Is it safe to say that anyone who starts shilling Dostoevsky is pretty much guaranteed to be a pseud?

>books
if someone starts advocating for these its safe to disregard them completely.

You probably couldn't finish War & Peace

A bold statement from a brainlet

I'd assume that they enjoy his novels

The first half could definitely benefit from substantial editing. It's still a well written novel but quite overrated.

A professor of mine once said--mind you he wasn't an English professor, he was merely analogizing about Dostoevsky's writing--that Dostoevsky was a terrible writer whose books made you feel something. The writing was poor but the emotions contained were powerful and transcendental even.

What do you guys think about that?

no i'd say he is quite a good writer.

professors need to be publicly castrated for so flippantly attempting to desecrate and dismiss that which is infinitely superior and far more enduring than anything they have the capacity to achieve let alone ever actually contribute

Dostoevsky as a clumsy stylist is not a controversial opinion and you are acting like a Twenty One Pilots fanboy.

You can't accurately comment on writers like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky unless you've read them in their native language (Russian)

Love lit and so glad to have found this subreddit! Seems like a pretty groovy community

You forgot every author in the Veeky Forums top 100

shut up newfag

But shit posting is totally acceptable?

Post of the century

I hope you are not a good representation of this wonderful sub!

It's too harsh but it's got the right idea.
Dusty' strength is in the "really makes you think" factor of his writing.

I think it's safe to say that anyone who starts saying "pseud" is full of shit.

this

Conrad hated and despised Dostoyevsky but if you read Conrad's Under Western Eyes, and The Secret Agent you'll find (most critics agree on this point) that those are novels that are quite close in style and content with Dostoyevsky, particularly The Devils AKA The Possessed.

And I liked the Gambler a lot

Now Gogol...there's a faker.

Here's my theory about Gogol; he wanted to write the "GREAT RUSSIAN NOVEL THAT WOULD SAVE RUSSIA", so he wrote Dead Souls, vol 1.
It's really quite good. Some great characterizations.

Then many years later I read Giacomo di Casanova's Memoirs in the complete and magisterial annotated Plon Edition. It's something like 12 or 13 volumes. I read it in the original French as I was learning French. It took me 6 months to get through.

Gogol's Dead Souls is almost entirely plagarized from Casanova's memoires.

When he tried to write Volume 2 he flew into despair and burned the manuscript in the fireplace.
Then he died.
I suppose he found that Casanova's memoirs were no longer adequate to his religious mission to "save Russia".

>implying any shitposter right here is a professor and not an 18 yo edgy pseud who got his knowledge of lit from MMMMEEEEMMEMEMESSS

This reeks of contrarianism. I can imagine some smug TA saying "ehh as a writer he's nothing special" about one of the most celebrated writers in history.
Did he explain why? The only criticism I can think of is that the character interactions sometimes feel too melodramatic, but this is typical of 19th century lit. His character depth is unmatched.

Not necessarily. The thing is Dostoevsky is a common and starting point for getting into classic Veeky Forums, and so people who are deathly afraid of what others might think of them distance themselves from dosty to signal they have well-developed and refined tastes. If you're a newbie your appreciation of dosto might be superficial, but it's usually genuine. The people who shit on him without justification are the actual pseuds.

It isn't an uncommon criticism at all. Even Chekov thought the same.

>His character depth is unmatched.
Bullshit. Most of his characters are lazy onedimensional strawmen and I say that as someone who loves Dosto.

>His character depth is unmatched
I keep hearing this but I can't see where people are coming from.

It's Iliad, not Illiad

Reminder that Tolstoy is a hack and his two most famous works are overrated drivel.

But regarding the melodramatic characters thing, isn't he supposed to be a realist? If so, why does his work not have realistic dialogue?

It's basically guaranteed.

>reads nabokov lectures on russian literature once

>Is it safe to say that anyone who starts shilling [insert one of the greats that I haven't read, which makes me insecure] is pretty much guaranteed to be a pseud? Right guys? Where's my echo chamber at haha let's get it poppin in here

Reminder the only people who don't like Dostoyevsky are more than likely filthy commies.

Can someone, analytically, point me his so blatant flaws, as some of you are defending, in, for example, Notes From Underground?

I loved this book and I couldn't think of it having an onedimensional main character.

Add Homer, Joyce and Proust to this.