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Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in the original | ||
Tags: Literature | Russian | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Luigi Diglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6931 days ago 113 posts - 135 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 17 04 May 2007 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Two of the greatest authors the world has ever known. Has anyone ever tried to read in Russian any of their masterpieces?
Is their language outdated and pompous, or, on the contrary is it something enjoyable, even for learners of Russian? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arti Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 7003 days ago 130 posts - 165 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: French, Czech | Message 2 of 17 04 May 2007 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I tried :D Actually it's still Russian language, just bookish and really pure, without contemprory slang and insults which has become a norm of everyday life... All I can say is that we don't speak in such manner as it was in 19th century, but no problems for understanding.Of course sometimes you'll find some outdated words, but there are not so many of them and in War and Peace Tolstoy uses French a lot, learn both languages Luigi ;-)
Personally I like language of Dostoyevsky more as it seems to be easier, Tolstoy's texts are overloaded by nature descriptions, fight descriptions, too much pages without dialogues. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Luigi Diglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6931 days ago 113 posts - 135 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Russian | Message 3 of 17 04 May 2007 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | ||
Thank you for your reply Arti. You bet I will learn both. ;-) Many Russian courses I have seen, however, teach the language having recourses to excerpts from those literary works. I wonder why they do that, given that the language is not very contemporary. I love Russian literature, and I do want to read "the brothers Karamazov" in English translation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Magnum Bilingual Triglot Retired Moderator Pro Member United States Joined 7108 days ago 359 posts - 353 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian*, French Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 17 04 May 2007 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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War and Peace was the greatest book I ever read. I could not put it down and finished it in 5 days. The book is fascinating in the backdrop of Napoleon invading Russia. But the story is rally about the love a man feels for a woman who can never be his because she is married to his best freind. War and Peace is not out of date. It may start slow, but it heats up and becomes impossible to put down.
Dostoevsky was much more difficult to read. I read 3 of his books, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and Notes from the Underground. I found myself very depressed reading Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky is a good writer and pulls the reader into the story, and in the case of Crime and Punishment the reader is pulled into the mind of a paranoid depressed madman who has no place in society. I have only read them in English and doubt I will get around to learning Russian. But I expect it is just as good or better in the original language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6934 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 5 of 17 05 May 2007 at 2:30pm | IP Logged | ||
As Arti remarked, their language at times sounds almost too "pure". I would add that it can be pure without crossing into archaic. There are, of course, some words that are no longer in use, there are occasionally word endings that have evolved since, and some of the dialogs will have forms of address and turns of speech that are no longer heard, but it is not like reading Shakespeare or Cervantes. This may vary from language to language, but 150 years or so seems to be a rough transition point to where more and more of the language can start sounding outdated. Classics from the 2nd half of the 19th century still clear that threshold, and they surely knew how to write, so properly selected passages from their works can make good learning material. Of course, one also needs exposure to modern conversation patterns. Edited by frenkeld on 05 May 2007 at 5:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| HazarRrd Hexaglot Groupie United States twitter.com/Armadill Joined 6711 days ago 52 posts - 55 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, SpanishB1, Russian*, Portuguese, French, Italian Studies: Japanese, German | Message 6 of 17 22 May 2007 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wouldn't say their laguage is too pure or too outdated. As famous modern Russian writer Tatiana Tolstaya(she's belongs to Tolstoy counts family, which Leo Tolstoy was a part of and she's a daughter of a famous science fiction writer Alexei Tolstoy) said,"One of the most wonderful things about Russian language is that you can read the poem by Alexander Pushkhin and perfectly understand the wording and vocabulary". Well, Pushkhin is definitely an exceptional case, however, one of the incredible features of Russian language is that it hasn't been changed dramatically for the past 150 years. IMHO
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| Nancyp Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6370 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 7 of 17 08 June 2007 at 6:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm sure books should be only read in original language. Translations, no matter how professional they are, can't reveal the genius of the author. Each word of these authors is a chef-d'œuvre!!!
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6430 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 8 of 17 08 June 2007 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||
I respectfully disagree. Many books, especially the well-written ones, are best read in the original language. However, there are too many languages with great works to learn them all, and a pale shadow of the original is better than nothing. Translations of literature tend to have a quite different 'flavor' from the original, but they don't lose everything. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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