[HN Gopher] Born out of suffering: the inspiration of Dostoevsky...
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       Born out of suffering: the inspiration of Dostoevsky's great novels
        
       Author : lermontov
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2021-02-01 01:16 UTC (21 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.spectator.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.spectator.co.uk)
        
       | pelagicAustral wrote:
       | _"You know we were talking earlier about Dostoevsky? - Oh, yeah?
       | - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Born 1821. Died 1881"_
       | 
       | David Brent
        
       | iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
       | Tangentially, I'm interested to see your username OP, I just
       | started reading "A hero of our time" this weekend. I've started
       | to slowly get into Russian literature in th past six months,
       | really based on books or authors mentioned in other books. I've
       | read some Chekov, Turgenev, and now Lermontov, and would be
       | curious to hear any recommendations. Really I like learning about
       | what like was like then (at least from the authors' perspectives)
        
         | opwieurposiu wrote:
         | A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich is a great book. It is
         | also very short, you can read it in a couple hours.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Day_in_the_Life_of_Ivan_De...
        
         | lb1lf wrote:
         | You're off to a great start, but might I suggest you look into
         | Tolstoi? The Sebastopol Sketches about Tolstoi's impressionf of
         | the Crimean War, for instance?
         | 
         | For a (much more refined!) literary work, I think my favourite
         | is Hadji Murat - where Tolstoi contemplates loyalty and honour.
         | 
         | And, of course, there's Anna Karenina and War and Peace, though
         | I'll heretically admit that the latter didn't give me much
         | except relief I'd churned myself through it by the time it was
         | finished; I think I'd have appreciated it more if I'd kept
         | notes underway - the dramatis personae is mind-bogglingly huge,
         | and I suspect I lost lots of nuance as I lost track of the
         | characters and their relationships.
         | 
         | Bulgakov's 'Master and Margarita' was a great read, but I'd
         | suggest you get hold of a good commentary or annotated edition;
         | when I first read it, I lost lots of context as I didn't catch
         | references to contemporary Soviet society and persons (With
         | several characters in the novel being modeled on real movers
         | and shakers in the Soviet cultural scene)
         | 
         | The story is brilliantly absurd and funny, though.
        
           | ivankolev wrote:
           | I have to mention some Ilf and Petrov for a light-hearted
           | read in between the heavy stuff.
        
         | russianlit wrote:
         | You have a great list already.
         | 
         | I will say of the ones most often recommended I've always
         | dislike tostoy as it read to me like contemporary celebrity
         | tabloid news: who wants to fuck who and how'd they kill
         | themselves, and Nabokov because it always read to me like he
         | was up his own ass (with the exception of pale fire because
         | that character defect plays to his advantage in that work when
         | read as a piece of satire)
         | 
         | Recommendations include:
         | 
         | Fiction: Gogol, Gorky
         | 
         | Nonfiction: Solzhenitsyn
         | 
         | Journals/essays: Mandelstam
         | 
         | Poetry: Akhmatova, Pushkin, Pasternak
        
           | mediaman wrote:
           | I'm not nearly as well read as you, but I've really enjoyed
           | Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace. I enjoyed
           | Tolstoy's constant arguing against the Great Man Theory, even
           | if I disagree with aspects of his position. And I love
           | Nabokov, both Lolita and Laughter in the Dark.
           | 
           | I've just started reading Checkhov's short stories. They're
           | almost comically dark. I like them.
        
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       (page generated 2021-02-01 23:02 UTC)