tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11915226.post9007688738317986671..comments2023-09-17T15:17:45.637+01:00Comments on La Terrasse: Elif Batuman – ‘The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them’Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15961928950277859778noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11915226.post-61893958197633056812011-06-13T11:25:42.151+01:002011-06-13T11:25:42.151+01:00I think we probably have different opinions about ...I think we probably have different opinions about Tolstoy, particularly War and Peace. Where you are impressed by his range in WAP, I sense the immaturity and lack of focus of a young writer.<br /><br />Dostoevsky allowed his characters' torment and anguish to suggest different viewpoints so the reader can, as you say, take stock.<br /><br />Tolstoy did move towards this structure in his last novel, Resurrection, in which the varying struggles - ethical, financial, social - of the nobleman and the maid explore different viewpoints.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14151914517660803474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11915226.post-90818450861884838672011-06-12T12:41:58.541+01:002011-06-12T12:41:58.541+01:00Hi Ben, thanks for the tip, I may do just that.
Y...Hi Ben, thanks for the tip, I may do just that.<br /><br />Yeah, 'formless'... maybe that was the wrong word. What I found impressive about Tolstoy was that he could switch between registers so fluidly - y'know, the War and the Peace (as I think Elif Batuman says somewhere). Which isn't necessarily a structural thing, but more to do with range.<br /><br />My (time-distanced) impression of Dostoyevsky is that he is great at compulsive, driving narratives of mayhem, malice and disintegration, but that he rarely steps outside the flow to take stock.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961928950277859778noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11915226.post-82115523404059537612011-06-12T09:14:41.528+01:002011-06-12T09:14:41.528+01:00Rosemary Edmonds is a goddess, yes, but the Pevear...Rosemary Edmonds is a goddess, yes, but the Pevear / Volokhonsky translation is excellent. Their more literal approach does expose Tolstoy's flaws, which have been papered over by more generous translators.<br /><br />Surprised you regard Dostoevsky as 'formless'. His structure - his drama - makes him, I think, the tightest and most controlled of Russia's greats.<br /><br />Try The Gambler, a short Dostoevsky novel, as an example: a novel in three acts which shows the author as dramatist.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14151914517660803474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11915226.post-36792912371675680162011-06-01T23:53:47.537+01:002011-06-01T23:53:47.537+01:00Oh, it wasn't anything as ideological as that....Oh, it wasn't anything as ideological as that. I did enjoy both 'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'Crime and Punishment', several years and many years ago respectively, but almost nothing from either of them stuck, even quite soon after finishing them. They seem formless compared to 'War and Peace' (for the sake of argument, let's say the first half of 'War and Peace'). The comparison isn't really fair, given the time elapsed, but certainly Tolstoy was more unexpectedly funny, vigorous, contrary, varied. Dostoyevsky isn't too varied.<br /><br />And - did Spare Snare ever cover a Royal Trux song?Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961928950277859778noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11915226.post-64027268851181984512011-06-01T22:48:13.690+01:002011-06-01T22:48:13.690+01:00I'd maintain that the second half of War and P...I'd maintain that the second half of War and Peace explains, and justifies, our reticence perfectly well!<br /><br />I always quite admired Doestoevsky's spiritualism as it was open-ended and rooted in humanist concerns: emotion, violence, uncertainty, angst. I think I instinctively rejected Tolstoy because his spiritualism, and entire ethos, seemed grounded in an almost hectoring righteous certainty. For the most part, Anna Karenina seems to deal with ambiguities that I'd always considered un-Tolstoy-ian (or whatever that term should be), which is partly what I loved about it. I suspect that Tolstoy viewed the final chapters as a suitable moral rejoinder to those ambiguities (and, by implication, my lax immorality), however.<br /><br />I'm slightly shocked that you prefer Tolstoy to Dostoevsky, also. I await your next post explaining why Cliff Richard is better than Royal Trux.Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11915226.post-21869982411833222702011-06-01T17:53:43.489+01:002011-06-01T17:53:43.489+01:00The UK cover hasn't graced Waterstone's Du...The UK cover hasn't graced Waterstone's Dundee, but it does look horrible online. Though it gets a bit better if you zoom in and notice Eeyore in a Tigger costume.<br /><br />It took me a long time to get to Tolstoy too, he straggled in eventually after Chekhov, Dostoyevsky and even Turgenev. I was shocked to find myself preferring him to Dostoyevsky. Wonder what it is that made us avoid him?Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961928950277859778noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11915226.post-29200277466763243262011-05-31T21:53:38.041+01:002011-05-31T21:53:38.041+01:00Coincidentally, I picked up a copy of The Possesse...Coincidentally, I picked up a copy of The Possessed yesterday, drawn to it somehow, despite the terrible UK cover. I'd forgotten all about the LRB article until I read your post, but perhaps that was nagging at my subconscious. Regardless, it strikes me that it's come to something when one of us needs to keep a blog in order to remind him what he has read, and the other needs the same to explain to him why he has bought specific books.<br /><br />I did read the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of Anna Karenina a few years ago; and whilst I can understand and subscribe to the Lingua Franca view of it, I'm not sure that the more literal translation hampered my enjoyment. That said, it was my first experience of Tolstoy, and my expectations were so low that virtually any translation would have exceeded my expectations.Chrisnoreply@blogger.com