He called Dostoevsky "a rather mediocre writer." I mean if you read purely for prose quality...

He called Dostoevsky "a rather mediocre writer." I mean if you read purely for prose quality, many other writers (including Nabokov) have much more to offer. But does anyone else agree with this? For me clearly Dostoevsky is the more interesting and better writer, though Nabokov had better prose. I can't really get with this complete fixation with "prose quality," where good writer = good prose.

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I'm starting to think Nabolov was a great writer but a real butthole of a person.

Dostoevsky was a man with a genuine artistic vision who had a NEED to creative output. If he hadn't been a writer he would have been some other type of artist.
That's the hallmark of a great artist - their medium is practically accidental.

Nabokov on the other hand comes from the reddit school of thought - art for art's sake, "crafting" prose, and doing stuff like writing a pedophile novel as some kind of bourgeois experiment.

fpbp

is it just me or does vlad not look all that slavic

this

Gaddis blew him THE FUCK out. Nuff said. I still love Nabokov though and the fact that this board has recently turned on him is blasphemy

You should actually read his criticism of Dostoevsky instead of parroting a single line.

Nabokov disliked Dostoevsky because Dosty was not a good artist. People who enjoy getting "big ideas" from novels tend to like and forgive Dosty's lack of artistic sense, but most others either pay him little mind or have Nabokov's courage to call him mediocre.

I recently discovered that the English translation of Crime and Punishment uses the word "suddenly" about 600 times. I then found that the Russian word for "вдpyг" has a similar count in the original Russian, so it's not just a quirk of the translator. Anyone can verify this by just doing ctrl + f "suddenly" and "вдpyг" on an ebook version.

Dostoevsky is definitely more of an idea writer than a stylist. He's popular on here mostly because he has some edgy scenes and edgy ideas. However, he is vastly inferior to Turgenev if we must compare peers from that period. Personally I rank Tolstoy even lower than Dostoevsky.

He looks very English to me except for his small eyes. Not quite slits, but close to it, which seems common for Russians.

No matter what Nabokov said about Wilde, he was basically an "art for art's sake" guy. Bloom theorizes he had a fear of meaning, which may be right. Anyway, since Nabokov only name-called Dostoevsky and complained about his prose without offering a real critique, who knows what his problem was?

what do you mean "Gaddis blew him THE FUCK out"?

ctrl f somewhere in here williamgaddis.org/nonfiction/intingendaay1995.doc

>since Nabokov only name-called Dostoevsky and complained about his prose without offering a real critique, who knows what his problem was
But lots of people think that Dostoevsky's prose is mediocre.

Nabokov was just mad because he had to write in a meme language and Dosto kept his dignity intact.

>Nabokov disliked Dostoevsky because Dosty was not a good artist.

I have no words to reply other than
>kek

>he had to write in a meme language and Dosto kept his dignity intact
Nabokov was rich, he could write whatever he wanted in whatever language he wanted, Dosto was a broke gambling addict who had to write to survive.

And Dosto was the better artist overall. The dude could conjure up books in a matter of weeks and they'd be just stunning works. Face it, Nabokov never got over the fact that he had to write in English or else he'd fall into oblivion.

He just has very English mannerisms, especially that snobby scorn he always does. He really was an anglo at heart, that is to say, a fat pompous narcissist. Looked more Slavic when he was younger though.

Anyone who considers good prose to be the foremost priority in writing is a hack and an idiot

So by saying that Dosto was poor and Nabokov was rich I have a massive hard on for the latter? Nowhere in my post did I pass any sort of judgment on either writer so I have no idea where your face it kiddo talk is coming from.

While it's definitely true that Dostoevsky and Nabokov have very different aesthetic senses, there is more going on than artistic differences when it comes ot Nabokov's distaste for Dostoevsky.

Say what you want about Nabokov--he's one of my favourite writers--but he's very much in-tune with the bourgeois lifestyle. Nabokov grew up in a wealthy family in the Russian aristocracy and enjoyed all of the pleasures that came along with being rich. According to my Russian professor, much of Nabokov's distaste to Dostoevsky's work comes from a personal vandetta against Dostoevsky because of his early connection with revolutionary groups. In fact, Nabokov's great uncle, Ivan Nabokov, was a major player in the original investigation of the revolutionary group that Dostoevsky was a part of in the late 1840s. Though Ivan Nabokov was very nice to Dostoevsky during his imprisonment, and was even accused of giving Dostoevsky preferential treatment on one occasion, Dostoevsky's connection with radical politics that eventually led to the overthrowing of the aristocracy and Nabokov's eventual departure from Russia.

I'm not saying that Nabokov would like Dostoevsky's work if this connection didn't exist, but I doubt he would have been as critical as he actually is. Some of Nabokov's writings (such as Despair) draw influence from Dostoevsky (Nabokov has said that "the Double" is one of Dostoevsky's better works, even though he dismisses it as a near carbon-copy of Gogol's "the Nose").

Nabokov's criticism of Dostoevsky DID NOT talk only about Dostoevsky's prosaic qualities and I suggest you all actually read it before making cretins of yourselves.

>without offering a real critique

What the fuck are you talking about, man? Read Nabokov's Lectures on Russian literature, and stop parrotting this bullshit.

>only name-called Dostoevsky and complained about his prose without offering a real critique
In his oft quoted mention of Dostoevsky (which seems to be the only way people know anything about his attitudes towards him in spite of it merely being a summery) he mentions things other than Nabokov.

>And Dosto was the better artist overall. The dude could conjure up books in a matter of weeks and they'd be just stunning works. Face it, Nabokov never got over the fact that he had to write in English or else he'd fall into oblivion.
You can't say Dosto was 'better' because he had concerns in his art different to Nabokov's. I haven't read Dosto in the original Russian, but his works are remarkably easy to read in English- that's a given. He was engaging with the moral and social issues of his time. He couldn't afford to bog down his message in ultimately needless flourishes of style.

hahahahhahhahahahhaha someone posted this thinking it has merit

Lul no one really cared about this elitist faggot and his eternal butthurt