Dostoyevsky's Demons

If you're not liking it by that point just stop reading and move on to something else.

Almost every book has moments where things get slow. I remember Raskolnikov lying in bed and people talking around him for 80 pages. But if you did not like it at all, 200 pages in, I doubt that will change, quite the opposite actually.

>>9624150
>reading the first 200 pages by a Russian author
>expecting anything to happen or be fun

the 200 pages are doing their purpose of pleb filter quite nicely

>>9624152
I understand where you're coming from, but it still kind of feels like there's some larger conflict looming, albeit very vaguely. Have you read it yourself?

>>9624161
>>9624164
I've read TBK and I felt fairly engrossed in the story to the extent that I read the whole thing in under a month, and that was about 6 years ago when I was just getting into literature, so I like to think I'm a bit less of a pleb now if anything.

>>9624183
Demons is a bit of a convoluted mess I ll give you that.

>>9624239
Having read it, would you say it starts out a bit slow?

the only dostoevsky book i haven't read through, besides the adolescent.
i think part of it is the first person perspective. grating. the rest is that it's a bit ambitious for someone like dostoevsky. as much as i love the man, he can only make one main character at a time. even tbk is either three revolving stories about three of the brothers, or if we're honest, just a story about alyosha. juggling all of the characters in Demons seems out of his league. he probably got worried, thinking he had to best tolstoy. when in reality, he had already done so long before.

File: Why Im Antisocial.jpg (80KB, 550x413px) Image search: [Google]

80KB, 550x413px

This is literally the BEST Dosto book, fuck what other people are saying you need to just finish it, it will be worth it. It picks up BIGLY

>>9624249
Dostoyevsky doesn't really know where he is going with the book and he tries to find it out gradually. Some say he that in the end he still doesn't know where he wanted to go with the novel. The premise is set for the Brothers Karamazov which seeks to answers the questions this books posits.

>>9624268
mind if i save this?

>>9624362
it's all yours my friend :)

(not that guy, just wanted to complete the meme)

>>9624365
thanks :3
(not the guy you replied to)

obligatory question for a dostoestho thread: is P&V good or bad? i have the P&V brothers karamazov and i'm daunted, so if i can use the translation as an excuse to put it off i'll take it. is karamazov even a good starting place?

>>9624427
I'm OP (and this guy >>9624183), and like I said, I read TBK as an 18 year old lit pleb and really enjoyed it, despite having just finished 12 years of Catholic school and thus feeling deeply cynical towards all organized religion. And it was the Constance Garnett translation which is unanimously considered shit. So I'd definitely recommend it as a good starting point personally.

>>9624362
>>9624365
>>9624375
Such is the pantomime of existence.........
(not any of the people who were replied to)

It's just a reactionary book against russian intelligentsia.

Fuck, it's theme is more relevant now than ever

>>9624584
>Fuck, it's theme is more relevant now than ever
That's why I'm reading it...I just haven't detected anything to suggest that yet.

>I read dostoevsky even though I don't even remotely understand
>just posture and act like I understand and respond to any conversation with "lol 2deep4u"

FUcking plaebs

>>9624584
so your saying its anti-intellectual??

actually asking, I havent read much Dostoyevsky because I heard he was a Christfag, but there does seem to be a theme of anti-intelectual reactionary christians throughout european history

>>9624642
Not anti intellectual; just that this was written when bakunin and co wanted to burn down the world and start anew with their anarchist/socialist utopia. And Fyodor was pro tsar after getting out of prison

>>9624642
It's not anti-intellectual. Do you remember what the Russian intellectuals of the second half of the 19th century were on about?
It's anti-nihilism and anti-communism. It's actually a very prophetic book.

>>9624642

>I havent read much Dostoyevsky because I heard he was a Christfag
Cringed.

>>9624456
>And it was the Constance Garnett translation which is unanimously considered shit

if garnett is so shit, then why is avsey the only translator to change the title of "the brothers karamazov" (garnett's title) to "the karamazov brothers"

face it, garnett is not bad and everyone rips her off and then says shes shit in order to sell their new translations

>>9625305
I find it interesting that people who don't speak Russian are so opinionated about who is and isn't the best translator. I like P&V because they're supposedly truer to the original text without sacrificing readability, but I recognize since I don't know the language it would be silly for me to diss other translators (beside, Constance Garnett's translation of C&P was what got me into Dostoevsky).

>>9625406
Yeah I've read that P&V maintains the Russian syntax better as well, which I value and was the main reason I bought that version. But I don't get into debates about translators as someone who hasn't extensively studied the language.

>>9625406
> I like P&V because they're supposedly...
> since I don't know the language it would be silly for me to diss other translators

Well, P&V diss Garnett pretty hard and as far as I'm aware with P&V they translate each other. One is only really fluent in English, the other in Russian. They even describe the process of their translation as just editing each other. I don't really get duos of writing. Even with Deleuze & Guattari they ended up realizing that they disagreed on fundamental aspects of their philosophy.

>>9625729
>I don't really get duos of writing. Even with Deleuze & Guattari they ended up realizing that they disagreed on fundamental aspects of their philosophy.

The only good duo I know of is Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov.