Originally Posted by
Inderjit Sanghe
I have read "Oblomov" by Goncharov and thought that it was ok and amusing at times, though he is certainly not my favourite Russian author!
Using "Anna Karenina" and "The Brothers Karamazov" as typical examples of Russian Literature is a tad silly-it is kind of like saying "Les Misérables" and "Rememberance of Things Past" are typical French novels! Yes, both book are quite long, and both can be slow, especially Anna Karenina, but there are other stories by both authors which may be a bit more "accessible"-Dostoevskii's short-stories, such as "The Double" and "The Gambler" may be a lot easier to read, whilst his philosophical novel "Notes from the Underground" may not be a page-turner, but it is a hell of a lot shorter than "The Brothers Karamazov"-together with a lot of Kierkegaard’s philosophical works, it could also be labelled as being one of the founding texts of existentialism, a form of art which would be one of the most intellectually important movements of the 20th century both in literature (Kafka, Camus, Ellison, Moravia, Unamuno) philosophy (Sartre, de Beauvoir, Foucault) and film (directors such as Fellini, Bergman and Goddard and movies such as 'Taxi Driver' and 'Fight Club'.) Tolstoii also wrote several excellent short stories-such as "The Death of Ivan Ilyich". Russia in fact has a fine short story writing traditions-writers such as Turgenev, Chekov, Pushkin and Gogol partly specialised in short stories, whereas Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" are pretty accessible too. One of the most important works of Russian literature, Lermontov's "A Hero of Our Time" is also relatively short-Russia has some great epics, but it also has some great short stories too!
My favourite Russian short stories are "Diary of a Madman", "The Nose" and "The Overcoat" by Gogol, "First Love" by Turgenev and "The Steppe" by Chekov.