Am I the only one who doesn't understand Dostoevsky? I've read Crime + Punishment and Notes from Underground...

Am I the only one who doesn't understand Dostoevsky? I've read Crime + Punishment and Notes from Underground. All I got from them is that he hate rationalism/utilitarianism/etc. Are his novels ambiguous as fuck or am I just retarded? I read an analysis of Notes from Underground and it turns out that it's an attack on some obscure Russian novel called "What Is To Be Done". How was I supposed to know that???? I understood that he was warning us against some silly idealistic ideas that were present in Russia at the time, the novel was clear about that.

Anyway how do I properly read this sort of stuff? People can write dozens of paragraphs about these books, but my understanding is so vague that I can barely say anything about them. I'm gonna read "The Idiot" next, I hope I understand that book properly.

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Most of the arguments around Notes are the degree to which Dostoyevsky himself agreed with the arguments of the Underground Man. You should re-read the first half of it slowly, to make sure that you fully understand what the Underground Man is trying to say.

To be short, I don't really get him either. Tolstoy seems much better to me.

I still have The Brothers Karamazov to read, so maybe that will knock me over, but everything I've read so far (House of the Dead, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot) has been enjoyable but not outstanding.

To expand on that a little, I get the impression Dostoevsky wasn't merely a great psychologist but was a bit of a lunatic himself.

He was in jail for a while and that warped his notion of humanity some, yes.

well naturally
if you read his biography you'll see that he wasn't a stable man and dealt with enormous stresses while writing

Interesting. Well, maybe what I'm responding to is what seems to me like a weakness of craft, a lack of control. His characters rant and rave without restraint, and it would be one thing if the author himself seemed above them, but there's a sense that the novel, too, is an outpouring of anxiety and emotion, which makes the novels feel unbalanced, amateurish and undercooked, to me.

I remember Pauline Kael was asked once whether artists "in some kind of conflcit or turmoil" are better artists, and she said no, "who knows what [Dostoevsky] might've done had he a little security."

'Understanding' means a lot of things. When I was an anxious teenager some time ago, I was on suicide watch in a ward and one of the doctors recommended reading Crime. People often see it as a bleak book, rightly too, but it's an honest portrayal of struggling.

I'd say that book in particular is very open to personal interpretation, but I found Dost. very relatable anyway. The want to rise above in life is quite universal.

i can see why someone would think that, but if you examine the character and plot structure of Crime and Punishment or Brothers Karamazov you can definitely see a lot of planning involved in the creation of both works

Hate it to break it to you, but you're retarded. How old are you, OP? Maybe if your brain is fully developed you're able to grasp his long structured sentences and interpret accordingly.

Don't think about "What could he mean by this and that" and yadda yadda yadda, just take everything at face value, then reflect after you finish a book of his. It's good that you read his works, but you obviously lack knowledge of 19th century Russian literatue to know all the references in his novels, and that is okay, man.

From Crime and Punishment there's so much you can learn, as a lad, from the literal content alone. How Raskolnikov led himself into misery with his nihilistic views, but found salvation in form of love in its purest form through his new girlfriend, therefore through God (spirituality), is one and the most obvious lessons you can draw.

Just enjoy The Idiot now for what it is, even though the book is one whole parable, explaining the human conflict between sin and salvation, and criticism of Catholicism. The Idiot is my most favorite book of his, especially because the protagonist, Prince Myshkin, is such a realistically pure, and therefore lovable personality.

Demons is, in my humble opinion, the most complex and intriguing work (and toughest read) of Dostoevsky. Give it a shot when you're done with The Idiot. It will blow your mind how Dostoevsky actually predicted the rise of radical socialism/communism, a totalitarian government, in Russia. Fuck Orwell's 1984, Demons is the real deal when it comes to highlight the uprising of communism and dangers of a totalitarian state, described in pschologically nuanced way, like only the greatest writers of that time could.

Notes was written before 'what is to be done', like several decades before so the analysis you read was shit.

there are two versions. one by Chernyshevsky and one by Lenin

funny thing, OP
i just read Notes from Underground and i feel like deleting the novel i was writing because i could never achieve the same understanding of human mind as him

Glad you got that figured out, now kill yourself :^]

nah, i take pleasure from consciously being a shitty human

Eh, works fine by me.

How Dostoevskian. Nice trips.

I thought it was funny

Don't leave me hanging, OP. I busted my ass on this one .

being real, i think it helps to understand the context of himself as a person and the environment he lived in both socially and intellectually within 19th century russia. here is a good lecture on dostoevsky himself- i recommend watching that to better understand the man himself.

youtube.com/watch?v=ayh-ehvFVfU&t=2410s

aside from that: i agree with you- some of dostoevsky's characters (especially raskolnikov) are scatter brained as fuck. they do ramble, rant and rave- he wasnt a 'clean' author like tolstoy or turgenev who were of the aristocratic class and drew characters who were typical characters you expect to read in a classic novel- he was an unstable middle class russian who had an unstable life and disease (epilepsy) his style of writing and character selection was radically different from the other russian classic writers. his characters were more about the common russian rather than the russian aristocracy. (tolstoy)

*dont slow read his works, read him fast*- his works were read out loud in public in cafes/bars/coffee shops and other public places as such. its poetic, the rhythm in his writing is excellent.

intellectually he was battling with a generation of intellectuals who were booming in europe and russia. many kind of 'new age' thinkers at that time, many were secularists, atheists, more non-traditionalist progressive thinkers. russians at this time were not know to be gr8 thinkers @s oppose to their europe@n counter p@rts.

if you havent noticed dostoevsky takes a lot of shots at different political theorists and intellectuals of his time- he's pretty critical of a lot of western political theorists(particularly the french). he seems to resent the stereotypes that the french and british were intellectually superior to russians. russians were viewed as dirty to a lot of europeans at that time. he didnt reject that, he embraced it and put that roughness and dirtiness into his russian characters as kind of a 'fuck you' to the intellectuals of his time who only wrote about rich fuckers.

he was himself an athiest but regained his faith and argues against the athiest (fedoras of his time) secularists of his time who were dominating the intellectual scene.

other than that- i dont think his writing is for everyone- but i connect with this style of writing. you're correct in observing it's kind of crazy but maybe this will help you understand his characters more.

Seems to me that it all kind of boils down to having humanity being incompatible with having ideology, and the horror and contradiction of taking the latter path.
Long literary analysis is beneficial for understanding some more nuisances but for the most part seems to be personal interpretations of facts dependent on the personality of the critic.

You can just enjoy them for the stories user. It's good to know what ideology there is in a novel, but it's just a story about people.

"Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss." - Albert Einstein

I think this was directed at me (). Anyway, I found your post interesting and informative. I definitely don't mean to dismiss Dostoevsky. The "rawness" of the writing was just something that has bothered me.

I had some sort of epilepsy and suffered from seizures. He enjoyed the seizures and he experienced visions during them

>I had
*He had

enjoy your symptom

You might just not like his prose, or have some unique thing in you that makes you incompatible with him.
It's much more likely that you didn't read and thinkl attentively enough about his novels, especially the two you read.

Good post, user. I like that you care enough to put some effort into your posts. Keep it up. Dostoevsky's understanding of our vices and virtues is enough to warrant a position among the greats. I'm really excited to read The Brothers Karamazov.

Probably the most important to know about him was his execution that was commuted at the last moment. When you read The Idiot it'll become apparent to what extent it affected him.

Fyodor?

Thank you, kind Sir.
The Brothers Karamazov is an incredible novel and rightly his most famous novel, since it ties all his previous grand wroks together. You really learn to appreciate the polish and accessibility, even though it has a convoluted plot and incredibly detailed psychologization in almost all of the main and side characters. It really is his life's work; I was so hooked on this book that I finished it in four weeks (considering it has over 1200 pages it was pretty fast for my pace).

Who did you possess to type this Fyodor?

>he himself was an athiest
what the fuck

you have to read on

he literally wasnt an atheist

>he was himself an athiest but regained his faith and argues against the athiest (fedoras of his time) secularists of his time who were dominating the intellectual scene.

that's the whole sentence, you posted only the first few words

user was saying he *was* an atheist, then converted, which from the little i know of dostoevsky's bio, sounds right.

oh im just retarded

Im my opinion notes from the underground doesnt have some lesson you have to grasp like for example how to escape that situation or how not to become like that.
Its usefullness is in sayig "you can become like this if youre not carefull,but youre on your own"
And think that id enough. You vant ask for more.
The book is there to give you a kick and get motivation through the fear you will have for not ending up like that

Fuck,my english is so bad

He's here

Bra, I wear fedora and LOVE Dostoevsky. Don't do me like that.
youtube.com/watch?v=zEl59biItfY

I'm 18. I got that part of C&P, how Raskolnikov was too nihilistic and miserable but was saved by the power of Sonya's love and redeemed through Christianity. I guess Dosto was telling nihilistic dudes to leave their toxic views behind and renew themselves into better men, come back from "the dead" like Lazarus - who is directly referenced in the novel- "the dead" in this case being the nihilistic/atheistic state of mind that Raskolnikov was suffering from. He told us how the power of love could save us from such things. Svidrigailov, a nihilist like Raskolnikov, could not redeem himself as he had no one to love him, and his ideology ultimately lead to him committing suicide, a warning from Dostoevsky to nihilists about how their views can lead to such a fate if left unchecked.

Comparatively, I understood Notes better. I admittedly reflected on that novel way more, and what I understood from it was that Dostoevsky was telling us how irrational human beings are, how philosophical ideas/theories that rely on human beings being rational are useless because of this. The Underground Man is meant to be an example, he contradicts himself constantly, he does things against his self interest, he's a "paradoxalist" as Dostoevsky calls him. He was telling us to get our heads out of ideologies, to leave behind "bookish" ideas and actually live real life, as seen from the Underground Man's final rant "... For we have arrived at the point where we look at "real life" as toil, almost compulsory service, and all of us privately agree that "life" as we find in books is so much better." - kind of ironic, considering that he is telling us this via a book, but I suppose that fits with the theme.

Also, is it just me, or is the book supposed to be somewhat humorous? The Underground Man is just one big joke. The whole scene he recalls with the guard bumping into him, that was definitely supposed to be humorous, considering how absurd it all was. Our poor anti-hero goes insane over bumping into some stranger, obsesses over it for years, and when he finally achieves his ridiculous goal of getting "revenge", the man completely ignores him. I guess Dostoevsky had a thing for dry humour.

I have to re-read it, and probably C&P. I should start taking notes.

I'll definitely learn more about the man himself. I know he was mocking the wannabe-western "intellectuals" that were cropping up in his era, who were, I assume, young guys adopting silly theories from the west. I actually see something very similar in my own country, many young people are adopting western ideas like feminism, liberalism, secularism (*especially* secularism), and this is creating a divide between them and the more conservative part of our society, who believe that such western ideas are unfit for us and go against our religion etc. I can understand how Dostoevsky felt, even though I don't know much about the history of Russia at that time.

I've read notes, c and p and the brothers K. I think that in Notes, as you said, he was arguing against the popular rationalism/utopian utilitarianism/scientism that was popular in his time. More broadly, though, I think Dostoevsky's big theme is the irrationality of human beings, suffering, and redemption through suffering. His protagonists are truant nihilists and atheists who suffer into truth. they are not rational, scientific beings. They are neurotic, impulsive, passion-driven beings. All of the karamazovs with the exception of Alyosha are venal people driven by passionate impulses ('sensualists'). You could tie this into Kierkegaard's view that faith is a passion and ultimately absurd. Dostoevsky thinks people, and life, are absurd, but that redemption through suffering is possible with God's grace.

I felt this way with The Double. I honestly have no idea what exactly happened in that book nor the message it was trying to convey. Can any Dosto connoiseur explain it to me?

The Double is his weakest work, self-admittedly.

>works have to have a meaning
wtf
it was just his attempt at making a gogol-esque piece

>works have to have meaning
The good ones, at least.

>I've read notes, c and p and the brothers K. I think that in Notes, as you said, he was arguing against the popular rationalism/utopian utilitarianism/scientism that was popular in his time. More broadly, though, I think Dostoevsky's big theme is the irrationality of human beings, suffering, and redemption through suffering. His protagonists are truant nihilists and atheists who suffer into truth. they are not rational, scientific beings. They are neurotic, impulsive, passion-driven beings. All of the karamazovs with the exception of Alyosha are venal people driven by passionate impulses ('sensualists'). You could tie this into Kierkegaard's view that faith is a passion and ultimately absurd. Dostoevsky thinks people, and life, are abs

yeah he admitted it was his worst work. it was very unfinished and seemed rushed. interesting concept though- inspired things story lines that are similar would be something like 'fight club'.

i read it awhile back, i didnt get too much from it personally. had some interesting arguments in there but nothing too compelling as found in some of his other works.

"I'll definitely learn more about the man himself. I know he was mocking the wannabe-western "intellectuals" that were cropping up in his era, who were, I assume, young guys adopting silly theories from the west. I actually see something very similar in my own country, many young people are adopting western ideas like feminism, liberalism, secularism (*especially* secularism), and this is creating a divide between them and the more conservative part of our society, who believe that such western ideas are unfit for us and go against our religion etc. I can understand how Dostoevsky felt, even though I don't know much about the history of Russia at that time."

his writings are very relevant today, not much has changed in terms of the intellectual scene which is dominated by fedoras, secularists, realist, hard-science kind of people. the very character of that category of people was the same he was dealing with some 200 years ago.

i think its important to recognize though that he's not really about giving the reader his personal answers... he's more about- pointing out arguments- absurdities- giving the different sides of an issue- getting to the crux of the issue and letting you decide for yourself.

Veeky Forums has a major hard on for him because he was a russian christian. nothing more i think. but if you look at the context of russian history, many of the great intellectuals of that time suspected that a revolution was going to take place in russia.

so in terms of where dostoevsky was on the political spectrum- its kind of hard to tell. i think he was of the thought that the religious state was more compatible with human nature than the secular state- he talks about that in 'the grand inquisitor' while at the same time admitting that religion as an institution can be corruptible. i think he views is as an efficient system of control for human beings. whether he truly believes in miracles etc. is another thing.

he wasnt really a strong advocate for a particular economic system. but i think he was more interested in the character those economic systems bring to people when implemented. on socialism/communism i think he disliked the fact that people were to conform- and that the character of the individual under communism would lose his identity in that conformity. but he never really came off too strongly against it.

he was for the average russian citizen who was effected by poverty, illiteracy, exploitation- and he was of the notion that environment shapes human character more than anything else. so in that sense, i think he did want to see russia change for the best, and understood that socialism was the new wave coming to russia.

Man, I was so hooked I finished it in 6 days, it was such a great ride. I only wish I had that much of speed with everything I read, it happens rarely. Maybe the truth is that I am forcing myself to read most of the things? Although I don't think it's that, I sit down by my will to read something.

>Demons is, in my humble opinion, the most complex and intriguing work (and toughest read) of Dostoevsky. Give it a shot when you're done with The Idiot. It will blow your mind how Dostoevsky actually predicted the rise of radical socialism/communism, a totalitarian government, in Russia. Fuck Orwell's 1984, Demons is the real deal when it comes to highlight the uprising of communism and dangers of a totalitarian state, described in pschologically nuanced way, like only the greatest writers of that time could.
Demons had some great laughs too. The dysfunction of the radicals along with their pettiness produced some very funny scenes.

Lol of course Dostoyevsky's ghost shitposts on Veeky Forums