/lit/ - Literature

>>22036399
Unfortunately most of this board's exposure to Russian literature is Crime and Punishment, either because of high school or Jordan Peterson, and The Master and Margarita because of its viral popularity. It is, indeed, the best country for classics. Some of my favorites:
>Everything Flows
>Fathers and Sons
>War and Peace

I don't know, but I am slowly coming to the same realisation after a long time. Dead Souls was one of my first novels I ever read and remains one of my favourites. Even their philosophers too are great - reading Solovyov and Berdyaev is like a revelation.

>>22036399
England is tied. Completely different styles but England has to be considered. I think America had a really great chance to be a titan of literature but fumbled hard. After the jews took over in the 60s it's all fucked

>>22036483
Classic /lit/. Insanely smug, condescending post about others having surface level knowledge and then posting two of the most famous Russian novels as your deep cuts

>>22036399
Yep they are great. Just read Eugene Onegin, it was excellent. Dosto is overrated as hell though.

French classics mog

>>22036399
here's the real based take
everyone of the classical Russians is great.
the nicest bits are finding little references and digs at each other in their works.
the tier list for the most famous is
>Puchkin
>Gogol
>Turgenev
>Dostoevsky
>Liermontov

makes me want to learn Russian, desu.

>>22036399
Not sure if its considered a classic but i have to shoutiut The Foundation Pit. One of the most russian things ive ever read.

>>22036512
Japs too

babbys first somewhat exotic somewhat foreign culture

>>22036399
Because they got pussy unlike you faggots

>>22036881
No?
That's Japan

Bear in mind that academia is riddled with tankies who shill for Russia hard.

Unironically censorship is the reason
while in the west you could write anything you want, in russia philosopher had to become a writer to reach his reader.

>>22036399
Russia had to grapple with the effects of modernity on their comparatively underdeveloped Christian country. This produced a lot of excellent art. Europe and America don’t have this sociopolitical edge nor do they have the religious soul to produce art on that level. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky still stand far above most other European/American authors to this day

>>22036512
England?

>>22036711
why didn't you include nabakov doe

America in the 1970s had more great writers than Russia's entire history
>Gaddis
>Pynchon
>McCarthy
>Roth
>Mailer
>Updike
>Bellow
>Morrison
>Cheever
>Carver
>Wolfe
>Barth

>>22036512
Lol, no. The French are the only ones who are on the same level with Russians.

>>22037397
>Bellow
I tried reading Humboldt's Gift three times, I would usually give up 150 pages in because the story (if there is one) is so fucking slow. It reads like an encyclopedia on all things Jewish.


>>22036711
Russian is an overengineered language, good luck with that. Chekhov has some really comfy books, give them a try

>>22037415
>Russian is an overengineered language
What does that even mean.

>>22036399
>tfw read/speak English, French, Spanish and Russian
Gogol mogs everything.

>>22037542
Probably complaining about verb conjugation or noun genders. Verbs really do people in who try to learn Russian, it's not unusual to have 6 versions of the same word depending on the context.

Russian, Irish and Japs are all driven by alcohol and a population who got told everything should be in writing so people could lie to you better and that, on top of lying bureaucracy, you should really write in a foreign language's script, and they're all betting men.

>>22036708
>>22037398
French? Really? I've been reading a lot of French novels chronologically for the past year and I really don't see it. But I haven't read Proust or any other major 20th century works apart from Camus' Stranger yet, and have only read a little of Flaubert. What is amazing from the French?

>>22036399
because writing is a good way out of poverty and the literary world is full of academic empty suit snobs and pretentious fart sniffers, if you come from shit you better write something worth reading

Dr Zhivago deserves more love than this board gives it. Same for Nabokov’s fantastic transformation of Eugene Onegin

>>22036483
Dont forget The kreutzer sonata.

>>22037703
>Dr Zhivago deserves more love than this board gives it.
Literal glowie opinion

read more Platonov

>>22037715
Shut the fuck up, terminally online retard.

>>22037749
They literally made him win a Nobel with a really shitty translation hoping it would get him martyred for western capitalism.

>>22037847
Who gives a shit? The book isn’t about capitalism or communism. The communists were just pissed his book didn’t lionize the Russian Revolution and so banned it despite it being a masterpiece. It was promoted because unlike all the other countless books they banned, this one was clearly a great work of literature and not even political.

>>22037415
oh no, i forgot Chekhov on the list
i'd put him above Dostoevsky

>>22037398
>>22037559
Could you share your french reading list? Why did you choose chronological order?
>>22037549
My dream. Know english and Spanish and I'm intermediate at french. I wanted to learn Russian but stopped to focus on french. I'm still deciding if learning another language is even worth it(to travel and read) and if I should do mandarin or Russian. Might actually be worth it if I try to get into intelligence these days

>>22036512
kek fuck off, Russia mogs England entirely

>>22037397
There's like one good author there that can compare to Dostoyevsky's weakest work, let alone all the other Russian masters.

>>22037926
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/doctor-zhivago

A shit book shilled by federal agents. You have great taste though don’t worry

>>22037847
>They literally made him win a Nobel
Who the fuck cares about some meme prize, retard?

>>22039016
Every time I read something done by the CIA that's being criticized by someone I end up finding the CIA to be ever more based.

>>22037552
>Verbs really do people in who try to learn Russian, it's not unusual to have 6 versions of the same word depending on the context.
I suddenly realize why English speakers tend to be less intelligent than people who speak harder languages.

>>22039058
Makes sense. Judging by your taste in literature you are a Westoid bugman

>>22038316
>Could you share your french reading list?
Yeah sure:
>Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel
>Madame de Layafette: La Princesse de Clèves
>Montesquieu: Persian Letters
>Voltaire: Candide
>Prévost: Manon Lescaut
>Rousseau: Julie
>Diderot: This is not a story & other short stories, Rameau's Nephew, Jacques the Fatalist
>de Sade: 120 days of Sodom, Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, Juliette
>de Laclos: Dangerous Liaisons
>Stendhal: The Red and the Black, The Charterhouse of Parma
>Constant: Adolphe
>Balzac: like 2/3 of The Human Comedy including all the major works and a bunch of short stories and novellas
>Dumas: Count of Monte Cristo
>Hugo: Notre-Dame de Paris, Les Misérables
>de Nerval: Sylvie, Aurelie
>d'Aurevilly: Les Diaboliques
>de Musset: The Confession of a Child of the Century
>Gautier: Mademoiselle de Maupin
>Flaubert: Madame Bovary, Salambo, Sentimental Education, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Bouvard and Pécuchet
>Verne: Twenty Thousand Leagues Below the Sea
>Zola: L'Assommoir, Nana, Germinal, The Masterpiece
>de Maupassant: Bel Ami, short stories
>Leroux: The Mystery of the Yellow Room, Phantom of the Opera
>Gide: Strait Is the Gate, Pastoral Symphony, The Counterfeiters
>Proust: In Search of Lost Time
>Céline: Journey to the End of the Night
>Breton: Nadja
>Bataille: Story of the Eye
>Yourcenar: Memoirs of Hadrian
>Sartre: Nausea
>Camus: The Stranger, The Plague
>Simon: The Flanders Road
>Vian: Froth on the Daydream
>Modiano: In the Café of Lost Youth
>Houllebecq: The Elementary Particles, The Possibility of an Island
>Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
...
>Why did you choose chronological order?
Because I'm used to it from my student days I guess, it makes the most sense to me, and it keeps me reading, otherwise I wouldn't know where to go next.

>>22037559
Decadent lit and Gargantua and Pantagruel. Don't just limit yourself to novels. They have good poetry and short story collections too.

>>22039106
Forgot these
>de Lautréamont: The Songs of Maldoror
>Bloy: The Woman Who Was Poor
>Huysmans: À rebours, Là-bas

>>22037415
Based nuts enjoyer

>buy Penguin's edition of And Quiet Flows the Don
>find out its abridged and the entire second half is missing at the end
Fantastically underrated book and author but why do Americans insist on abridging in the most retarded ways?

Also how did this book escape soviet censorship? Seems like the Soviet period is actually fairly underrated when you had Sholokhov, Bulgakov etc. all publishing at the same time, and the white russians had big names too (Nabokov). Shame there was no heirs to that era as they were to Dosto and Tolstoy.

>>22039140
>short attention spans
>the material covered is considered outdated
>save costs

>>22038985
I checked the power levels, turns out Dostoevsky was only 7465, whereas the lowest author on the American list, Morrison, was 7577. Gaddis was over 9000 lol

>>22039140
Do you know the best unabridged translation? I have the penguin edition but have not read it yet.

>>22038979
lol nigga please

>>22039016
The best prose of any Russian novel, hands down, and it’s not even close. You are a baby who has to think in political terms about everything—a direction brain

>>22039076
>it’s bugman to like an explicitly Christian novel which ends with a bunch of Christian poetry and is written by someone who said any system to succeed needs God at its center

>>22039304
Its not political lol. That link shows how the praise that book received was largely driven by Western intelligence agencies. You can like it if you want, but I will always believe that your opinion is biased by a systematic campaign to promote the book to gullible retards like yourself

>>22039313
I love it. I only actually got into it when I went on a Russian literature spree. I went through dozens of words first and only came across it as a consequent suggestion on goodreads. i heard of the movie but never saw it, thought I would give the book a read and it totally blew me away

>>22039304
>best prose
>in Russian
have you read anything else?
get some Turgenev down and repeat that with a straight face

>>22039332
Dozens of works*

>>22039335
I have read Fathers and Sons and I consider DZ better prose. Both were translations though. The fact that the author was also an outstanding poet (Nabokov himself disliked the book for its drama but praised the Christian poetry as amazing) makes it little wonder he was so good at prose

>>22039074
So true, Russians are the smartest people in the world.

>>22039676
Nothing to do with Russian and everything to do with English having degenerated ooga-booga tier inflection and utter lack of agglutination.

>>22039740
>not using german as an example

>>22039211
No idea, all other editions seem to be pretty expensive if you want to physically own the full novel in English. I'm guessing this is because Sholokhov was a pretty unapologetic (if maybe more honest) Marxist and hasn't been rehabilitated and rediscovered in the same way Bulgakov has. There's an english translation from 1996 that seems to be unabridged, no idea about the quality however.

>>22039116
I'm reading short stories too, but I'm too much of a brainlet to read poetry. Maybe one day.

>>22037397
Superb bait, mate.

>>22039140
>Also how did this book escape soviet censorship?
stalin was a /lit/tard himself

>>22037559
French anon here. Besides the banter between countries, here's my recommendation:
The best of 17th century French /lit/ is in theater plays and poetry. Molière is the one everyone knows, but Corneille and Racine are absolutely unparalleled in their mastery of language and tragedy. If you know even a little bit of French, I recommend reading some of the most famous lines from Phèdre or Le Cid in the original language. From before that, François Villon and Agrippa d'Aubigné are two poets known in equal part from how many people they stabbed in bar fights and civil wars, and their poetry that tells some of the most haunting emotions known to man.
The 18th century has some good shit with Enlightenment-era things, but it's not what I'm most familiar with.
19th and 20th century is where it's really at. Chateaubriand basically invented French romanticism with Atala and René, and Victor Hugo is one of his worthy successors. There are a lot of good plays from that era, like my favourite, Lorenzaccio.

My favourite novelists from the 19th century however, are Maupassant, Zola, and Huysmans. Read the Horla and Bel-Ami for the first one, literally anything from Zola (his essays can be hilariously hateful), and from Huysmans everyone will tell you about A Rebours, but no one will tell you that all the unanswerable questions of Des Esseintes in that book are answered by his later novels about his conversion and later initiation as a Benedictine monk.

As for the 20th century, there is plenty of choice. I don't know how many are translated, but anyone who has read Bernanos can tell you that this man literally embodied the concept of Chad. Diary of a countryside priest and Under the Sun of Satan are particularly well-known, and the former is my favourite. François Mauriac, from the same era, wrote Knot of Vipers and Therèse Desqueyroux, which earned him a very deserved Nobel prize. If you look through the french literature Nobel prizes, a lot of them are worth a read. Even Sartre, as much of a weirdo as he was, had excellent works, especially his plays.

This is just a very broad view of french /lit/. We french are lucky enough to have had many of our best works translated, and I hope you will enjoy them.

>>22039106
Which are the best three

>>22041240
Thank you very much anon, this was very helpful.

>>22039140
This is the one you want
It can be bought used for a high price

>>22041374
Very happy to help an anon out. If you have any specific questions, don't hesitate to ask

>>22039187
nigga has a scouter

>>22041240
I want stories about soldiers in Paris whilst it is under siege from the Germans, soldiers in the trenches of World War 1 and French soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars

Are Nabokov & Bulgakov not the two Russians noteworthy of mention?

>>22038316
Seems like an odd career choice for someone on this board. Why?

>>22041507
Remarque

>>22041170
Seemingly since the Soviet era really continued to produce some excellent stuff despite the flight of the whites, who produced pretty good works in parallel.
That said Sholokhov had to spend a lot of time writing propaganda to get his masterpiece published and avoid censure, Bulgakov had to do similar things. Censorship was definitely a bigger factor than under the Tsar. I can only really think of Demons having suffered because of it.
Post Soviet russia definitely still remains an interesting place to set a story so hopefully we get to see the russian literature tradition flourish again.

>>22042418
how did demons suffer?

Russians have replaced Cormac McCarthy as babby's first literature now, because Americans have become more venal and androgynyous

>>22037559
I tried to read Proust, got 10 pages into the first volume of ISOLT, and ended up throwing the book across the room in enraged disgust. There is something about French literature that I just can't abide, a total lack of masculinity. Just packed to the brim with faggy, mewling sentiment.

>>22042487
Anon, if you only read Proust, you have no idea what French literature is like.

>>22036399
There absolutely is. England, France and Germany all mog Russia, and if you adjust per capita, Ireland mogs the ever-living shit out of them.
Russian classics are all entry-tier and it is so tiresome that impressionable beginners get so enamored with them. They're good, yes. They are not the greatest thing of all time.
Dostoevsky was on Oprah's book club for a reason, and his neuroticisms, his hookers with hearts of gold, his deus ex orthodox machina is boring and predictable.
Hamsun said it best about Tolstoy - one grows tired of his "skidne, sædelige savl" - his dirty, self-righteous drool. His late authorship is aesthetically criminal, and is a result of his completely deranged philosophy of art. It was specifically designed to be moralizing sermons to be delivered to retards. He denigrated Shakespeare for not being simple-minded enough. I am not being polemical or facetious. That is the stated aim of his later writings. He was immensely skillful at making that happen. If you find his later writings appealing, reflect on what that might mean.
As for some of the other greats, certainly, Gogol is the undisputed master of the short story (except for his early stuff, Ukranian tales or whatever they are called, those are trash), and Dead Souls is a personal favorite. But he is unique among the russians, in that his primary theme is not a boring wrestle with nihilism that will inevitably be solved by muh christ - he had that, thank the heavens, in his personal descent into madness instead of in his art. Turgenev is the most boring in this regard.
Lermontov and Goncharov are delightful, but one trick ponies. Who else is there? Pushkin, for sure, but a single monumentally great poet does not make a nation the greatest, or we'd be saying the same about Italy and Dante.
Fucking hell, even America can compete with the russians, and they've only been at it for a few hundred years.

>>22037710
Possibly the worst thing he has ever written.
It is explained entirely by age-induced impotence before the invention of Viagra. The Kreutzer Sonata was written and published just as he passed 60 years of age.
One would imagine that the cooling of desire that comes about with age would lead to a cooling of temperament, but the pure seething anger contained in this work, the absolutely dripping with hatred screed he puts forward in condemnation of fucking, given on the background of a lifetime of raping every serf with a vagina around him, transparently betrays Tolstoy's profoundly sour grapes - this is not the cool-headed and kind-hearted renunciation of carnal desire by a monk in control of his urges, this is rather the unbridled and unrelenting hatred of a man who desires with white-hot intensity what his dick will no longer rise to take.
The hypocrisy makes it fail spectacularly as an artwork.

>>22036399
France has produced more good writers than any other nation and it's not even close.

>>22036483
I guess /lit/ has changed since I came here more regularly. Anons here used to be familiar with all of Dostoevsky's major works, much of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Gogol, Goncharov, Chekhov, Bely, and more. Maybe the zoomers here don't read as much.

>>22042458
The chapter where Stavrogin confesses to abusing and then watching the kid hang themself wasn't included in the original publication as it was too hardcore.

>>22041682
Didn't he write about German soldiers?

>>22042765
>impressionable beginners
>lists 6 (six) babbies' first household Russian names from the Golden Age
>provides "blazing critique" in the form of most banal surface-level points evident to anyone who's ever picked up respective works
These posts will never be not funny.

Does anyone else not really get the hype around Chekov? I'm reading his short stories and they all start off interesting only to end in completely unsatisfying, bland ways. It constantly feels like he's trying so hard to avoid cliche that he writes himself into a corner and then just ends the story. Like his most famous story, Lady With The Dog. It gets the most interesting part where the characters are in a true bind and then it just ends. Reminds me a lot of Dubliners actually, which I also disliked.

Maybe I'm just a brainlet plotfag. But I enjoyed the stories of Gogol, Tolstoy, and Pushkin way more. Tolstoy's Hadji Murat or The Forged Coupon, Gogol's The Nose, Pushkin's The Pistol Shot, are way more satisfying.

>tried to read Tolstoy(ivan and anna)
>had to drop it
>tried to read gogol (dead souls)
>had to drop it
>tried to read dosto (brothers k)
>had to drop it

I'm just not interested. Can't wait to be called a brainlet for having a nonstandard reaction to these books. I get nothing out of them at all. I don't even find the prose enjoyable

>>22043382
For Dosto, just read one of his books because they're basically the same. He continuously rehashes the same anecdotes, stories, and characters (especially the one about his own last minute stay of execution). Read Brother's Karamazov, that's like his whole bag of tricks in one book.

Anyway, I recommend Pushkin's short stories.

>>22042773
Can you name them all (for my reading list)

>>22036399
>there is literally no other country
greece
germany
/thread

>>22039106
Is de Sade actually worth checking out? I thought he was just a meme but maybe because I've seen so many faggots on /tv/ recommend 'Salo XD' in so many threads

>>22043587
Salo is a worthwhile film except it is so pornographic that the message gets lost. This message however is absent from Sade.

>>22036551
I said "favorite" and you interpreted that as "deep cut". Do you see what that says about you? You can have read all sorts of things and have a popular book as your favorite. Why the hostility?

>>22036711
Удaчи.

>>22043382
brainlet

>>22042772
you seethe about the kreutzer sonata all the time, if you can't see its brilliance in the age of OnlyFans then that's your problem

>>22043375
I quite like the impressionistic nature of his stories but I have to be in the right mood. Perhaps as well some stories would resonate with you more than others. There's the one about Easter Sunday or something that is etched into my mind, but I have largely forgotten the others that I've read from him.

>>22043375
This is a common criticism about Chekhov, that his stories are super uneventful and mundane. Many Russian critics at the time were angered at him for hardly ever commenting on contemporary issues. They're definitely an acquired taste. I prefer the stories of most other Russian writers but maybe I'll appreciate Chekhov more in the future.

>>22042468
>starts reading so he can feel superior
>within reading discussion he insults good writers to feel superior
Why do people do this? I feel like if you asked this guy what authors he likes he would either name some shit no one has read or name nothing at all in fear of being criticized

>>22042765
>and his neuroticisms, his hookers with hearts of gold, his deus ex orthodox machina is boring and predictable.
Bro wants to be nabakov

>>22043398
The Brothers may seem this way because it was his last and largest work, but I think you're ultimately oversimplifying it. Notes From Underground and the Idiot offer vastly different narrative structures and themes to his other works.

>>22044496
It’s not out of nowhere though, the Russians and McCarthy (along with plenty of other authors, obviously) both have very explicit philosophical themes and extremes of emotion that attract young men to them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with continuing to like them though - the Russians, that is. McCarthy is a fraud and everyone who takes a serious interest in literature will outgrow him sooner or later.

>>22043345
Yeah that guy is a massive faggot, I was gonna reply but it’s not worth it. Got any deep cut recommendations of Russian authors? I think I’ve probably heard most of the names already but I haven’t actually read many so I could use your opinion to help me decide how to prioritize.

>>22041240
Good post! I love the French language and many of your authors, it’s just unfortunate that they often wasted their talents on rehashing de Sade who was boring in the first place.

>>22036930
Oh so you think you're cooler than them? 3rd grade piece of juvenile excrement....begone...

>>22043587
Sade is not worth it. Not matter how degenerate you are you will reach a point sooner or later when you realize how disgusting what you're reading is.
It did contain social commentary on his time, and some of his short stories are funny, but it's not worth a read in my opinion.

>>22044539
>unfortunate that they often wasted their talents on rehashing de Sade who was boring in the first place.
Who did this, apart from Flaubert (who was a massive degenerate)?

>>22044539
>rehashing de Sade
Explain?

>>22041340
I don't know about best, but I've enjoyed Balzac the most, that's why I've also decided to read 2/3 of his Human Comedy. Father Goriot and Lost Illusions stood out the most so far, also The Count of Monte Cristo. Very basic choices, I know, but I haven't read that much from that list yet and I'm not really faithful to my idea of reading chronologically so I haven't read Rabelais for example.
de Laclos, Stendhal, Hugo, Zola, and de Maupassant's short stories are also very good. Haven't read enough of Flaubert to judge, but I'll probably like him, haven't started Proust yet, Leroux is tripe (I don't know what I expected), and Celine and Camus were just okay.
de Sade isn't worth reading unless you're really curious. Also answering >>22043587 unbelievable events happen to naive "moral" people, and all the rich and powerful are corrupt and constantly punish, torture, and murder them in convoluted ways while philosophizing and getting off. He does say something interesting every once in a while, but it gets quite boring after one book and I've read four.

>>22044650
>all the rich and powerful
and clergy*

>>22043345
>impressionable beginners
>lists 6 (six) babbies' first household Russian names
You can't even count, but if we ignore that, then, yes, household names. Now if you could just try to see how these two points are connected. Hint: try reading the thread, and see which names appear the most.
>provides "blazing critique" in the form of most banal surface-level points evident to anyone who's ever picked up respective works
The most remarkable thing is that you do not even try to argue that these points are wrong, but even better, that the shitty aspects of these authors are self-evident, so it takes no great mind to figure it out, and then somehow this means - what exactly? Who is your target? Do you want to do impotent, posturing critique of my lack of originality, by claiming it is self-evident and obvious these authors are shit, or do you want to refute that they are shit?
You cannot reason, you can merely seethe. When you are seething, try to remember to write carefully, at least. Your two omissions of "the" really paint a picture of cramping fingers, hypertension and popping veins.

>>22044500
>Nabokov patents the rule of three

>>22044539
>I was gonna reply but it’s not worth it.
Sure you were champ ;)

>>22044314
Tell me about it. Tell me about how brilliant it is in the age of OnlyFans. I have never once seen anyone capable of articulating it, and I doubt you will be the first.

>>22044779
>>Nabokov patents the rule of three
He said the exact same thing you did you parrot

>>22044628
I just mean privileging edginess and transgression at the expense of all other artistic concerns. That stuff is a powerful, intoxicating dimension of art, but it is only one dimension. If you get a bunch of people racing to see who can be the first to throw out structure/form and human interest in the pursuit of the most intense transgression, it all becomes very same-y and quickly starts to give diminishing returns.

This is just a pet peeve for me because there has obviously been so much potential for great literature over the years in France and a lot of it has been channeled into this dead end. Maybe that sort of decadence is an inevitable result of their level of sophistication, but I can't help thinking of what could have been. And the international reception of these authors only serves to encourage the same tendencies because the Anglophone university contingent inevitably wet their pants every time over the so-called "novelty" of yet another brave transgressive intellectual. At least when the Japanese appreciate and mimic these French tendencies, it comes from a deep affinity of character - in America it just happens out of pure bourgeois boredom.

About de Sade himself, >>22044650 pretty much captures the impression of him that I always got.

>>22044627
Not the ones you mentioned, I am referring more to philosophers and philosophy-adjacent fiction writers - plenty of poets too, but it's more viable in the context of poetry. Flaubert I don't mind; whatever he got up to in his personal life, he retained the necessary aesthetic/dramatic elements to make interesting art.

>>22044779
>Your two omissions of "the" really paint a picture of cramping fingers, hypertension and popping veins.

This indicates nothing more than the fact that he's a native Russian speaker falling into the conventions of his own language - something that would be immediately obvious to you if you knew the first thing about the language whose literature you want so badly to dismiss (or rather, to come across as nonchalant and discerning in the act of dismissing).

Obviously your criticisms have a grain of truth to them, it's just that framing them the way you do and drawing the conclusions that you draw from them are choices which make you seem obnoxious and adolescent. Your unwillingness to admit the existence of any merit the appreciation of which might transcend differences of intellect is telling with respect to the degree to which you are concerned with trying to prove something; putting no value whatsoever on humaneness in art does not make you smart, it merely makes you inhumane. If you really want to broadcast your erudition - which you obviously do in fact possess, and which is something this board is desperately lacking outside the area of philosophy - there are more prosocial ways to do so. Why not provide an example of an author who in your opinion better exemplifies the virtues of the author you're disparaging?

>>22037398
french really inspired almost everything european in russian literature.

>>22043375
>>22044333
I haven't read Chekhov but this is strange to hear considering the whole "Chekhov's gun" thing.

>>22044315
>>22044333
>>22045020
Impressionistic is great way to describe them. He's really good at setting a certain mood and carrying it through, sometimes to the heights of sublimity, but his endings always leave me hanging. I don't even care so much that he doesn't provide commentary (which isn't completely true, see e.g Ward No. 6), and some of his stories did stick with me (The Duel) but it's just weird that everyone says he's the king of short stories, when, as you say, he's more of an acquired taste.

>>22044504
Notes yes, but the Idiot covers much of the same ground as BK. If you read BK first and then read Idiot, you'll likely get bored.

>>22039106
>Yourcenar: Memoirs of Hadrian
incredibly based

hot take: Black Snow is actually the best Bulgakov novel

Just finished A Landowners's Morning
I feel sad for the protagonist
Are there any Russian stories about landowners who do good?

>>22044906
Can you just name some of these supposed De Sade imitators? Because just describing them doesn't ring any bells.

If you're thinking about Houellebecq, he may be a hack, but he imitates Huysmans a lot more than de Sade. As for Foucault and his degenerate friends, they are not nearly as popular in France as they are in America (although I am disgusted by how much the media let them get away with their degeneracy and pedophilia for so long)

>>22036399
In my experience the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky have been dreary slogfests.

>>22045407
Anna Karenina.

>>22045541
God damn I bought a used copy of Anna Karenina earlier today but the fucking store cancelled the sale because they didn't have it in stock
Motherfuckers
Does The Idiot do anything good or is he just a Midas figure

>>22045546
Idiot doesn't really have anything about landowners in particular. It's mostly city folk being insane towards one another over money and women.

>>22045553
I assumed that he would try to do good things

>>22036399
Gogol was Ukrainian.

>>22039335
what is so great about turgenev? spring torrents was one of the most over dramatic and gay books i ever read

>>22045584
He wrote in Russian

>>22045598
So Joyce was English?

>>22045604
His writings are part of English literature

>>22045611
yet we differentiate between British and American literature, it cannot be said that Gogol is simply part of the Russian literature

>>22045584
> "I'll tell you one thing, I don't know myself if my soul is Russian or khokhol."

from a letter to Smirnova O.A., 24th of December 1844, Frankfurt.

>>22045654
yeah, he still took the name 'Gogol' for a reason

>>22045638
>it cannot be said that Gogol is simply part of the Russian literature
Why not?

>>22045665
his origins, themes, identity

>>22045664
exactly, his whole point was that he was proud of being able to combine what he calls "two natures, Russian and Little Russian" in himself, in order to "bring about something perfect in humanity" (from the same letter). He also very explicitly disliked the Ukrainian nationalistic focus of Shevchenko, for the same reason.

>>22045679
>I don't have an argument, so I'll just go for the mast vague non-statement possible

>>22045688
>I will throw the guy into a bag just because he wrote in that language

>>22045679
This is the same argument that Gogol had during his lifetime and to which he has written the answer many times in his letters. Read those instead of unsubstantiated opinions of twitter retards.

>>22036399
Italy.

>>22045700
>just because he wrote in that language
You're the only one asserting that, NPC.

>>22045700
So books written in Russia in Russian about Russia are not part of Russian literature because…

>>22045803
we wuz

>>22045584
Gogol was Polish

>>22045946
Polish was Brazilian

No physical evidence for Gogol

Imagine having to learn Dostoevsky in High School where you're forced to analyze every inch of his books and explain certain themes when you just want to be at home instead of curling up with a hot tea and reading him at your own pace with no stress nor need for analysis. He'd be ruined for me forever.

>>22046141
nah, you come back to it.
same with every other country and their national literature.

>>22046141
Imaging paying any attention to high school literature classes

>>22046141
>"every teenager's strongest innermost desire is to stay home alone and wade through century-old moralistic doorstoppers"
>these are the people writing your next Great American Novel.

>>22046141
>Imagine having to learn Dostoevsky in High School where you're forced to analyze every inch of his books and explain certain themes
Yeah, most of the books that were obligatory in my school were almost ruined for me. It's a miracle that I didn't completely give up on reading.

For example we had "Pan Taduesz" in secondary school, which is a hard piece of literature to tackle for a kid that considers "Metro" or the "Witcher" as peak lit. I didn't understand this book, didn't even get through half of it and to this day, I don't know why it is our national epic. Haven't even considered touching it since then. Public schools are a mistake.

t. Polish retard

>>22036399

I think they just have a much better mindset and philosophy while exploring the human condition in a way other countries can't do as well.

>>22036512

Nah I'm English and with a few exempt authors I find our literature pretty boring it's nothing bur wanking off the nobility, empire, or first world problems

>>22046923
>he didnt come back to it properly for enjoyment and actually liked it
your fault

>>22046938
ESL here. There are definitely English authors I admire (like Shakespeare, it's impossible to deny how good he is), but when I visit this board people mention a ton of authors that, outside of the Anglosphere, are complete literally who's.

English authors are just not that well-known internationally compared to Russian, German or French.

>>22046973
>my fault
I'm not saying it isn't, just the first impression I got made me care more about literally anything else but this book. And the fact that I don't read much fiction nowadays doesn't help either.

>>22036483
There's viral popularity for M&M? Since when?

>>22047228
Where are you from, if that's okay to ask

>>22045451
>not nearly as popular in France as they are in America

Well I think they were popular in their day but yeah I could definitely believe that it’s only in America that they’ve endured.

>can you just name some of these supposed de Sade imitators

Idk if “imitator” is the right term to describe what I meant, I was mainly referring to thematic focus rather than subject matter. Authors that I would say are thematically inspired by de Sade - to a greater or lesser extent, and many of them have redeeming qualities - include:

The soixante-huitard types as you mentioned (Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, Sartre, Lacan, Blanchot - and even some of the more strictly literary types such as Barthes, Robbe-Grillet, Perec were somewhat associated with sexual deviancy), most of the fin de siecle decadents - including early Huysmans - to some extent (although again I don’t mind it too much in poetry, and I think they integrate the influence in an interesting way), Bataille, Klossowski, Artaud, Gide, Camus, Mirbeau, Paulhan, Jarry, Apollinaire, Aragon, Char (among I would imagine at least a few of the other Surrealists with whom I’m less familiar)…

I might be forgetting some but I’ll post now anyway so the thread doesn’t die, I think you get the idea though. Not trying to imply this has anything to do with your character or that of the average French person, it’s just a trend that’s impossible not to notice.

>>22047269
Can't speak for the foreign Russian literature enthusiasts, since my online circles are not nearly autistic enough, but in Russia itself it's certainly a thing. The book has high meme potential, despite being mediocre overall.

>>22048623
Jean Genet, Pierre Guyotat, de Beauvoir, Kristeva, Roger Peyrefitte and Henry de Montherlant are among some of the more minor degenerates I can think of (well Guyotat is pretty horrible actually but he’s a minor author), and then there was the whole Matzneff case, but I suppose that’s about it. Houellebecq is different obviously in that he doesn’t promote sexual freedom but he still focuses inordinately on sensuality. And of course you have accusations of real-life sadism against de Musset and Proust but things like that are not worth giving the time of day to, given the number of frustrated, envious mediocrities out there directing their seething at successful authors.

>>22048748
Why is it mediocre? Never read it, but always seemed to me like it was highly regarded.

>ctrl-f finds none of the deep cuts i have on my shelf

sad. very sad.

>>22048951
Spit them out, anon!

>>22048952
i'll give you one, just because i'm feeling nice tonight. dovlatov

I like Gogol, Turgenev and Tolstoy but I'm not sure if I really like Dostoyevsky

>>22036814
No.

>>22048914
It's popular, therefore he has to consider it mediocre to feel special.

>>22048968
Thanks! If you feel generous again at any moment let me know some more.

>>22036399
please make a short list of authors and their works to which i can refer back to later for my own enjoyment

>>22049227
herman melville (only moby dick)
dostoyevsky
eiichiro oda
me

can someone find the epub version of this for me? thanks https://www.amazon.com/Boris-Godunov-Little-Tragedies-Others-ebook/dp/B09KXC3123

>>22049404
https://mega.nz/file/4ehjgRiR#1HQf8UXmy3Xh04DiB8gCX_qqDNTkbR1KBh-srtAFf8E

bump

>>22049635
if someone has time, please upload this to libgen - it's the Volokhonsky and Pevear translation released in march of this year

Why does all non sweet food taste better with chili peppers?

>>22048914
It's very good. You can see the seams where it didn't quite come together all the way because of way it was written. But it doesn't matter