America. Heard a lot of stuff about this Fyodor Dostoyevsky guy. The Brothers Karamazov is one of his most famous, 4.3/5 on goodreads, lets give it a shot. So I start off thinking, okay, this is a pretty dense tome, very different style then I'm used to. Hell of a lot of talking. Long rear end monologues. Where is this story even going? Maybe it takes awhile to take off. Keep slogging through. Get to around 60% and I realize that nope, the whole thing is like this. Sunk cost fallacy kicks in, just finish the drat thing. Feels like I'm walking through knee deep mud and eventually force my way to the end. Slowest I've ever gone through a book. The whole thing could have been about 70% shorter. Characters say a thing and then spend 3 pages saying the same thing in a bunch of slightly different ways. Why were there so many long rear end meandering diversions that had nothing really to do with the plot? At least the characters were super well developed and you could really see in their heads, but that's kind of naturally going to happen when 90% of your book is them monologing their thoughts. So my point in posting this I guess is three questions for you folks: 1) What the hell did I miss? Why is this considered so good? I'm guessing the problem is me and not everyone else who calls this a great classic. 2) Is the issue that it's a translation? (Read the Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky one fwiw.) Is it really good in the original Russian but just comes over dry as hell in English? I could see if you took something like Kerouac where the prose is almost poetry at times and translated it that the beauty and emotion inherent to the structure and flow of the language itself could be lost. 3) Is all classic Russian literature of a similar style? I don't want to discount a whole country over one book, but if it's all samey... Does Tolstoy read the same way? Thanks for your thoughts.
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Feb 17, 2017 19:35
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 05:01 |
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:The problem, The Butcher, is that you are a boring reader. See I kept looking for the deeper and more interesting philosophical themes or ideas behind the face value story, but I think I kept missing them getting buried beneath the mindfuckingly long windedness of the whole thing. Twenties Superstar posted:The literary theories espoused in this thread, while interesting, are a little bit off the mark. Hm, that's pretty interesting. I went into it without any historical context at all which was probably why it was so jarring. chernobyl kinsman posted:the problem is that your tastes haven't advanced beyond senior year AP English. at best, with the kerouac, bukowski and vonnegut, you're pushing into 'insufferably boring college sophomore' territory That's why I'm working on it, my man.  What's a good stepping stone between college sophomore level and big boy intellectual classics seeing as I may have bit off more then I could chew here?
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Feb 19, 2017 04:06
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chernobyl kinsman posted:what are you into? is there any time period/movement/country that you're into? sorts of plots or moods you're looking for? Space ships that go pew pew at each other while still mostly adhering to real world physics/science and plausible technologies. Buuuuut that's what I'm trying to branch out from a bit, and I'm also all caught up on the Expanse series.  So I guess beyond that and at the risk of sounding meaningless and or pretentious, personal stories about the human experience/condition seem to be my jam. Love, loss, aging, relationships, conflict, personal growth, blah blah blah. Which uh, is a pretty wide net to cast I guess. I think I'm gonna try one more classic Russian thing since I'm still in that headspace before I swear it off or not. So thread, if I was to check out one more that's not Dostoyevsky and is also not a P&V translation, what would you recommend?
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Feb 19, 2017 22:03
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