Tfw bored as fuck with brothers Karamazov

>tfw bored as fuck with brothers Karamazov
>tfw bored as fuck with Nicholas Nickleby and haven't read it for weeks
>tfw still have tonne of other possibly boring and venerated old books in my cupboard that I have to read or else people will think I'm a pleb

How do you cope with this? These books are horrendous.

The brothers Karamazov is just a load of trivial thoughts on religion, society, and philosophy along with some painfully of its time nonsense.

Nicholas nickleby is just horrifically pointless. I thought the prose would be painful but it's not. It's the pointlesness of everything and its repetitive nature. Bad things happen to Nicholas and his sister. They get more bad. Nicholas gets mad. They get less bad. Repeat. And sprinkle every page with 9001 wry observations by the narrator.

Each of them goes on for over 700 pages. How the hell do I cope? Why are these books praised? Of course I won't get any answer except abuse.

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_literature
youtube.com/watch?v=9qAc4qWc7rU
librarything.com/work/492427
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Do you think you're deficient attention span is the mark of advanced intelligence?

Books are not *purely* enjoyable pastimes.

Either way why are you reading them if you don't like to?

Reading books is for arrogant circlejerking plebs. Real men know the trut just by being born in the age of technology.

audiobook it lad it's so much easier

To answer your question I don't think Dickens is much praised--he was the bestseller of his day; he does have a fine comedic way with the English language especially in his naming conventions. I never read Nicholas Nickleby however.

The Brothers Karazov on the other hand I have read and I agree that Dostoyevsky can seem horribly dated (try the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation it is a bit better) The Brothers Karamazov to me is not as good as Crime and Punishment or even The Idiot. There is some speculation that he didn't even write that one as he was invalid towards the end and his wife who had transcribed for him all along may have had more editorial impact than before.

No wonder Norwegians can't manage literature.

Because like a lib he is told to do so. OP read a small chunk of it each day and ponder about it. Like really think about it. Casual readers are fag, intellectual reader are still reading once the book is close( if you catch my drift)

What do you mean?

For our size we have a lot of famous authors

read The Divine Comedy, I've almost finished and it has changed my entire life

Name one other than Knut Hamsun that anyone outside of Norway would recognize. England is also very small but has produced probably the finest writers of the previous two centuries.

The Idiot is shit. It feels like the idea behind it completely fell through. I still love the story and the characters but it failed in its purpose.

>For our size we have a lot of famous authors

I only know Knut Hamsun, whom I really like.

Right..it's not my favorite but definitely not shit..Mishka did not really portray what I think Dostoyevsky wanted BUT that book had some gut wrenching scenes in it so I give it credit.

>brothers Karamazov

I loved the Grand Inquisitor chapter so much.

The answer about Dostoevsky is easy. Foreigners can't understand your local authors completely. That includes "dates" and all stuf.

OP also you should just watch the film Andrei Rublev (it is on YouTube if you're too cheap to buy it) It is a much better classic dealing with the same things and requires no reading (except the subtitles)

brothers karamazov is the weakest dostoevsky work. still good to understand the degeneracy of """""""""""""""""""""""""""intellectuals"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" who abandoned Christianity and ended up with the literal devil (Ivan, Smerdyakov).
Go fuck yourself Atheists, Socialists and Nazis.

Does anyone here like Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse?

Oh I didn't like that Knausgaard shit head either is everyone in Norways as gay as that ?

Russians cant understand Dostoevsky anymore because the world of the Russian Empire has been utterly annihilated. You ve been living in a godless land since 1917. Its the world of Ivan Karamazov.

If you're having troubles with Dickens, try his friend & rival: Wilkie Collins; The Lady in White is my favourite, but Moonstone is okay, too.

I agree that Dostoïevski is boring as hell, like all russian literature of that time.

>try his friend & rival: Wilkie Collins; The Lady in White is my favourite, but Moonstone is okay, too.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Every book has its' own reader. Dostoevky, although, being one of the best known Russian writers, isn't that popular in Russia itself. He has very little to do with real life, being all about spirituality and idealism. He is mostly weird.

Now, realistic world famous Russian writers are Chekhov and Sholohov.

Henrik Ibsen

Which is the strongest work?

Russians write a lot because there's fucking nothing else to do there except drink.
Don't take their inebriated ramblings too seriously.

You're probably just dumb my dude.

Very true. I really believe it is impossible to have a world view without belief in God. Muslims and Jews are far better than atheists. Atheists think they are "redpilled" but degenerate western culture has been teaching them atheism and hedonism all along so really atheism is the ultimate blue pill

Agree but I'm from a village family. School analysis of Russian literature here still lacks real facts because communists removed everything they could from the critics and they even presented Tolstoy as a non-religious person.

really? Why?
Inferno is basically just a list of
>if you do A, you end up here
And Mohammad being heresiarch ends up in the ninth circle topfuckinglel

I've only read 'the seagull' by Chekhov but it seems very similar to Dostoevsky in characterisation and plot?

Hermann Hesse is alright, I enjoyed Steppenwolf, and to a lesser extend Narcissus and Goldmund.

Thomas Mann falls right out of my hands, though. I'd rather read Leo Perutz or Alexander Lernet-Holenia.

No. I don't understand why people like Hesse. He was a beatnik before his time

Well Ibsen isn't very good either. At least Hamsun could write

>He has very little to do with real life, being all about spirituality and idealism.
Literally what said. Also read Dostoevski's articles, they're like they were written yesterday.

Narcissus and Goldmund I found amazing, liked Steppenwolf on the first read, a lot, but I found it much weaker on the second read. Siddharta is great too. I think my favorite work of his is Klingsor's Last Summer.

The Magic Mountain and Doctor Faustus are my favorite novels by Mann, they hold up on repeated reads too.

Have you every read anything by John Galsworthy?

England have 10 times + the population and was a cultural centre. Same with Germany, Austria etc. What we have produced is fully at height if you take our location and low population at count.

Knut Hamsun obviously yes, who is probably one of the biggest of all times and maybe top 3 most inflental authors of modern literature. Had he not supported the German war effort, he would have been much more known.

Not heard about Ibsen? There are many others that did reach outside of Norway/Scandinavia. Maybe you have read many of them without knowing they are Norwegian.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_literature

>Had he not supported the German war effort, he would have been much more known.

I think he was appreciated enough, and Thomas Mann was a huge fan of his.

I have actually not read Min Kamp yet, but I like his poetry.

Why don't you like him?

Ibsen, yes, heard of him, but never read anything by him. Any recommendations?

>decide to read the bible
>major referenced stories are literally 20 lines like the tower of babel
>finish the old testament and most of the new and feel completely empty

I genuinely don't think most people actually read the books they claim they're fans of.

The same thing happened to the best existential novelists from France (Pierre Drieu La Rochelle and LF Celine) they both wrote circles around Sartre and Camus but they supported the axis so they aren't talked about anymore. Nevertheless I was just fucking with you because you said reading was pointless.

Crime and Punishment is pretty decent and even somewhat redpilled. I read it some years back. It has a moderately intelligent MC plus the story destroys the Madonna-whore complex nicely. I have to say other works from Dostoyevsky like The Idiot and The Gambler are pretty much total trash though imo

War and Peace by Tolstoy is worth reading too, but it's length is grating and the conclusions rather unsatisfactory.

"Hamsun is considered to be "one of the most influential and innovative literary stylists of the past hundred years" (ca. 1890–1990).[4] He pioneered psychological literature with techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, and influenced authors such as Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Maxim Gorky, Stefan Zweig, Henry Miller, Hermann Hesse, and Ernest Hemingway.[5] Isaac Bashevis Singer called Hamsun "the father of the modern school of literature in his every aspect—his subjectiveness, his fragmentariness, his use of flashbacks, his lyricism. The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun".

I'm obviously biased though, I mostly read Norwegian literature and Knut Hamsun was my entry when I was a teenager. If you can get your hands on "Out Stealing Horses" by Roy Jacobsen you should really read it. It's short and easy to read but brilliant.

Well I mean I do like him in a way, he is a very good writer (have not read his poetry) but he is extremely egotistical I think...idk I might have been trolling a bit I did enjoy that book and you should read it..you're lucky because you don't have to read in translation

>If you can get your hands on "Out Stealing Horses" by Roy Jacobsen

Thanks, I'll look it up right away and order it if available!

He is a playwright tho, so what you are reading are essentially instructions for the stage. Its a different experience from reading a novel.

In my opinion, demons, crime and punishment and letters from the underground, in that order.

agreed. atheism is the real virus destroying the west. all other degeneracies come from it. dostoevsky realized this and turned form liberal to conservative.

>Have you every read anything by John Galsworthy?

Never, sadly, but I'm all ears if you have some of his works to suggest.

Peer Gynt is wonderful. However, you have to make sure you don't get too caught up in all the larping and ridiculousness. It has the tendency to come off as a somewhat nonsensical read because of how weird it is, but there's a lot to dig your teeth into.

Also would recommend "Lillelord" by Johan Borgen. It's a 10/10, although I don't know how good the translation is

>the Whites will always have lost

Why must history be so cruel? Why?

I thoroughly enjoyed the Forsyte Saga, at least the first two novels.
>Peer Gynt is wonderful
Thanks, added to my list!

Hamsun's "Wanderer" novels are amazing. it pisses me off that he gets shunned. He didn't even like Hitler he btfo'd him when they met. He just wanted to preserve his own country.

>Also would recommend "Lillelord" by Johan Borgen

Thanks for this too.

Isaiah has some bretty gud prose, unironically.

Not my favourite, but Chekhov is fundamentally different from Dostoevsky.
He wrote about real life and real people, with deep psychological liking. Actually, many of his acquaintances were bewildered due to the fact that he based his plots and characters on them.

Dostoevsky centred his works on spirituality and ideas as he saw it.

The problem with him is that although he is considered to capture "mysterious Russian soul" in the West, his writing has very little to do with describing Russian way of life and people.

Chekhov did that.

old testament is a pastiche of everything tho
it has erotic poetry ffs

Dostoyevsky also inspired me to go to an Orthodox Church so I count him as a personal friend.

it's more than that and you have to read Purgatorio and Paradiso to get true value. Basically the three epic poems can be summed up with these goals.
Inferno: Correction of Will
Purgatorio: Perfection of Will (first half), Correction of Intellect (second half)
Paradiso: Perfection of Intellect

It goes into how you should behave, why you should and then later goes onto deeper theological issues such as why Jesus had to die for our sins, what is happening on Earth, why God lets us suffer, etc.

Have you even read Crime and Punishment??

Yes, I did.

Why would I trust a degenerate renaissance poet for that kind of advice? Serious question

I don't like him too much, but "A Doll's House" is one of the most famous plays.

I didn't say that

I don't know if the translation is good or not, but I imagine Norwegian translates easily into German.

I also recommend the Forsyte Saga. Really good stuff.

Well that is "real life" and deeply psychological. I don't see why you are saying Dostoyevsky never did that because he was great at it.

Oh it was another poster (I don't really look at ID's)

the based Karl Ove Knausgård

Thank you, I'll read it.

I have the same prob with Karamasov. Try Shakespear. It really is good and readable stuff. And you got it in original by default.

Why would you trust anyone for anything? We're all degenerate (sinners) to some extent. You're going to find this laughable but I'll tell you anyway. He writes the poem as if it actually happened to him. He often states in certain points he has difficulty remembering what some of the souls he meets have said, but his claim throughout the entire poem is that this actually happened. Take that for what you will, even if your kneejerk reaction is to immediately laugh. You'll find the insights in the poem are more than profound and life-changing.

Read Nietzsche. His books are short and quite entertaining. Voltaire's Candide is very short and entertaining. Many classics are large as fuck though. I wonder if anyone has actually read all of Don Quixote for instance.

I didn't say he wasn't great, but it is, how to put it, unconnected with day-to day life. There are no people like these around. The difference between him and a realistic writer is like between an Icon and a Portrait.

It's said that Hamsun wanted to talk politics with Hitler, while Hitler wanted to talk literature.

He supported the Germans because he believed they would place Norway on the map, and he hated the British with a passion. They caused starvation in Norway under WW1 and he didn't like the cultural influences from there. Just like most people in Europe that care are against American cultural influence on our societies.

Only read books you're interested in you faggot. I read Great Expectations because I wanted to and every page was like Dickens personally jacking me off.

Well i was genuinely wondering and that is interesting. I am debating reading that or City of God first because lately I am pursuing Christian writers..both are very long so it will be a commitment.

It is disgusting garbage written by a failure and fanatic.

Atheist """intellectuals""" Nietzsche was a literal degenerate. His books are trash.

On a side note, threads like these is why I visit this degenerate filth piece of shit site.

Ah that is a good metaphor. My favorite Russian book is little known The Petty Demon by Sologub.

Same. They are too rare

I haven't read City of God but have been meaning to. I almost finished Confessions by Augustine and you would be surprised at how skeptical he was about the church and God for so long. It's basically his auto-biography on how much he fought with wanting to believe in God. The man is brilliant.

I think the most interesting thing is that all these works my first reaction is that they seem long and tedious, but when I read them they're so rich and completely change my life, more than any other literature I've read thus far. It's a weird paradox in how the things that often entice us are decadent, while those that seem stale actually full of life.

Céline is still huge despite the kikes being butthurt, however I don't know if his work translate really well.

I know that the books from this era (1800-1900) tended to be published in serials and so the authors voluntarly added useless descriptions in order to make it the longest possible.

Anyway you shouldn't read them if you are not interested by the historical period, because they are that first and foremost: historical documents.
I remember trying to read War and Peace when I was younger and dropping at something like page 100 or so because I had barely any historical knowledge about it, then I began to gain some interest in the napoleonic era years late and then swalowed the book in a month.

>Of course I won't get any answer except abuse
glad you realize you're a retarded faggot

its a frame of mind.

try reading it like a marathon or like a road trip. not the 100 yard dash or NASCAR. it is a bunch of small things that add up over time to make an experience.

That is understandable. As an American I can say our cultur is a sewer (well at least for the 100 years) but it was designed that way.

Just watch the movie version.

Everyone knows In the Hall of the Mountain King even if they don't know Ibsen's Norwegian lyrics.

youtube.com/watch?v=9qAc4qWc7rU

Idiot.

That is very apt what you say; just this morning I realized I have always trained my skepticism and doubt toward what is good in me rather than what is bad, which seems absurd but i don't think it is uncommon (it is the basis of psychoanalysis really) and Christian lit is nowhere in the curriculum of schools for some reason. Thanks for the insight btw.

Out Stealing Horses is by Per Petersen, not Roy Jacobsen or so Google tells me

librarything.com/work/492427

>no argument
You can't defend Nietzsche or Hegel or Heidegger for that matter..Germany has been the epicenter for the fall of Europe since Roman times.

I've read two of his and they are great but he isn't given much credit in academia.

novels are an inherently inefficient model of communicating ideas because they're forced by the customs of their medium to "paint a picture" through words rather than simply showing them. Film, paintings, theater, video games; essentially any visual medium is better than a fucking book, and takes a thousandth of the time to understand

Bored with these classics?

Read the strugatzki brothers or gogol.

Yes we should just let ourselves be enthralled by images like the Pharoah's slaves. You really are an asshole

>who abandoned Christianity

implying thats a bad thing...

maybe if you're a fiction-reading peasant

You ment to say Pelevin, right?

>implying it is a good thing

That's what I meant, fiction books are shit compared to other forms of entertainment

non-fiction still has a place

Just because you are illiterate does not mean fiction is bad. What a narcissist you must be to project so hard.