want to read Russian novel

yeah, Crime and Punishment is the greatest thing Tolstoy ever wrote for sure. shame none of his other stuff ever lived up to that accomplishment.

Read Crime and Punishment.

It's not very long and, other than a few over-sentimental passages(which is the case in all of dostoyevsky's writings) it is great.

>What is basic sentence comprehension

Can confirm, Crime and Punishment is not Tolstoy

>what is basic sentence construction
see, guy, you're messin with someone who just doesn't give a heck right now.

We got a comedian over here.

funnier than you fershur

Crime and Punishment isn't a bad answer.

A book of Tolstoy's stories, maybe.

Which ones are the best?

the one where he rapes his serf, Phoebe

Yikes.

But maybe Onegin's the best both ways? Knocking out 2 genres in one work? Nothing at all against Tolstoy-- there's no more consistently readable author in Russian than he is-- but Onegin, or rather Pushkin here, is other-worldly.

;]

Chekhov's short stories
Turgenev's novels

meta

Anna Karenina (P&V translation). It's perfect.

Heard that dostoievskies idiot is really good

No its not.

Maude or Shwartz are the best for AK.

The death of ivan ilych. Then go from read. Read a lot of tolstoy, bulgokov and gogol.

I disagree. I preferred the maude translation.

I started with Dostoevsky's The Idiot, years ago. I survived. I also haven't read any Russian literature since.

Lermontov - A Hero of Our Time

Petersburg by Andrei Bely
It's a great introduction to common themes in Russian lit without all of the esoteric cultural references you won't understand and the rambling prose common to much of it.

Crime and punishment is not a small book its more than 700 pages

That was the first Dostoevsky book I read famalan. I was so bored but I was already half way through when I realised I didn't like it so I just trudged on. Afterwards I found Tolstoy and fell in love.

After finishing a few books from Dostoevsky I have come to appreciate just how readable Tolstoy is. I don't know how to describe it in a way that doesn't sound as if I'm demeaning one of them, so I won't bother.

all these shitfucks sucking tolstoy's dick. oh i'm sure you were all very entertained by the serf rapist, judging from how much you love the Fat Penguin Pedophile Nabokov, it's no surprise.

You want a favor? Don't get into russian literature. It's nothing but faggots discussing translations and people endlessly sucking Tolstoy's cock. Why don't you go read some nice quiet Svejk or how about George Meredith? no one talks about that guy, ficking shit for brains that fill this vacant lot of pseudo-intellectual depravity.

I would suggest either starting with some gogol/tolstoy short stories or reading The Death of Ivan Ilyich

This. He started everything.
Is Nabokov 's translation of Oneghin any good? I've read Nabokov's defense of it and it seems to have been very controversial at the time.

Pushkin is super fun

C Z E C H O W
Z
E
C
H
O
W

"Oblomov", the "Welcome to NHK" of Russian literature.

Just don't trust critics that consider it comical, or talk about "satire on higher strata of Russian society of the second half of XIX century".

He has very specific ideas about the way translations ought to be done (he's an ultra-literalist), so it depends on whether or not you agree. Even if you don't, though, there's probably no better way to truly understand EO as a non-Russian speaker than to sit down with it and read all the annotations.

That said, it definitely isn't as entertaining as the Nabokov-Wilson correspondence on the subject in the NYRB.

Do you know if this correspondence is collected anywhere? What I read was Nabokov's answer to his critics concerning his EO translation in a volume of collected essays and lectures. The book didn't include the opposite side, obviously, and there was just a small excerpt of the work. It sounded pretty blunt, stilted, awkward. That's undoubtedly an effect of the literalist approach and Nabokov is well aware and open about it. I, for one, tend to favour translations that make the work sound good to my ear, and these are seldom the more literal ones. I am well aware that most of this board--not to mention Nabokov himself, one of my favourite authors--see my point of view as ignorant. Since I esteem Nabokov so much I am willing to repent my plebby ways and give his literal Oneghin a chance. I just wanted to know what the consensus on this debate is, now that the proverbial dust has settled.

Sorry to derail the thread but, hey, at least I'm not the "fat penguin" guy.

i'm glad i stand out as some sort of shadow of Veeky Forums.
neither nabokov nor tolstoy shall escape from my dagger, friends.

"The Feud: Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson, and the End of a Beautiful Friendship" by Alex Beam.

Thanks.