Dostoyevsky

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

I'm going to St. Petersburg in July-Aug. and plan to explore all the Dostoyevsky / Crime and Punishment sites. I tend not to read much fiction, but I greatly enjoyed Crime and Punishment when I read it a few years ago. So, I'd like to read another one of his novels before I leave on the trip, but I can't decide which one. I'd like to read Brothers Karamazov, but it is very long, and I probably don't have enough time to devote to it (I'm trying to learn Russian too.). For those of you familiar with his works, can you offer any ideas on what I should read next? Do all of his novels paint such a vivid portrait of St. Petersburg as C & P?

[Choo Choo]

Given the time of year you're going, an obvious choice would be White Nights.  It's a short novel or a long story, depending how you look at it, about a man and a woman (initially, strangers) who keep meeting up by one of the canals in the middle of the night when they're both out walking unable to sleep because of the lack of darkness.  You can argue whether it has the psychological depth of some of the later novels - but it paints a vivid picture of a city stewing through a stifling summer, and a population on the edge of exhaustion through not getting enough sleep.  (I'm not trying to put you off BTW  )

[karlhenning]

Given the time of year you're going, an obvious choice would be White Nights.  It's a short novel or a long story, depending how you look at it, about a man and a woman (initially, strangers) who keep meeting up by one of the canals in the middle of the night when they're both out walking unable to sleep because of the lack of darkness.

And I'm at work on a ballet based on the novella.

[Cato]

Find a good, updated translation of The Brothers Karamazov: the Bantam Classics usually are good.  If you stay with it, you will see why people consider it a classic.

The Devils is genuinely disturbing, and forms a dark triumvirate with the other two books.

[karlhenning]

The disturbing thing (or, the most disturbing thing) about Devils is how innocently it all starts . . . it begins as a cosy account of life in a typically sleepy village.

But at the end of the book, there are twice as many corpses on stage as for Hamlet.

For the OP's purpose, don't read this just now, since none of the book's action takes place in Petersburg.

[sonic1]

I'm going to St. Petersburg in July-Aug. and plan to explore all the Dostoyevsky / Crime and Punishment sites. I tend not to read much fiction, but I greatly enjoyed Crime and Punishment when I read it a few years ago. So, I'd like to read another one of his novels before I leave on the trip, but I can't decide which one. I'd like to read Brothers Karamazov, but it is very long, and I probably don't have enough time to devote to it (I'm trying to learn Russian too.). For those of you familiar with his works, can you offer any ideas on what I should read next? Do all of his novels paint such a vivid portrait of St. Petersburg as C & P?

I love reading and read a lot, and I think Dostoyevsky is one of the greatest writes ever. The Raw Youth is good. But I think any of his books you can not go wrong. He has written some great short stories too and I believe you can find some good collections of those.

[Choo Choo]

He has written some great short stories too and I believe you can find some good collections of those.

I would second that.  You find some of the same themes of the later "great" novels prefigured in the short stories - which also have a habit of starting innocently enough before gradually revealing something more sinister.

The thing about White Nights that remains with me many years after I last read it, is D's depiction of a parallel twilight Petersburg - not daytime, but not proper nighttime either - which emerges every night for those unable to sleep through it, and where normal daytime social conventions may not apply.

[DavidW]

Find a good, updated translation of The Brothers Karamazov: the Bantam Classics usually are good.  If you stay with it, you will see why people consider it a classic.

The Devils is genuinely disturbing, and forms a dark triumvirate with the other two books.

Bantam classics is the edition that I read for the Brothers K.  I think that enough time is passed that if I reread it now it would be mostly new to me.

The Devils is sitting on my shelf.  Well when I'm tired of the mysteries that I'm reading.

[sonic1]

Some people might not agree, but because I commute every day 45 min each way (work) I have started using books on CD, just because I cannot read and drive (believe me, I've tried). You can knock off a lot of really good and long novels this way, and even throw them on your ipod. It improves listening skills too.

As an aside, there is a woman whose name I cannot remember, who reads Oliver Twist from Dickens so well, as to have totally changed my impression of the book. So it can be totally varied of an experience depending on the readers.

[DavidW]

My sister had a job where she had an hour commute.  She also liked audiobooks but she would go through them very fast.  The time in the car adds up quickly.

[karlhenning]

Tom Cruise reading Henry Fielding.

Make It Happen!™

[Choo Choo]

Danny DeVito reads David Copperfield.

I'd buy it.

[mahlertitan]

I don't get Dostoyevsky, but you should read "The Idiot".

[karlhenning]

Danny DeVito reads David Copperfield.

I'd buy it.

Hey, he read Hamlet in Renaissance Man . . . I think that's the best thing I've seen him in.

[Drasko]

John Gielgud reciting Shakespeare, among some other things, can be downloaded from here:

http://www.damians78s.34sp.com/records.htm

[Choo Choo]

Hey, he read Hamlet in Renaissance Man . . . I think that's the best thing I've seen him in.

Yeah, I had the feeling when I posted it ... that maybe he had actually already done it.  I mean, if it seems good to me, maybe that thought has occurred to someone else.  I thought he was great as the aspiring author in Throw Momma From The Train.

[karlhenning]

He certainly managed to upstage Billy Crystal 

[Don Giovanni]

I love Dostoyevsky and have just this morning finished Notes from Underground. The Dostoyevsky of Notes didn't seem like the Dostoyevsky of Crime and Punishment. I have heard it said that Notes is written rather clumsily (probably on purpose). I really enjoyed the work, especially the way the book was broken into its two parts.

I should like to read The Brothers Karamazov but I probably won't get round to it until Christmas time (I'm starting to read The Magic Mountain and then Ulysses).

[rubio]

I would highly recommend the Dostoyevski book I finished last - "The Insulted and Humiliated". A jewel of a book, and it's also an easy read. A bonus is that the story takes place in St. Petersburg with different street names mentioned.

Book Description from Amazon
In this novel we see a young man madly in love with a girl from a moderately poor family. This girl falls in love with a very aristocratic prince-- a man without principles, but charming in his childish egotism-- extremely attractive by his sincerity, and with a full capacity for quite unconsciously committing the worst crimes toward those with whom life brings him into contact. The psychology of both the girl and the young aristocrat is very good, but where Dostoyevsky appears at his best is in representing how the other young man, rejected by the girl, devotes the whole existence to being her humble servant and again his own will become instrumental in throwing her into the hands of the aristocrat.

[Anne]

From The Teaching Co. I just bought the course "Classics of Russian Literature" with Prof. Irwin Weil.  He recommended Crime and Punishment in the Norton Critical Edition, and edited by George Gibian.  This book has 200 pp. of essays in criticism in addition to the text of Crime and Punishment, which uses the Coulson translation.  I am reading this book and have no complaints with the translation.

Prof. Weil is an American who taught himself Russian and is a professor at Northwestern University since 1966.  He has also taught at Harvard and Brandeis Universities.  In his lectures as he reads Pushkin's poetry aloud, he tells us to listen to the music of the Russian phrases.  He has travelled to Russia for 45 years lecturing at Russian universities and academies.  The natives there told him that he spoke Russian "too well, like a character from Tolstoy."

He has done a lot of work on the relationships between Russian literature and music, and neither he nor his students are strangers to musical notes.  I have only watched 3 lectures so far but already he was making comparisons with Eugene Onegin, (a Russian opera written by Tchaikovsky).

Another book from the recommended reading list is The Miraculous Years (1865 - 1871).This was written by Joseph Frank.  Eventually I discovered that Mr. Frank has written the definitive biography of Dostoevsky according to literary scholars.  There are 4 more volumes included in this biography:

Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849, 398 pp.
Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859, 320 pp.
Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865, 395 pp.
Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871, 522 pp.
Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881, 456 pp.