The cliché long novel, War and Peace, comes to us from Tolstoy; Dostoyevsky's works are not to be trifled with. Russian authors seem to be notorious for writing incomprehensibly long novels.
But it doesn't end there! When was the last time you sat down to a nice Russian film marathon... and managed to finish one Tartovsky classic before everyone petered out and went home? A three-hour flick is standard in Mother Russia.
And music! Tchaikovsky? Beautiful music, and lots of it.
My friend and I decided the long winters must benefit their attention spans. What do you think?
Posted by ak (Member # 90) on :
Ah, but they are such good stories, though, that you don't ever want them to end!
I love the Russians!
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I loved War and Peace and will undoubtly never ever read it again.
Hobbes Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :
I would recommend Anton Chekhov if you're a fan of Russian literature. Not only are his stories short, they're also insanely amusing and often strange.
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
I think it is pretty common that when culture crosses over along the lines of academia and literature, what gets passed are the pieces that are heavy with social value and/or meaning. The Russians are naturally a fairly passionate and wordy people so length happens.
But they have their fair share of standard length romantic comedies, action flicks, science fiction, and fairytales. They have lots and lots of cartoons. You've got to see the Russian Winnie the Pooh. Disney's version is stilted and condescending in comparison.
Posted by Leo Tolstoy (Member # 6436) on :
To understand the answer to this question, you need to go to a small farm, somewhere outside St. Petersburg, on a winter's night in 1917.
For eight nights, now, the snow had been falling, and Gregor Adreveivich was a man in despair. Outside, the drifts had banked up against the rough wooden door of their simple hut - which was no more than a single room with a low fire of dung, burning pungently in the centre. His wife, Ursula Adreveivich, who's father Igor Drevenochick was the local moneylender, was in labour, and had been since the previous winter, when the snow drifts had piled high against the rough wooden door of their simple hut.
Meanwhile, in the distant palace of the fourth epoch, in far away Moscow, Gregor Andrevevivich's twin brother, Ivan Adreveivivch, was lookign out at into a foul evening. The snow was falling, and piling in high drifts against the elaborate double bronze doors of the palace. Ivan had left the family farm outside St. Petersburg many years earlier, after a falling out with the local priest over the price of a pig. He had left in the dead of night, in the dead of winter, when the snowdrifts piled high against the rough wooden doors of the town huts, after a night of drinking vodka in the town tavern, and had sworn then never to return.
Now though, he gazed out into the Moscow night, watching the snow driving from the black sky with the force of a thousand steam engines, and wondering if he had made the right choice, all those years ago.
Two floors below, Ivan's mistress, the princess Anastasia Vladivostockivich tossed in restless sleep. These cold nights, when the snow would pile in high drifts in the open portals of the palace walls, always made her restless, taking her back to a time long before, when she had not been the fifth in line to the russian throne, but rather, just a simple peasant girl, living in her father's hut, high in the Urals, happily subsisting on a diet of bear kidneys and gruel. Back then, the winters hadn't seemed so harsh - the snow would only ever pile a little way up the door of their rough wooden hut, and the dung in their fires smelt somehow sweeter. But that was before the Prince, Czar Nikolas' youngest son, had ridden through their land with his band of Cossack fighters, and had claimed her heart as his own.
Meanwhile, in the deep snow outside Saint Petersburg, a lone figure struggled his way toward the dull light of a distant farm. Doctor Karl Marxinichikov had such high expectations upon leaving the medical school in Moscow four years earlier, and yet now, here he was, wading through the snowy darkness towards the house of Gregor Andrevevivich, to try to bring some relief in the birth of Gregor's ninth child. Stopping, Marxinichikov took a swig of vodka from the bottle he carried in a pocket, and stopped to consider his surroundings. How had he ended up here? In this tiny hamlet, where the snow would pile high against the doors of the rough wooden hut? Tending to peasants and those who fate, or circumstance led to his door. Living on Yak's cheese and vodka, with only his aging housekeeper, Irina Keepayouhandsoff for company on these bitter winter nights, when the Snow drifts would completely engulf the house. What had he done to offend the almighty?
Sighing, Karl Marxinichikov battled the last few miles through the waist high snow, until he finally reached the rough wooden hut wherin dwelled Gregor Andrevevivich. The door was buried by the drifting snow, and it took Marxinichkov some time to struggle onto the roof and down the rough wooden chimney. The smell of burning dung stung his eyes behind the lenses of his small, round, wire framed glasses.
"Marxinichikov, my friend." Exclaimed Gregor Andrevevivich, as the doctor landed feet first in a pile of smouldering dung. "You have made it all this way, and on such a bitter night as this, when the snow is piling high against the doors of our rough wooden huts."
"Da." Marxinixhikov replied, turning his attention to the distended form of Ursula Adreveivich, who lay in agony on the couple's rough wooden bed. "How long has she been in pain?"
"all her life, doctor, all her life, but that is the plight of the working class, and we bear it with dignity." Replied Gregor Andreveivich, sadly.
There's more to the story, but I thought that might clear up a few of your queries....
[ April 10, 2004, 03:08 AM: Message edited by: Leo Tolstoy ]
Posted by Da_Goat (Member # 5529) on :
Those Germans... When will they realize that it isn't size that matters?
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
*response to thread title*
They're a talkative sort?
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
I was taught that they were paid by the page.
I'll see I can find anything to support this.
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
aren't all writers paid that way?
*waits for his ship to come in. the one bearing the football-field length check*
fallow
Posted by Rappin' Ronnie Reagan (Member # 5626) on :
Annie, you should feel flattered. Tolstoy cared enough about your thread to come back from the dead and post in it.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
"I was taught that they were paid by the page."
Ladydove, since you said that, I am wondering if the novels came out in a series, like Dickens' did.
"The Russians are naturally a fairly passionate and wordy people so length happens."
Amka, this sentence is beautiful.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Leo...that was nice.
I would like ot add that Brothers Karamazov was not only long, but good, and I felt like I'd accopmlished a lot in reading it, until I found out that I'd inadvertently picked up the abridged version!!!
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
"When the first installment of Crime and Punishment appeared in the journal Russian Messenger in January of 1866, its debt-ridden author, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, had not yet finished writing the novel. However, even before the entire work had appeared in serial form, the novel was a public success."
But yes, we have said at our house that this composer has a bit of a problem with endings.. they kind of go on, and on, and on, with several "possible" endings.
Many composers of that era, however, were that way.
...kind of like the ending of LOTR, ROTK....
Farmgirl
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I read War and Peace twice, and Anna Karenina three times. But I'm not sane. I think I've only read The Brothers Karamazov twice, though sections of it repeatedly.
Maybe this is why, when I want to re read an OSC book, I always have to read the whole series.
P.S. You wouldn't believe how much American Literature I have *not* read. I think The Great Gatsby is about the only one.
[ April 10, 2004, 09:37 AM: Message edited by: pooka ]
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Pooka, I have probably read more English and Russian lit than American as well. I never really thought about that until now. I have always loved Russian literature, even some of the weird, obscure Soviet era stuff. I took Russian in college, and we had to take a lit course. The Master and Margarita was one of my all time favorites. Still kind of creeps me out thinking about it.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
So, if I want to write as well as Tolstoy, I should do it when the snow is piled high against the door of my wooden hut?
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
That, and make sure you don't take ANY vitamin D, so you can really feel the effects of a sunless winter.
Posted by Sal (Member # 3758) on :
Alexander Volkov, after translating "The Wizard of Oz" into Russian, went on to write (at least) five sequels of his own. They were by far the most popular kids' books in my family. I never wanted them to end. Too bad it's so hard to get an English translation!
Posted by Sal (Member # 3758) on :
Oh, regarding the initial question: I think because the Russians, overall, are a very cultured people. They're your proverbial readers (at least until very recently). A writer in Russia knew that his or her stuff would be read, no matter how long it was, as long as it was any good (and made it through censorship).
Riding the subway, almost everybody used to read something. The vast majority of people could recite a surprisingly large amount of poems. One of my roommates at Moscow State University used to talk almost exclusively in Shakespeare quotes (in Russian translation--most of the time I had no idea what he was talking about), and he was a physics student.
On the Moscow cemetery Vagankovskoje, where many Russian poets are buried, the grave of poet Sergej Eseninalways had fresh flowers, even though he'd been dead for 70 years or so (yes, the guy who had been married, among others, to American dancer Isidora Duncan and later to the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoi, and who wrote his last poem in his own blood before hanging himself.) To get to the grave of modern actor and singer/songwriter Vyssotski, you actually had to bring your own flowers, otherwise the dense crowd wouldn't let you through.
All right, since I'm in anecdotal mood now:
Once, before traveling to Russia's far north, I grabbed a copy of "Doctor Zhivago" (in Russian) as a potential present. It felt a little silly, except that I knew it was hard to get in the Soviet Union at that time. I gave it to a woman who was our host in the middle of nowhere, pretty much exactly on the Arctic circle. I've never seen anybody so happy about a gift of mine! (I promptly learned that Pasternak's granddaughter stayed just two cabins down the road...)
I had another surprise in a very different part of Russia two years ago. In Petropavlovsk Kamchatski (at the very end of Siberia, north of Japan) I went to various bookstores--and saw a bunch of OSC translations! (His name looks kinda funny in cyrillic.) There were even one or two "Bean" books that hadn't yet been translated into German at that point.
[ April 10, 2004, 01:45 PM: Message edited by: Sal ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
*becomes a Salhead
Posted by Scythrop (Member # 5731) on :
Follows the CT lead. Also becomes a Salhead.
Posted by ak (Member # 90) on :
Sal's following grows by leaps and bounds.
Posted by kyrie (Member # 6415) on :
In all truth, i have always been taught that the long winnters were the cause for the long works of litature. The weather made for a lot of time for storys to be read aloud (wich was how the writers intended them to be read). I read "Anna Karenana" for school, and absolutly loved it, and am now a few hundered pages into "War and Peace."
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
So, what's the best Russian work ever?
I actually really like War and Peace
And for film, though Solaris is just cool, I recently saw another Tarkovsky film that takes the cake for me - Andrei Rublev.
Posted by ak (Member # 90) on :
For me, it's sort of a tie between "The Idiot", "Crime and Punishment", and "The Brothers Karamazov". Whichever one of those I'm currently reading is for me the greatest work of literature in the history of civilization. I think Tolstoy is great, too, but my favorite dear beloved one is Fyodor Mikailovich. When I read him, I realized for the first time that there are other people like me.
My favorite novel by Tolstoy is Anna Karenina. His best work ever I think is either "Family Happiness" or "The Death of Ivan Ilych" which are both stories or novellas, I guess.
Great shorter works by Dostoyevsky are "White Nights" (a story), "The Gambler", "The Insulted and the Humiliated" (which are short to medium length novels). There is another story I adore called "The Little Hero" which I can't find anywhere now. I would love to be able to read it again. It's absolutely brilliant transcendant Dostoyevsky. I can't believe it's been let go out of print.
Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" is wonderful too, also his "Torrents of Spring", and Gogol's Dead Souls. Who else? Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is another jewel of perfection.
Bulgakov is really terrific too! Whoever it is who loved The Master and Margarita, I did too! It was wonderful!
I love me my Russians.
[ April 11, 2004, 03:10 AM: Message edited by: ak ]
Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :
I haven't seen any mention of Mikhail Sholokov in any of the Hatrack Russian lit threads. He's the Russian dude that wrote the Don books, ie. And Quiet Flows the Don. I believe he's also a Nobel prize winner.
My dad went through a big phase in the 70s of reading all the Russian greats. He enjoyed them, but I don't think he has ever read any of them more than once. Consequently, I now own this great collection of Penguin Classics, which he bought in 1975. Pretty much everything by Dostoyevsky is here, a bunch of Tolstoy, and a few of Sholokov's novels. I've read most of the Dostoyevsky stuff, but never got past more than 100 pages of anything by Tolstoy. Tolstoy writes a mean short story, but I just can't get into his novels.
I was wondering if anyone else has read Sholokov, and if so, what did you think?
Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :
I just found my favorite Tolstoy story online. You can read it here, if you're interested.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
I loved the Master snd Margarita, and also "We," by Zamiatin. Very powerful.
Posted by MattB (Member # 1116) on :
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