#he’s info dumping about poetry and classic lit

[daynightshipping]

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[karamazovdmitri]

Ok so I know you love Dostoevsky but do you have any tips on how to read his books and just russian lit in general? I'm really interested but I feel like his or Tolstoy's or Turgenev's,etc. books might be very dense and complex and hard to understand and not relatable because they were written a while ago idk I'm just afraid I'm not gonna get them and enjoy them because of their complexity. Do you have any suggestions of where to start?

 ooooh boy ALRIGHT sorry i took so long to reply to that schools a binchso uh first of all im so glad the ruslit love is spreading! and alright yeah ok lets get right down to it, i’ll focus on dosto for now and yes his books seem complex and and i wont lie that they are, but theyre not necessarily complex in their writing or their prose, its in what it holds. like its hard to explain but its just. so packed with everything.i feel that theres not one way to “get” the books. though i see what you mean because i often say i dont “get” poetry, but i think that even if you dont unveil the secret of his books or something, its still such a good read. we did that in lit class with crime and punishment, kinda just like tryna unveil the mysteries of it and... you cannot just do it like that, you can get closer to it but like... i guess its kinda like that saying that says destination isnt as important as the journey. as for them not being relatable i got GREAT NEWS FOR YOU, the brothers karamazov was probably the most relatable book ive read in my whole life. like i know because its Classic Lit™ and all, it might feel distant and foreign and like its well, not relatable, but once you dive into it the characters are the same you’d find in other books, theyre all painfully human. like if you take evgeny bazarov from turgenev’s fathers and sons, sure hes that like complex nihilistic character but also hes a bitchass med student like you’d find in any university i swear alright, like... god i feel like i cant express my thoughts coherently but what i mean is even if the prose in itself seems complicated (once you dive into it, its really not that bad honestly?? to be fair i havent read tolstoy yet -yeah what a bad ruslit hoe i make- but dostoevsky, while not the simplest in appearance actually just boils down to feelings nd shit. like you’ll just FEEL it. and yeah for me it has made me reflect a lot on who i am as a person and who i want to be, but as you probs have guessed i do take ruslit quite to heart... maybe thats the secret to enjoying it so much? idk? like im not tryna read for 5 layers deep interpretation, i guess as i said... you just somehow feel it. AS for suggestions... if you want to go with dosto, my first read by him was personally crime & punishment, which i feel is a good start?? its always the one i rec because its part of the holy dosto trinity (aka C&P, the bros karamazov and the idiot) but i think its the most accessible one. like it has a clear plot, raskolnikovs character is complex but not inaccessible and the main ideas that want to be communicated are clear cut, more than in the huge rambles that you’d find in the brothers karamazov. i mean like i dont wanna spoil shit but like unless the brothers karamazov, when i read C&P i didnt find myself putting the book down every now and then to just. breathe and think about shit (i did however had to put it down to yell about razumikhin but thats just me)for other ruslit i kinda just like. go with whatever. i read fathers and sons because i saw it in the bookstore and just. bought it lmao and honestly since its like significantly shorter than one of the dosto bricks™ that might also be a good place to start. honestly i dont think theres like one Good Place to start but if youre 0 familiar with the russian culture and history and stuff, like dont start with the brothers karamazov (if you ask me, just dont start with TBK because its dostos best book and like you gotta gradually make your way to it, just keep raising the expectations higher and higher) (can yall believe right before i started reading tbk i was like “man can this really top C&P?” LMFAO) but anyway yeah, russian lit however is a good way to familiarize yourself with like Russia™ as a concept, and the russian soul, decent slav sadness and all that sweet stuff so just start with something and then the more you’ll read the more you’ll get what i mean by that russkaya dusha thinganyway uhhh youre probs fuckin tired of reading by here hopefully i was of any help??? basically dont be afraid anon, academics really like to brand classic rus lit as like some kind of extremely fancy and complex shit, and like its complex but not in the way you think. its complex because its depictions of the human soul so theres a lot packed in that. but even if you couldnt care less about like the soul and shit, theyre absolutely amazing psychology-wise. so yknow just pick up a book and go for it!! if it makes you more comfy, start with a short one! it can be fathers and sons, it can be even shorter and be Notes from underground (this ones kinda hardcore though, i gotta say) can be death of ivan illyich, could be a play by Chekhov like honestly... theres so much to choose from, treat yoself(also i want to thank you for that ask i feel like??? so honoured to be considered some kind of reference when it comes to russian lit, truly warms my heart and dont hesitate to come ask for more info bc i know this is kind of just a huge dump of whatever)