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The literary theories espoused in this thread, while interesting, are a little bit off the mark. Russia was still a monarchy when Dostoyevsky was writing. While Alexander "the Liberator" is famous for freeing the serfs his actions ironically led to a new stratification of knowledge in the country and a new way for the lords of the time to express their wealth. The electric light was invented in 1879 and not well adopted until much later. Prior to that most lighting was done with oil lamp and candles. When the peasants where emancipated in 1861 the demand for light sources rose incredibly and thus so did their retail cost. The wealthy men of the time found a new form of conspicuous consumption in reading late into the night. The fewer nights it took someone to read a book the more impressive it was and of course, the thicker the better. Russian authors caught on to this trend and started writing what they called пердеть лохи or challenge books. These books were long, drawn out, and complicated. Authors knew that if someone with high social standing read their book as a challenge it would surely sell numerous copies to others in the gentry who also wanted to take the challenge. Dostoyevsky was famous for being in the right place at the right time. The famous scene in Crime and Punishment where Raskolnikov hides his stolen goods under a rock is a reference to his attempt to rid himself of his first novel which he could no longer bear to continue writing. When it was uncovered by accident the unfinished work was praised as one of the greatest challenges of all time. It didn't have any particular meaning nor a well established beginning, middle, or end. Scholars argue today whether this was due to it being an unfinished work or if Dostoyevsky had planned it this way from the start, a true master of his craft. Following the communist revolution nearly all art was abolished in Russia. Marx in Capital and the Communist Manifesto railed against challenge books in particular as a waste of good candles that could be distributed to the proletariat. His reasoning was that if labour had access to candles they could even work through the night. Contemporary Russia is very different today. The country has moved on from its tsarist and communist past into a new form of society. Today's oligarchs like to read novels that are short and pithy, mostly dealing with the problems that come from high society people falling in love with someone in much lower social circles. Meanwhile Russian intellectuals and academics continue to read and write challenge books, albeit with some modern considerations, in an endless battle over who can read the hardest book.
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Feb 18, 2017 17:06
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 20:55 |
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