[HN Gopher] What made Dostoevsky's work immortal
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What made Dostoevsky's work immortal
Author : simplegeek
Score : 96 points
Date : 2024-11-22 14:59 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thoughts.wyounas.com)
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| greenie_beans wrote:
| a writer's financial situation does not make art immortal.
|
| it cites faulkner, too, and he famously wrote "as i lay dying"
| while he was broke and working at the university electric plant.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| > a writer's financial situation does not make art immortal.
|
| That was not the point of the article. The point was that the
| narrowness of circumstance - living between riches and poverty
| and what type of person can handle that (not to mention the
| unique problems that might come up with that) - requires
| someone that can balance that sort of situation.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| how is that not "a writer's financial situation"?
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Because that's a manifestation of the struggle, not the
| struggle itself.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| so am i struggling with my art or my financial situation?
| genuinely trying to understand what you're saying.
| sexyman48 wrote:
| Like most literary analysis, GP's remarks ("narrowness of
| circumstance") are bullshit. The title "What Made His
| Work Immortal" was completely off-topic.
| kristjankalm wrote:
| "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." V. Nabokov, [0]
|
| I really recommend Nabokov's full lecture on Dostoyevsky [1],
| plus obvs all the of the lectures in the series are brilliant.
|
| [0] https://lithub.com/on-dostoevskys-199th-birthday-heres-
| nabok...
|
| [1] Lectures on Russian Literature, Vladimir Nabokov,
| https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/lectures-on-rus...
| agys wrote:
| A dissing with two of my favourite authors as protagonists,
| thank you!
|
| A small extract of "Transparent Things" by Nabokov that I love
| so much: how a Caran d'Ache pencil is built. An incredible
| travel through space and time!
|
| https://thenabokovian.org/node/53398
| twelve40 wrote:
| > slapdash comedian
|
| > extraordinarily amusing
|
| Nabokov is a genius but not once did i get this vibe ever, much
| darker, almost hopeless.
| usrnm wrote:
| Dostoevsky is funny, but his humour is very subtle and can be
| easily lost in translation. And being funny and dark are not
| mutually exclusive things, there is a whole genre of
| tragicomedies, after all
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| Nabokov is the proof that being a genius writer doesn't always
| imply having good taste. For example, see his opinion on Henry
| James, Faulkner or Camus.
|
| The man wrote what he wanted to read and hated everything else.
| bmacho wrote:
| > Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all
| Russians love Dostoevsky as much as Americans do,
|
| This is _probably_ true. But Russians ' opinion shouldn't
| matter the slightest about him for the rest of us.
| yatopifo wrote:
| Of course. But it's worth recognizing that you like a
| translation of D, not his original works.
| buffalobuffalo wrote:
| This criticism is all the more poignant given that it comes
| from Nabokov. He is one of the few authors for whose works
| the Russian and English versions are almost equivalent; he
| was bilingual and did the translation himself.
| bmacho wrote:
| > But it's worth recognizing that you like a translation of
| D
|
| Probably he just lucked out, and all his translators are
| geniuses. Tho this would be a more remarkable skill, than
| just being a literary genius..
|
| BTW I usually like derivative works, in every arts.
|
| If a translator makes changes, and she is only _right_ 60%
| of the time, that 's still a net positive. I encourage
| every translator to make changes, if they think they can
| make the text better.
| yatopifo wrote:
| Dostoyevsky wrote the most boring unpalatable stuff i had the
| misfortunate to read in school. Nabokov's assessment was 100%
| correct.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Not by a long shot. War and peace is the classic long read,
| but outside of Russian literature you also get authors like
| Victor Hugo and Les Miserables.
|
| Also, depending on your tastes, Charlotte Bronte and other
| similar period writers were equally bland or significant.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Or Proust's seven volumes.
| whythre wrote:
| I read Crime and Punishment as a teenager and I enjoyed it
| quite a bit. Raskolnikov's misadventures are not 'fun' but as
| a psychological exploration of guilt (or lack thereof), it
| was very interesting.
|
| I like Notes from the Underground and his other short stories
| (like the Double) even more.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| i disagree. i'm reading the brothers karamazov right now and
| i find it so entertaining. such rich drama and conflict.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| He is highly worshipped in the nationalistic/antisemitic
| circles.
| beoberha wrote:
| My favorite course I took in college was a Russian Literature
| elective my first semester. I fell in love with Dostoevsky when
| we read Crime and Punishment and I ended up writing my 25 page
| term paper on him and his role in the proto-existentialist vs
| nihilism movement in Russia in the 1860s. There will always be a
| part of me that wishes I had taken my career in that direction
| instead of computers :)
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Please consider an advice: try using some of your spare time on
| that interest. You never know.
| jffhn wrote:
| Reminds me of an interview with Fields Medalist Laurent
| Lafforgue, where he mentioned that at one point, he had only
| been interested in literature, particularly Dostoevsky, and
| couldn't understand how anyone could bother with mathematics,
| but that he later realized that mathematics could also convey
| profound truths.
| SeattleAltruist wrote:
| @kristjankaim is correct - this sure isn't Nabokov. Example:
| "Immortality of Dostoevsky's art is unquestionable; his art will
| likely continue to live on."
|
| Wait... which is it?
| fumeux_fume wrote:
| Sounds good but doesn't add up. I think his writing's legacy is
| due more to the time it was published, it's translations into
| other languages and boosters like Freud who thought BK what the
| greatest novel ever written. That opinion gets echoed a lot, but
| thinking about literature in a ordinal sense is a little absurd.
| For me, the ruble ammouts in BK were almost meaningless. I just
| assumed 3,000 or 5,000 rubles was a shit ton of money, but def
| less than a million dollars today.
| totaldude87 wrote:
| His works will live on regardless of the culture or the time it
| was written. As long as there is Poverty, Guilt consciousness,
| Morality his works would be relevent.
|
| I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of
| humanity.
|
| This cannot be put an expiry at..
| ruthmarx wrote:
| I think his idea in Crime and Punishment of there being a class
| of 'special' humans is pretty interesting and enduring.
| rrherr wrote:
| This Substack post is a summary of an essay by Joseph Brodsky
| about Dostoevsky -- but the post does not link or name the essay.
|
| The essay is named "The Power of the Elements" and it can be read
| here on Google Books:
|
| https://www.google.com/books/edition/Less_Than_One/N5Nzm2uih...
| nsatirini wrote:
| The author mentioned the name of the book in the very first
| paragraph.
|
| Yes, it seems the essay inspired the post and it quotes
| excerpts from the essay but also has also some nice additional
| commentary.
| scandox wrote:
| The book in which they read the essay but not it seems the
| essay itself.
| alangou wrote:
| Dostoyevsky was truly great and could see the true and important
| things about the world, while Nabokov's contribution to
| literature will not be remembered past this century. One foresaw
| what the death of absolute good would do to the world--the casual
| mass murders of millions in places such as Germany, Cambodia,
| Stalinist Russia. The other is famous for Lolita.
|
| "Don't be afraid of anything, ever. And do not grieve. As long as
| your repentance does not weaken, God will forgive everything.
| There is not--there cannot be--a sin on earth that God will not
| forgive the truly repentant. Why, a man cannot commit a sin so
| great as to exhaust the infinite love of God. How could there be
| a sin that would surpass the love of God?
|
| Think only of repentance, all the time, and drive away all fear.
| Have faith that God loves you more than you can ever imagine. He
| loves you, sinful as you are and, indeed, because of your sin. It
| was said long ago that there is more joy in heaven over one
| repentant sinner than over ten righteous men. Go now, and fear
| nothing. Do not be offended if people treat you badly. Do not
| hold it against them. And forgive your departed husband all the
| harm he did you. Become truly reconciled with him. For if you
| repent, you love, and if you love, you are with God. Love redeems
| and saves everything.
|
| If I, a sinner like yourself, am moved and feel compassion for
| you, how infinitely much more will God! Love is such an infinite
| treasure it can buy the whole world and can redeem not only your
| sins, but the sins of all people. So go and fear no more."
|
| Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov (pp. 64-65). Random
| House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
| bowsamic wrote:
| If you think the point of your work is what you end up being
| famous for, then you have no moral ground to stand on
| alangou wrote:
| How should one decide what to read?
| nkmskdmfodf wrote:
| Huh?
|
| If you're going to write a book, for other people to read,
| you ultimately want people to understand and recognize your
| ideas/the point of your work. It has nothing to do with
| morality.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I'm talking of the poster, judging the Lolita author for
| being famous for Lolita. Thinking that judgement is through
| fame is a morally depraved, evil outlook
| alangou wrote:
| How should one judge a writer if not by the body of their
| work?
| bowsamic wrote:
| You didn't judge the writer by their body of work. You
| judged the author by which works are famous.
| michaelt wrote:
| If I write a cautionary tale about the seductive evils of
| fascism,
|
| with an unreliable narrator who's a cog in the evil
| machine, and obviously deluded about it,
|
| and deeply unpleasant detailed descriptions of the awful
| cruelty perpetuated by the nazi regime,
|
| and some fascists really like my book, because detailed
| descriptions of awful nazi cruelty are their jam, and
| they really identify with my evil, unreliable, deluded
| narrator
|
| and a lot of people haven't read my book, but they know
| the _kind_ of person who like my book - fascists
|
| should I be judged by the popular reception of my work?
| nkmskdmfodf wrote:
| Oh I see. I don't disagree with you point then, but the
| context here is 'immortal works' and that's definitely
| strongly correlated with the popularity of the work.
| 'Immortal work' ~= 'still popular long in the future'
| jibbers wrote:
| Wow. Your quote was the first time I've read any Dostoyevsky
| and it had tears welling in my eyes. I will absolutely find
| more to read. Thank you.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It's a good quote for orthodox christians, I'm not sure it
| would make anyone else want to read dostoevsky though. I'm a
| dostoevsky liker and orthodox christian myself so this isn't an
| issue for me but in this venue I feel like you could have made
| a better choice for representing him.
| alangou wrote:
| What would you have chosen to represent him?
|
| I think it's important you choose what affects you most. I
| was deeply moved reading this when I was atheist, so who am I
| to say what will and will not move others?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I'm not sure, I think the strength of his writing isn't
| well captured in quotes. But it seems like this one
| resonates with more people than I expected so I concede I
| was wrong about this.
| boothby wrote:
| It's interesting what people take from this passage. I was
| primed by alangau's statement that Dostoevsky predicted the
| death of absolute good, and the mass slaughter of millions,
| when I read
|
| > There is not--there cannot be--a sin on earth that God will
| not forgive the truly repentant.
|
| To me, this sends a horrifying message. A self-righteous
| individual can kill millions, wake up to the terrible reality
| of their act, repent, and be bathed in the joy of a loving
| god's forgiveness. They need suffer only a moment's guilt,
| before proceeding fearlessly back into the world.
|
| And yet, according to alangau's sibling comment, the passage
| was deeply moving to him. Perhaps my horrified response _is_
| a deep motion of sorts, but that isn 't a typical usage of
| the phrase "deeply moved."
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| That is an interesting view of it. I mentioned this
| elsewhere but I happen to share a religion with dostoevsky
| so this idea is familiar to me and no longer jarring. It
| does violate a certain idea of fairness or consequence that
| most people subscribe to, and that contradiction is all
| over the gospels so it really is one of the original ideas
| of christianity.
|
| And ultimately this view of repentance is kind of unhelpful
| in a practical way when dealing with incredibly damaging
| behavior. We can't really judge the sincerity of someone's
| repentance, ultimately it is between them and god. We can
| restrain them from being in a situation where they could
| commit that act again though, just in case.
|
| Something I think about often is an event that occurred in
| my home town when I was a young adult. A child, 12 or 13,
| old enough to know better, was playing with the stove and
| set the house on fire. One of their siblings died in the
| fire.
|
| How do you react to that as a parent? You love the child,
| have to go on raising them. No punishment even makes sense,
| the idea of taking away the nintendo or whatever is simply
| grotesque, and what could be accomplished by anything
| proportional to the consequence? The only thing left is
| forgiveness. I think this is how it is with god and your
| hypothetical monster.
| sateesh wrote:
| * They need suffer only a moment's guilt, before proceeding
| fearlessly back into the world.
|
| It is not a true repentance if one can wash off their guilt
| in a moment. True repentance is eternal burn.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| > They need suffer only a moment's guilt, before proceeding
| fearlessly back into the world.
|
| Well, maybe not. Dostoevsky was Orthodox, so I don't know
| how he would think about this...
|
| From a Catholic perspective sin has both temporal and
| eternal consequences. God can forgive a truly repentant
| person any sin, ordinarily through the ministry of the
| Church by the power and authority of Christ, establishing
| or returning a person to the life of divine grace in their
| soul, but the temporal consequences of their sin/s may
| remain to be repaired.
|
| By analogy, suppose my neighbor became unreasonably angry
| with me, becoming so incensed that he threw a rock at one
| of my windows causing it to shatter. Then, after a day of
| cooling off, he apologized and asked forgiveness. Now
| suppose I granted him forgiveness, moved by his sincerity
| and a mutual desire to repair the relationship. The
| shattered window remains -- the glass needs to be cleaned
| up, and a new window must be purchased and installed. Maybe
| my neighbor has the resources and skill to do the repair
| himself; or maybe he can pay directly or reimburse me for
| contract labor; or maybe he can't afford the repair but
| promises to pay me back; or maybe one of his family members
| pays me instead. One way or another, the window will be
| repaired and my neighbor bears responsibility for it.
|
| So sin, generally, is like this, from the Catholic POV. If
| the forgiven sinner is not able to make repair before their
| life ends, then they will suffer in purgatory after death
| before enjoying the beatific vision. The purification will
| be more severe depending on the number and gravity of sins.
| Some mystics claim to have been informed about souls that
| will suffer in purgatory flames hotter than those of
| damnation until the last moment before the general
| judgment, so terrible were their sins and unrepaired
| consequences of the same.
| neffy wrote:
| There was no shortage of casual mass murder before the 20th
| century, not infrequently perpetrated by religious orders. The
| Mongol invasions in the 13th century, An Lushan rebellion in
| China in 750, Albigensian Crusade in the 12th century... it's a
| long list I'm afraid - we are not a tame species.
| drdaeman wrote:
| The quote is truly the quintessence of Dostoevsky's works. A
| classic orthodox christian hodgepodge base, served with
| heaviest spicing of obligatory suffering of all kinds - both
| physical and mental, all perversely portrayed as a virtue.
|
| It's kinda like alcohol, and if we go with this comparison -
| Dostoevsky promotes drowning in it as a salvation. Put bluntly,
| that shit ruins lives, not mends them. But Dostoevsky does not
| just write about it, he carefully designs the whole narrative
| to make it _look_ like the only logical choice and
| wholeheartedly promotes it. And that 's why I just can't stand
| his works, despite all their psychological, artistic and
| linguistic/literary merits. This insane cultural gap is simply
| too big to cross for me.
|
| It all makes sense in historical and cultural context, of
| course, but that's exactly what puts an expiration date on
| Dostoevsky's works. They're a product or a very specific
| culture, and thus will no longer be relevant when their parent
| culture will finally wither away (and, personally, I sincerely
| hope it naturally does, for I see it as way more harmful than
| positive).
|
| There are literature works that would remain relevant for a
| long while, but Dostoevsky is not one of those.
|
| Just my own personal opinion.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I don't find his work to be immortal, in fact I find his writing
| full of all the worst late 19th century writing cliches, and thus
| extremely dated.
| sctb wrote:
| > "[...] Reading him simply makes one realize that stream of
| consciousness springs not from consciousness but from a word
| which alters or redirects one's consciousness."
|
| This has a slight ring of Derrida and/but I find it a very
| interesting point. The "stream of consciousness" really does seem
| like a stream of the words themselves, each one in reflection of
| the previous and anticipation of the next. The flowing is not
| just in the writer's mind but the reader's as well.
| drdaeman wrote:
| Dostoevsky is one of those authors whose works absolutely
| require deconstructive double reading. :-)
| vishkk wrote:
| Nabokov's recommendations: http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-
| recommendations
|
| I love Dostoevsky too much and am quite happy in my bias and echo
| chamber of that--he was one of the writers that I read in my
| early days, and to date, I feel that he changed a lot in me or
| resonated so much that I can't explain.
|
| I believe Nietzche said this about him "the only psychologist
| from whom I had something to learn."
|
| And one of my favorite quotes by him:
|
| For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which
| turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and
| if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of
| these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and
| longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage
| about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a
| heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however
| tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by
| it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that
| touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins,
| that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived
| him!"
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| And in song:
|
| https://youtu.be/eKfvXBDSiU4?feature=shared
| vishkk wrote:
| hahah love it, thank you for sharing!
| 5- wrote:
| to point out what you probably intended, this is
| appropriately an english version of an early twentieth
| century russian song.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Were_the_Days_%28song%29
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| So he was a computer enthusiast?
| bell-cot wrote:
| Obviously a Hemingway fan.
| sexyman48 wrote:
| [flagged]
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Not only English translations :) And the man was a real nazi.
| Hated Poles, Jews, French, Germans - anyone not Russian. This
| is where Dugin, Putin and other modern vampires draw
| inspiration from.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Hated Poles, Jews, French, Germans - anyone not Russian._
|
| But that does not make one a Nazi.
|
| Thinking that it does dilutes the discussion.
| shkurski_ wrote:
| I perceive this thread in the same way as the praise of Hanns
| Johst.
|
| With the perceived potential of separating work from its author
| being inversely proportional to the amount of attention devoted
| to both (Raskolnikov attitude towards Poles as something on the
| surface, though it's infiltrated with Russian chauvinism at a
| much deeper level).
|
| With overlooking the fact that it is being used as a weapon
| (together with the unified Russian language created by Pushkin)
| for erasure of entire cultures. I'd stress this out: this is not
| a weapon in a museum. We are talking active phase. And the more
| obscure the relations above are, the higher the penetration rate.
|
| Disappointing.
| danbolt wrote:
| If you're a young man in your twenties looking for structure and
| morality in a setting of first-world postmodernity, TBK is an
| incredible opiate. Much better than alcohol or Call of Duty.
|
| That said, I'm skeptical its wisdom will help us carve out a new
| future that's better for everyone. I think Cloud Strife's journey
| in the original release of Final Fantasy VII is better-suited to
| that.
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