Fyodor Dostoevsky

>>9735193

>What order did you read him in
I read Crime and Punishment in high school, followed by a couple of aborted attempts at The Brothers Karamazov (I was young). Years later I picked up The Possessed, Notes from Underground, some short stories, and eventually all of his published fiction, chronologically, ending in successful completion of Karamazov (I was ready)

>Favorite work

*****
The Brothers Karamazov > Crime and Punishment > 'The Dream of a Ridiculous Man' > Demons >
****
The Gambler > The Double > 'The Christmas Tree and a Wedding' > Notes from the House of the Dead > 'A Gentle Spirit' > 'The Heavenly Christmas Tree' > The Idiot >
***
Notes from Underground > Netochka Nezvanovna > The Insulted and the Injured > The Village of Stepanchikovo > 'The Uncle's Dream' > 'White Nights' > 'A Faint Heart' > 'The Crocodile' > 'Bobok' > 'A Nasty Anecdote' > 'The Eternal Husband' > 'The Landlady' > 'The Little Hero' >

>Least favorite work
**
'Mr. Prokharchin' > 'Polzunkov' > 'The Honest Thief' >
*
Poor Folk > Novel in Nine Letters > The Adolescent > 'The Jealous Husband'

>Preferred translations
I consider two general categories: older/vintage, and modern/contemporary. For the former, I really like David Magarshack. He was more careful than Constance Garnett in his work. Garnett reads very nicely in English, insofar as it's very much Victorian British in style and as much a product of Garnett's sensibilities as of Dostoyevsky's. Some excellent revision of Garnett has been done and is worth finding, in particular the work by Ralph Matlaw and others on The Brothers Karamazov.

For more recent translation work, the most focused is that of Ignat Avsey, who only translated Dostoyevsky. Andrew MacAndrew did a very good rendition of Karamazov. David McDuff is good as well if a little stiff. Oliver Ready and Jane Kentish are also worth looking into.

>Additional comments/insight
I found it interesting to track the development of his writing. One thing I found surprising was that he seemed to try for awhile after his arrest etc. to try to be the same writer as he had been beforehand, and it seemed to take awhile for his experience to show in his writing, maybe as if the trauma were buried for a time. House of the Dead must have festered inside him until he couldn't contain it any longer. Lately I've been (extremely slowly) working back through his bibliography in reverse order, looking for the seeds of what came later.

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm saddened that he never finished The Life of a Great Sinner but relieved in a way not to experience what would have happened with Alyosha. Also something I wonder about but don't have a firm answer about is what a collaboration between early Dostoyevsky and late Dostoyevsky would've looked like, and how much of his earlier self he would've evidenced if he hadn't, for example, been at war with Turgenev (closely aligned with his earlier self)

>>9735297
Which Avsey translations did you read?
Great reply, btw

Im about 70% into crime and punishment, getting pretty bored though. It's the first book i've read in a long time so maybe it was a bit much to jump into.

>>9735440
what translation my man?
I hope its not penis & vagina mate

>>9735447
Constance Garnett ?

>>9735471
Wait it's not that, it's a cheap kindle version i can't find the translator, its been a pretty shit translation though thinking about it

So I've read TBK, Notes, The Double, The Gambler, C&P and Demons. What should I read next?

>>9736669

House of the Dead
The Idiot

>>9735297
>started in highschool

I feel like a retard because I only just began reading him.

>>9735193
C & P when I was maybe 17. But I kept re-reading and absorbing it into my twenties, particularly the passages where Raskolnikov expounds his theory of society and history. Around 18 I picked up BK, read about half of it, put it down and didn't finish the rest until I turned 19.

>favorite work

It has to be Crime and Punishment. It was the first book that really struck me as a revelation. And the trials of Raskolnikov, who was not much older than me at the time I first read it, made him an extremely relatable character.

>Additional comment

If I was ever going to start reading him again (I got tired of his extremely serious, fraught subject matter) it would probably House of the Dead. Dostoevsky wrote that about his hardcore experiences in Russian prison, which makes me feel that he would drop some of his best wisdom there.