Books You Never Quite Read

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Started both Anna Karenina and War and Peace once but couldn't finish. When it comes to Russian writers, I prefer Dostoyevsky.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky

My favorite piece of Russian literature!

[Christo]

I actually only got half way through Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann...........things get busy and there are things to do that get in the way of reading for enjoyment

I had the same problem with more Thomas Mann, started a couple of times reading Der Zauberberg, but never managed to finish it. Came across the writer in many places (e.g. his home town of Lübeck) and even wrote about his summer house in what's now Lithuania) and guess I find it more fun to read about him.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Les Miserables - kind of. I've read only the abridged version.

[Ken B]

Les Miserables - kind of. I've read only the abridged version.

Moi aussi. One of the very few abridged versions I have ever read. Another is Monte Cristo.

[Jo498]

Started both Anna Karenina and War and Peace once but couldn't finish. When it comes to Russian writers, I prefer Dostoyevsky.

So do I. I read all of the "big ones" between 17 and 21 and re-read "The idiot", "Crime and Punishment", "Brothers Karamazov", probably also "The gambler" in my 20s. I have not yet read all the shorter ones.
But Tolstoy is also a great writer, they are just very different. I find Tolstoy less convincing when he tries the Dostoyevskyan themes like in Resurrection and maybe also Kreutzer sonata. The latter is hysteric and bordering on caricature, the first one preachy and boring. Dostoyevsky somehow manages to make even more grotesque characters than the jealous narrator of Kreutzer sonata somehow human and symphathetic or at least deserving of pity.

But Tolstoy is a supreme psychologist in more everyday cases than the suicidal or messianic madmen of Fyodor Michailovich. There is one scene, I don't remember in which book because they are supplementary characters, where a man fails to declare his love to a woman when they are alone looking for mushrooms or so. Although he realizes that she loves him as well, he somehow manages to miss the opportunity and then it's gone and both know it. This is chilling and moving and just supremely done.

[Karl Henning]

So do I. I read all of the "big ones" between 17 and 21 and re-read "The idiot", "Crime and Punishment", "Brothers Karamazov", probably also "The gambler" in my 20s. I have not yet read all the shorter ones.
But Tolstoy is also a great writer, they are just very different. I find Tolstoy less convincing when he tries the Dostoyevskyan themes like in Resurrection and maybe also Kreutzer sonata. The latter is hysteric and bordering on caricature, the first one preachy and boring. Dostoyevsky somehow manages to make even more grotesque characters than the jealous narrator of Kreutzer sonata somehow human and symphathetic or at least deserving of pity.

But Tolstoy is a supreme psychologist in more everyday cases than the suicidal or messianic madmen of Fyodor Michailovich. There is one scene, I don't remember in which book because they are supplementary characters, where a man fails to declare his love to a woman when they are alone looking for mushrooms or so. Although he realizes that she loves him as well, he somehow manages to miss the opportunity and then it's gone and both know it. This is chilling and moving and just supremely done.

Indeed. Although I've not tried Anna Karenina, I entirely enjoyed War and Peace.

I periodically reread Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Devils. The last I want to make into an opera someday.

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[kishnevi]

I have read War and Peace several times, but various stabs at other Tolstoyan works, including Anna K., were still born.
I read much of Dostoyevsky, except The Possessed (as the preferred English title was in my youth), about the same age as Jo, but never actually liked his books.  The one which most impressed me was The Idiot.

Mann: read the Joseph books, and a volume of short stories that included Tonio Kroger and Death in Venice, but never drawn to read further in him.

I have started Proust, but never got more than a few chapters in to the first volume of ROTP. I do intend to rectify that some day.

[Jo498]

I have read War and Peace several times, but various stabs at other Tolstoyan works, including Anna K., were still born.
I read much of Dostoyevsky, except The Possessed (as the preferred English title was in my youth),

They are going for more literal titles (which is devils or demons) now although "The Possessed" is actually closer to what is expressed in the book. (In German a lot of fuzz has been made about a new translation (in the 1990s) that replaced the formerly common "Schuld und Sühne" (roughly Guilt and Atonement) with the more literal "Verbrechen und Strafe". While it is true that the Russian has the neutral/legal terms the book is very clearly about the more "loaded" moral/religious conflict. Therefore I think the quibbles about the title translation are really missing the point.) The Demons has the slowest start (with a narrator who later simply drops out, a strange device) of the five big ones but later it is the most dramatic and the darkest.

Mann: read the Joseph books, and a volume of short stories that included Tonio Kroger and Death in Venice, but never drawn to read further in him.

I think I read most of the short stories/novellas (some like "Tonio Kröger" are very popular as school assignments) but I am not that fond of them. For me, the most accessible Mann is his first novel "Buddenbrooks" and the best of the ones I have read is "Der Zauberberg".

[Cato]

(On Thomas Mann)

I think I read most of the short stories/novellas (some like "Tonio Kröger" are very popular as school assignments) but I am not that fond of them. For me, the most accessible Mann is his first novel "Buddenbrooks" and the best of the ones I have read is "Der Zauberberg".

When I taught German in high school, I had my seniors read The Magic Mountain (In English, but I gave them excerpts from the original German to examine).  Reactions ranged from enthusiasm to boredom: some undoubtedly tried to fake their way through it (the quizzes proved it), but others were genuinely engaged by the themes and characters.

I never "taught" the novel (in the bad sense that students must parrot the teacher's opinions on a book and know minute details), but simply used discussions in an open forum to expand on things.  Often they had questions about the social customs of the early 1900's, which to them seemed to be from another planet at times! 

[Florestan]

When I taught German in high school, I had my seniors read The Magic Mountain (In English, but I gave them excerpts from the original German to examine).  Reactions ranged from enthusiasm to boredom: some undoubtedly tried to fake their way through it (the quizzes proved it), but others were genuinely engaged by the themes and characters.

I never "taught" the novel (in the bad sense that students must parrot the teacher's opinions on a book and know minute details), but simply used discussions in an open forum to expand on things.  Often they had questions about the social customs of the early 1900's, which to them seemed to be from another planet at times! 

One of the most interesting question is: who does one side with, Naphta or Settembrini? 

[Jo498]

I read "The magic mountain" for the first time when I was 19 or 20 right after high school and I think I missed several aspects, at least it was a much deeper and more fun experience when I re-read it with ca. 27 (For some reason the first time I found Madame Chauchat unattractive and could not understand how Hans could become so infatuated). So apart from the sheer length I think it is a very hard book for teenagers, even in translation. Buddenbrooks is almost the same length but far more straightforward in narration and far more accessible in themes. Everybody gets the downfall of a merchant family, having to marry against love etc.
But the essays on the philosophy of time, Settembrini vs. Naphta, the Nietzschean allusions etc. There is still a lot to enjoy (a lot of humour and biting sarcasm) if one ignores or does not get these aspects (it's certainly worse to read Faustus without some interest in music) but there will also be dreary passages.

So there are reasons why Tonio Kröger is so popular in school. (In my experience in German school shorter pieces are always favored both because one can hope that fewer students try to get away with not reading (all of) it and because one can read more of it actually in class for "close reading" and interpretation and lastly because one can do more different books in a semester or school year) I still found it heavy-handed in the portrayal of the artist as someone set apart from the "happy healthy blonde" Hans and Inge (or whatever the names) and overall not very interesting. Back then I had an anthology and I preferred most of the other stories to Tonio Kröger. (tbh I am not a great fan of Death in Venice either although it is superbly atmospheric)

[Florestan]

I read "The magic mountain" for the first time when I was 19 or 20 right after high school and I think I missed several aspects, at least it was a much deeper and more fun experience when I re-read it with ca. 27 (For some reason the first time I found Madame Chauchat unattractive and could not understand how Hans could become so infatuated). So apart from the sheer length I think it is a very hard book for teenagers, even in translation. Buddenbrooks is almost the same length but far more straightforward in narration and far more accessible in themes. Everybody gets the downfall of a merchant family, having to marry against love etc.

But the essays on the philosophy of time, Settembrini vs. Naphta, the Nietzschean allusions etc. There is still a lot to enjoy (a lot of humour and biting sarcasm) if one ignores or does not get these aspects (it's certainly worse to read Faustus without some interest in music) but there will also be dreary passages.

FWIW, I found the Naphta-Settembrini debates in The Magic Mountain and the musical analyses in Doktor Faustus fascinating. 

[Cato]

FWIW, I found the Naphta-Settembrini debates in The Magic Mountain and the musical analyses in Doktor Faustus fascinating. 

Amen!  0:)  To be sure, I can see where some readers would wonder what a certain section is leading toward.

I read "The magic mountain" for the first time when I was 19 or 20 right after high school and I think I missed several aspects, at least it was a much deeper and more fun experience when I re-read it with ca. 27 (For some reason the first time I found Madame Chauchat unattractive and could not understand how Hans could become so infatuated). So apart from the sheer length I think it is a very hard book for teenagers, even in translation.

In fact I always recommended to my students that they should tackle the book again when they were 10 or 20 years older, and see what they would think about it at those future times.

Madame Hotcat!      The older, experienced woman!

[Jo498]

She isn't that much older, I think. Hans spends ca. ages 23-30 at the Berghof (I think it is mentioned that he spends 7 years and he is about 23 when he gets there, so this would date the book ca. summer 1907 - summer 1914 when the "Weltfest des Todes" began). Clawdia is probably around 30.
But for me it was rather that the first time I missed both the erotically charged atmosphere of the whole setting; the sickly and moribund don't care so much about bourgeois morals and it a decadent bunch anyway. And I found the exaggerated descriptions of her exotic appearance ("wolf's eyes" etc.) more repulsive than attractive.

As for the philosophical, theological, musical bits: Of course they are a main part of the attraction and add to the depth of these novels. But it is not stuff one can easily get even way above average 17 year old high school students interested in.

[Cato]

She isn't that much older, I think. Hans spends ca. ages 23-30 at the Berghof (I think it is mentioned that he spends 7 years and he is about 23 when he gets there, so this would date the book ca. summer 1907 - summer 1914 when the "Weltfest des Todes" began). Clawdia is probably around 30.
But for me it was rather that the first time I missed both the erotically charged atmosphere of the whole setting; the sickly and moribund don't care so much about bourgeois morals and it a decadent bunch anyway. And I found the exaggerated descriptions of her exotic appearance ("wolf's eyes" etc.) more repulsive than attractive.

As for the philosophical, theological, musical bits: Of course they are a main part of the attraction and add to the depth of these novels. But it is not stuff one can easily get even way above average 17 year old high school students interested in.

Frau Chauchat is therefore an "older woman" and vastly more experienced about certain things than Hans!

I have not taught German for 11 years now: possibly Generation iPhone cannot pay attention to such a book.  However, as I said, I did have a good number of 17-year old students who enjoyed the experience during my 25-year sojourn as a German teacher.

[Jo498]

As I said, you don't have to feel bad about it as to my knowledge the Zauberberg is not part of the standard curriculum for native German high/prep school students. The sheer length makes it unlikely even as a special project or in a dedicated/advanced class.

I was only in a standard German literature class and shorter works were clearly favored. Strangely, the longest book I had to read in school (and we had the full semester for that) was the translation of the Odyssey as background to the sections we translated from the original Greek. The longest German book I remember was a lesser known one by Fontane "Frau Jenny Treibel", I guess most of my classmates hated it, I found it extremely funny. It is a not very long novel about bourgeois society in the late 19th century without the tragedies of "Effi Briest" and other "adultery novels". Roughly in the middle between Austen and Wodehouse, i.e. misfortunes in matchmaking with a happy ending. The longest in English class was probably "1984".

[Florestan]

If one wants a Russian writer whose novels are not at all long and don't display the level of "Russianness" and abyssal psychologism that can be hard to digest in Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, then Turgenyev is the man. Not to say he is less subtle a psychologist than the other two, but I find his novels to be more human(e) both in scale and in characters. Even the ill-fated hardline anarchist from Sons and Fathers is very far from the demonism of his Dostoyevskian peers.

[Ken B]

If one wants a Russian writer whose novels are not at all long and don't display the level of "Russianness" and abyssal psychologism that can be hard to digest in Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, then Turgenyev is the man. Not to say he is less subtle a psychologist than the other two, but I find his novels to be more human(e) both in scale and in characters. Even the ill-fated hardline anarchist from Sons and Fathers is very far from the demonism of his Dostoyevskian peers.

Sons and Fathers has a brilliant opening chapter. So brilliant it includes everything else which happens in the book. Making the rest of the book rather dull!

[(poco) Sforzando]

I truly fear by this point in my life I will never get around to all the books I either never read or never quite read (I'm not quite sure I quite understand the difference). Never read or even quite read War and Peace, Karamazov, any of Stendhal, any of Jane Austen - the latter because I was permanently prejudiced against her by Mark Twain's satirical judgment. Last year I re-read the Divine Comedy through about the middle of Paradiso but gave up because the third part is comparatively so dull. It's been ages since I've read Paradise Lost or Ulysses. I love Moby Dick beyond almost all books and have read it at least 3-4 times complete, but last time I started it I let it go after about the first 35 chapters. To be honest I just don't read as much as I used to. That's what happens when one becomes (as a charming member of this forum so charmingly characterized me) "geriatric."

I did read Spenser's Faerie Queene complete in grad school and loved it, but I can't imagine doing so again.