Fyodor Dostoevsky? Where to start?

[RamistThomist]

Where should I start with FD? I have Brothers Karamazov and read about 1/3 before getting bogged down with other stuff.

 

[fredtgreco]

Crime and Punishment.

I think I said this before somewhere, but the best order is:

• Crime and Punishment
• Brothers Karamazov
• The Idiot
• The Possessed, etc.

 

[RamistThomist]

Thanks, Fred. I think I can handle Crime and Punishment

 

[SRoper]

With Crime and Punishment, is there any particular translation you recommend?

 

[JM]

Read Notes from the Underground and then move on to Crime and Punishment.

I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I
believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my
disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don't consult a doctor
for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors.
Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine,
anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am
superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you
probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of course, I
can't explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my
spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot "pay out" the doctors by not
consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only
injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a doctor it is
from spite. My liver is bad, well--let it get worse!

His short works are really well done and give you a chance to get use to the way he writes.



Read them slow and soak in every single word.


As for translations...see Fyodor Dostoevsky (Dostoyevsky) | Crime and Punishment | The Brothers Karamazov They have a forum where you can ask questions.



Right now I'm reading The Idiot and a book about the Tsars.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

From the thread, http://www.puritanboard.com/f48/battlefield-beauty-contra-solzhenitsyn-24132/:

Nicholas Berdyaev, in his little volume, Dostoevsky (Living Age Books – Meridian, 1968), shows how Dostoevsky also was greatly wrought upon over the matter of human freedom. In Letters from the Underground, Dostoevsky’s hero says of a human being,

All he needs is an independent will, whatever it may cost him and wherever it may lead him….In only one single case does man consciously and deliberately want something absurd, and that is the silliest thing of all, namely, to have the right to want the absurd and not be bound by the necessity of wanting only what is reasonable….for at all events it will have safeguarded our dearest and most essential possession—our personality and individuality….If you say that everything, chaos, darkness, anathema, can be reduced to mathematical formulae, that it is possible to anticipate all things and keep them under the sway of reason by means of an arithmetical calculation, then man will go insane on purpose so as to have no judgment and to behave as he likes. I believe this because it appears that man’s whole business is to prove to himself that he is a man and not a cog-wheel. [Italics Berdyaev’s] (pages 52, 53)​

 

[Pergamum]

Get Crime and Punishment on audio and take a long, long hike through dark woods and listen to it. That's what I did. Really a great day, good hiking anda totally absorbing "read."

 

[py3ak]

I second starting with Notes from the Underground, then moving on to Crime and Punishment and going from there.

 

[FenderPriest]

Brothers Karamazov is one of the best books I've ever read. It is obviously famous for the "The Grand Inquisitor" chapter which is deeply interesting. I love this book, and though it's a long pull, I think it's a great book to get into Dostoevsky's thinking - though I'm not a scholar on him.

 

[ChristopherPaul]

I started with Crime and Punishment based on the recommendation by Rev. Greco when this question was brought up before.

 

[ericfromcowtown]

One of my favourite novels of all time is "The Idiot." I went through a phase where I devoured Russian novels and "The Idiot" stands out as my favourite.