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Thread: Russian Literature vs. The World.

  1. #46
    Artist and Bibliophile stlukesguild's Avatar
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    WyattGwon-Who's best threads are tiresome. This one attains great heights of silliness. Proust (massively trivial) a better novelist than Tolstoy? Please! Seriously comparing Flaubert with Dostoyevsky? (putting aside the insurmountable apples and oranges thing) Yeah right. (To JBI: perfection is overrated and a pretty cheap aspiration; If you want a perfect French novel, Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris—or Les Miserables—is a better choice.) Has no one recognized Kafka's debt to Gogol and Dostoyevsky? If you are talking about Goethe, why Werther and Elective Infinities (snore) instead of Wilhelm Meister?

    Anyway, Russia and France produced lots of great literature and I see no point in this exasperating comparative rating game.

    Bely, Aksyanov, Bunin, Babel, Platonov, Nabokov, Grossman? Bulgakov was mentioned at least, if not well appreciated.


    JBI-Thank you for your comments, however ridiculous and self centered.

    You seem to be of the mind that only authors passing your approval, or writers you like are worth mentioning, and we are all fools for only slightly and not over-praisingly mentioning Balgakov and the like, so I will say, do I need to say more? Your argument speaks to the maturity and seriousness, as well as the respect your opinion seems to hold for others. At least you could have mentioned something about the texts besides the essential quality they have of you liking them (which, by the way, is irrelevant to anybody else).


    As for these types of threads being tiresome, I agree with you wholeheartedly - however, you fueling them with statements of everyone is wrong but me, and "this author is better because I say he is" doesn't quite do anything that isn't tiresome either.


    I'm pretty much in agreement with JBI here. Proust is massively trivial why? Because you don't like him. Because there are no great battle scene? No car chases and explosions? Impressionism stands as one of the great movements in the whole of art in spite of the fact that the subject matter was largely "tivial": paintings of flowers, still-life, landscapes, friends and family of the artists, Paris nightlife, ballerinas... Flaubert and the whole of perfectionism is overrated why? Again because you say so? And "seriously"... The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Les Miserables as a better example of "perfection"? I can't think of a critic who hasn't suggested that either novel would have greatly benefited from some serious editing. As much as I like both books, they are great, imperfect, sprawling masterworks laden with unnecessary digressions ala Don Quixote. As for Gogol's influence upon Kafka... it is possible, but I can't remember coming across his name in any of Kafka's notebooks. How well translated was Gogol at the time? The obvious influences include The Bible and various Jewish narratives including Yiddish folk tales, Don Quixote, Goethe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Flaubert, Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Darwin... all mentioned in his notebooks.

    Again... I quite like a lot of Russian literature... but the comparative thing is ridiculous... especially when it is based on little more than what the individual likes... and more often than not is based on a limited reading experience... not even having read many of the major works of a culture that one is dismissing as "minor".
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  2. #47
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    Oh, without quesiton. Kafka knew and owned Dostoievisky book, often mentioning Gogol like Crime and Punishment. He has too much formal traits, not just the storyline plot. I think he mentions reading gogol essays to Max Brood and also that General Inspector was the finest play. Plus, at that time, Russians are already getting popular in the english world, germany was the bridge and a closer link, I have no doubt Kafka could get a gogol.

    I do not think this imply that the fantastic of Kafka was necessarily born from Gogol (but the contept for burocracy yes), considering the source of gogol fantastic was german and closeby to kafka.
    Last edited by JCamilo; 05-10-2011 at 11:38 PM.

  3. #48
    Alea iacta est. mortalterror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JBI View Post
    As for these types of threads being tiresome, I agree with you wholeheartedly - however, you fueling them with statements of everyone is wrong but me, and "this author is better because I say he is" doesn't quite do anything that isn't tiresome either.
    I actually quite enjoy these types of debates. I wouldn't mind having more of them; but like most discussions, whatever the subject, the quality is largely dependent upon the intellectual level of the speakers involved. When Plutarch does it, it's a masterpiece. When I do it, it's something less. That doesn't mean that I don't have a deep and abiding curiosity or opinions about which writers are best at their respective crafts: Yeats vs Eliot, Goethe vs Hugo, Milton vs Tasso, Petrarch vs Chaucer, Baudelaire vs Whitman, Euripides vs Racine, Dickens vs Dostoyevski, Cervantes vs Tolstoy, etc. The whole history of western literature is based upon agon or contest. Supposedly, it's this constant striving with one another, each attempting to be the best, which motivates and drives us to higher and higher levels of achievement. How could that be tedious?

    Because of this thread, I went out and read The Death of Ivan Ilyich the other day, and I don't even like Tolstoy. I just wanted a refresher on what his writing style looked like. It had me thinking about certain parallel themes in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. The debate between Tolstoy's War and Peace versus Flaubert's Madame Bovary for best novel got me thinking about Chinese literature, because they have these great sprawling massive novels like War and Peace or In Search of Lost Time, but I haven't seen their trim flawless Madame Bovary, and I wondered if they had one. I read a bit more of their poetry as I thought about it and I wondered where they were hiding their epics. They have giant plays and giant novels, so where are their giant poems? Every other society has them, so why not the Chinese?

    Unlike JBI or Stlukesguild, I do find these discussions stimulating.
    Last edited by mortalterror; 05-10-2011 at 11:40 PM.
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    But, the real question... how much less than Plutarch ?

  5. #50
    Alea iacta est. mortalterror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JCamilo View Post
    But, the real question... how much less than Plutarch ?
    Quite a bit, I'm afraid.

    Whom shall I set so great a man to face?
    Or whom oppose? Who's equal to the place?
    -Aeschylus

    If I were to name a proper opponent for Plutarch, the great biographer, it would have to either be Giorgio Vasari or Dr. Samuel Johnson.
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    Personally. I'd prefer debating who'd win in a fight.

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    Well, Mortal have seen Kung fu movies, which Plutarch has no idea what is... so I think he has an advantage...

  8. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr.lucifer View Post
    Personally. I'd prefer debating who'd win in a fight.
    This. Dostoevsky does look to be stronger than Flaubert, so I'd bet on him.

  9. #54
    Bibliophile JBI's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mortalterror View Post
    I actually quite enjoy these types of debates. I wouldn't mind having more of them; but like most discussions, whatever the subject, the quality is largely dependent upon the intellectual level of the speakers involved. When Plutarch does it, it's a masterpiece. When I do it, it's something less. That doesn't mean that I don't have a deep and abiding curiosity or opinions about which writers are best at their respective crafts: Yeats vs Eliot, Goethe vs Hugo, Milton vs Tasso, Petrarch vs Chaucer, Baudelaire vs Whitman, Euripides vs Racine, Dickens vs Dostoyevski, Cervantes vs Tolstoy, etc. The whole history of western literature is based upon agon or contest. Supposedly, it's this constant striving with one another, each attempting to be the best, which motivates and drives us to higher and higher levels of achievement. How could that be tedious?

    Because of this thread, I went out and read The Death of Ivan Ilyich the other day, and I don't even like Tolstoy. I just wanted a refresher on what his writing style looked like. It had me thinking about certain parallel themes in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. The debate between Tolstoy's War and Peace versus Flaubert's Madame Bovary for best novel got me thinking about Chinese literature, because they have these great sprawling massive novels like War and Peace or In Search of Lost Time, but I haven't seen their trim flawless Madame Bovary, and I wondered if they had one. I read a bit more of their poetry as I thought about it and I wondered where they were hiding their epics. They have giant plays and giant novels, so where are their giant poems? Every other society has them, so why not the Chinese?

    Unlike JBI or Stlukesguild, I do find these discussions stimulating.
    There is a difference. The bulk of Western literature is not based on saying who is better, but on comparing to show strengths and weaknesses, especially against a theoretical ideal of one sort or another - that's what we call, after all, history and evaluation.

    So when someone like Vasari does it in his lives of the artists, he does it with the simple idea in mind that he will create a tradition (somewhat trivially albeit) from a classical precedent, and then expand on development, theoretical views of art, and then comparison of artists, as a way of demonstrating artwork (throwing in anecdotal and biography of course).

    The idea of based on contest seems a half truth, it is more to be based on comparison than direct competitiveness.

  10. #55
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    And "seriously"... The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Les Miserables as a better example of "perfection"? I can't think of a critic who hasn't suggested that either novel would have greatly benefited from some serious editing. As much as I like both books, they are great, imperfect, sprawling masterworks laden with unnecessary digressions ala Don Quixote
    They may not be perfect novels but they do have something about them. I think that it's practically impossible for a novel to be structurally perfect- there's bound to be some pretty passages that are ultimately unnecessary- but the tone and emotions it provokes can be almost perfect.

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    Artist and Bibliophile stlukesguild's Avatar
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    They may not be perfect novels but they do have something about them. I think that it's practically impossible for a novel to be structurally perfect- there's bound to be some pretty passages that are ultimately unnecessary- but the tone and emotions it provokes can be almost perfect.

    I am not suggesting that they are aesthetic failures any more than Don Quixote... or Shakespeare, for that matter, who is sometimes faulted for his digressions as opposed to Racine.
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  12. #57
    Registered User WyattGwyon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JBI View Post
    Thank you for your comments, however ridiculous and self centered.

    You seem to be of the mind that only authors passing your approval, or writers you like are worth mentioning, and we are all fools for only slightly and not over-praisingly mentioning Balgakov and the like, so I will say, do I need to say more? Your argument speaks to the maturity and seriousness, as well as the respect your opinion seems to hold for others. At least you could have mentioned something about the texts besides the essential quality they have of you liking them (which, by the way, is irrelevant to anybody else).


    As for these types of threads being tiresome, I agree with you wholeheartedly - however, you fueling them with statements of everyone is wrong but me, and "this author is better because I say he is" doesn't quite do anything that isn't tiresome either.
    Quote Originally Posted by WyattGwyon View Post
    Who's best threads are tiresome. This one attains great heights of silliness. Proust (massively trivial) a better novelist than Tolstoy? Please! Seriously comparing Flaubert with Dostoyevsky? (putting aside the insurmountable apples and oranges thing) Yeah right. (To JBI: perfection is overrated and a pretty cheap aspiration; If you want a perfect French novel, Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris—or Les Miserables—is a better choice.) Has no one recognized Kafka's debt to Gogol and Dostoyevsky? If you are talking about Goethe, why Werther and Elective Infinities (snore) instead of Wilhelm Meister?

    Anyway, Russia and France produced lots of great literature and I see no point in this exasperating comparative rating game.

    Bely, Aksyanov, Bunin, Babel, Platonov, Nabokov, Grossman? Bulgakov was mentioned at least, if not well appreciated.

    Oh okay, though I am quite inclined to agree with your rebuttal, I'll explain some of my thinking starting with the easy bits. The list of Russian authors at the end was to suggest that a discussion aspiring to a comprehensive comparison of Russian literature with that of other cultures should perhaps not ignore so many important authors.

    JCamilo has adequately addressed the Kafka and Gogol issue. I will only add a concrete example — Kafka: Man wakes up to find himself an insect. Attempts to go about his business despite this distressing development (and without addressing the deep metaphysical questions one would think might be foremost in his mind.) Gogol: Man wakes up to find his nose is missing. Attempts to go about his business despite this distressing development (and without addressing the deep metaphysical questions one would think might be foremost in his mind.) The second description is of the beginning of The Nose; you know Kafka. It's obvious, no?

    Perfection and Hugo: Notre Dame de Paris contains two large digressions. But since they are discreet chapters, there would be no point in editing them out. One simply skips them, just as one skips the every-artwork-that-ever-had-a-whale-as-its-subject chapter in Moby Dick. I would suggest it was expected and conventional to do so. Otherwise, the novel has nothing extra, nothing wasted. The sheer genius of the opening scene, wherein virtually every one of the novel's characters is introduced in the same public setting, the perfect unity of theme and story (spider/fly/sun — Frollo/Esmeralda/Phoebus), the clockwork unfolding of the intricate plot, the sheer poetry of the descriptions. I could go on . . .

    Les Miserables is a tougher nut. But consider just the biggest digression, the description of the Battle of Waterloo. It is brilliant in its own right as a historical document but the reason it is novelistically brilliant is that it is all a set up to put Thernadier's role in the battle (picking the pockets of corpses) in relief. Thernadier's self-aggrandizement becomes the butt of a cosmic joke. It's hilarious and devastatingly effective. As for the sewers of Paris: Once again, skip it. It would be conventional to do so. Otherwise . . . well I don't think I need defend the novel's widely acknowledged qualities, many of which it holds in common with Notre Dame de Paris.

    In short, I don't think the kind of conventional digressions found in these works count against novelistic perfection.

    I will address the rest of the issues in another post as this one is getting long. Stay tuned . . .

    Quote Originally Posted by stlukesguild View Post

    France vs Russia? I would argue that this would be a blow out. Only the British in the West might rival them. Proust in surely every bit the equal to Tolstoy... and if he weren't we could throw in Zola for good measure. Flaubert could dispense with Dostoevsky... and if he had any difficulty we'd always have Balzac to back him up. That would leave Victor Hugo... not only the novelist, but the towering critic and poet to do away with Pushkin. Checkoff? Moliere and Cornielle can handle him... and we still have Racine, Jean Genet, Beaumarchais, and half a dozen other major playwrights. What does this leave the Russians? A half dozen 20th century poets (are they any match for Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarme, Rimbaud, Ronsard, and easily a dozen other major poets? Bely, Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn, and Turgenev vs Montaigne, Rousseau, and Voltaire? With La Fontaine, Stendhal, Maupassant, Valery, Sartre, Camus, Rabelais, Alfred Jarry, Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, and at least several dozen others left in reserve. If the Napoleonic invasion had been a war of French literature vs the Russians the outcome would have been quite different.
    Okay, I will indulge this game a bit.

    Re: The comparison of Flaubert and Dostoyevsky.
    First of all, this seems a dreadful category error to me. Two completely different conceptions of novelistic aesthetics. On one hand, polished perfection of expression in which every word is labored over. The aesthetics of poetry foisted on a foreign domain one might argue. Dostoyevsky would have found this whole notion tedious and absurd and to avoid even thinking about it he attributed the prose of most of his major novels to naive narrators within the novel (Devils, Brothers Karamazov, Adolescent, many shorter works as well). He had bigger fish to fry. Like revolutionizing the process of characterization (Rhav: "the first novelist to have fully accepted and dramatized the principle of uncertainty or indeterminacy in the presentation of character") and the relation between author and subject (Bakhtin: the dialogic stance, polyphony, heteroglosia.) A whole new conceptual vocabulary had to be generated to even describe Dostoyevsky's innovations. The psychological realism resulting from these (and other) innovations influenced or cast a shadow over countless later novelists, dramatists, and writers of screen plays. Can anything remotely like this be said of Flaubert? If influence is a relevant criterion, there is no comparison.

    Proust and Tolstoy? Similar category error. Same outcome. Bely is probably a more apt comparison. If I ever finish his seven novels I'll be in a position to render an opinion on how he stacks up.

    One final comment: You seem to know your French literature much better than your Russian, hence, I suspect, the failure to mention numerous important Russian novelists and poets. If you insist on running your war game, you might want to avoid Napoleon's errors: Understand the lay of the land a bit more thoroughly, don't send your troupes into a foreign domain they don't comprehend and with which they will have no idea how to deal (alluding here to whole new vistas of theory and aesthetics), and more fully assess the depth of your opponent's reserves.

    This being said, I would be hard-pressed to render an opinion on the general issue of French versus Russian literature. But then I'm a pacifist in this regard and love both.

    One more thing: My answers on perfection and Hugo, Kafka, etc. ended up in a response to JBI above.

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    Look, the problem is that there is a story about a man who sundenly wakes up and find himself sick, poor, attacked by his family and friends and abadoned by God. It is Job. Kafka knew this one as well. Of course, I wont, after mentioning Kafka's closest friend afirmation dismiss a link between Kafka and Gogol. It is not just the fantastic (which both belong to the romantic germanic tradition anyways) but also the ironic criticism of burocracy. One could point Kafka's jewish style against Gogol (and general russian) anti-semetism, but then, Kafka is mofe jew when he denies it. The thing, is that sometimes the precussor is not exactly better. Oscar Wilde is a precussor of Borges, Charlotte Bronte of Virginia Woolf, Marlowe of Shakespeare, etc. Showing a link between Kafka and Gogol only shows a link between Kafka and Gogol. Nothing else.

    As Dostoievisky and Flaubert? Why not? It is not wonder both are precussors of Joyces, Woolfs, etc. Because there is strength in both. What about the cynical view of society (of course, with Flaubert a violent negation and Dostoievisky a christian-socialist mix), the work with their voice hidding behind every character? All depends the point of view, but I would deny Dostoievisky would find Flaubert boring. The closest we can have as novelist is Tolstoy and Dostoievisky admired the count and many times complained he would write as him if he had the time the count had.

    About perfection, this is silly. If a huge work is perfect and also brillant (i would say some works are perfect, but just normal.) it is the Comedy. And it is not perfect. Hugo is very good, that is all.

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    Registered User WyattGwyon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by stlukesguild View Post

    I'm pretty much in agreement with JBI here. Proust is massively trivial why? Because you don't like him. Because there are no great battle scene? No car chases and explosions? Impressionism stands as one of the great movements in the whole of art in spite of the fact that the subject matter was largely "tivial": paintings of flowers, still-life, landscapes, friends and family of the artists, Paris nightlife, ballerinas... Flaubert and the whole of perfectionism is overrated why? Again because you say so?
    My distrust and low opinion of perfection (I didn't say anything about perfectionism I don't think) is part of an intuitive sense of novelistic aesthetics that this discussion may help me to refine. The main issue is this: Beautiful, poetic prose, word-polishing, whatever you want to call it—that quality in the name of which Nabokov (Essays on Russian Literature) laid Dostoyevsky low and elevated Turgenev—the very quality Nabokov cultivated in his own prose and for which he rated Bely's Petersburg as one of the four greatest works of 20thc. literature, has never struck me as an essential value in the composition of novels. In poetry, certainly, but not in narrative literature. To cite an extreme example: Consider Gaddis's JR. It is virtually all dialogue and probably more than half of it is in sentence fragments or ludicrously ungrammatical. Nary a polished sentence throughout. And yet it is a masterpiece of a novel. It records with frightening precision the tenor of its times, the modes of expression adopted by many of its inhabitants, and the state of their consciousnesses. These, to me, are, arguably, more essential qualities one should expect from novels. Not that I mind poetic prose. Petersburg, in the excellent English translation I read, was gorgeously poetic and a great novel by the values I consider more central as well. "Give me chaos and the true expression of life as it is spoken and lived and save the poetry for . . . well, poetry," is a statement I don't even really believe but which I nevertheless feel like shouting when I read many novels with flawless poetic prose.

    And yes, the car chases and explosions in Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Hugo are vastly preferable to flowers and ballerinas.

    Quote Originally Posted by JCamilo View Post
    All depends the point of view, but I would deny Dostoievisky would find Flaubert boring. The closest we can have as novelist is Tolstoy and Dostoievisky admired the count and many times complained he would write as him if he had the time the count had.
    You misunderstood me. I wasn't saying Dostoyevsky would find Flaubert boring, I was saying he would have found writing in that style intolerable—perhaps even if he was so disposed and capable of it.

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