Was there ever a book you thought you would love, but didn't?

[Pollopicu]

I haven't read anything by Dostoevsky, yet. I feel I would love his work. I've been looking forward to reading anything he's written. I even recently purchased "The Idiot", but surprisingly enough I chose not to read it after I finished my last novel a couple days ago. I guess I want to prolong the feeling of reading for the first time something brilliant.
If I read his work, and didn't love or understand it, I would be very sad and deeply disappointed.

Has this ever happened to a work you were looking forward to enjoying, but didn't, at all?

[grotto]

May I suggest as a primer that you read Crime and Punishment first? The Idiot is a wonderful book but I wished I would have read it after I had a better feel for Dostoyevsky, I plan on rereading though!

As far as the original question goes, yes, Far from the Madding Crowd by Hardy! I read Jude the Obscure and loved it! Was so looking forward the Madding crowd and when I read it, I was also so disappointed by it. Oh well. Also Sartre’s Nausea Nauseated me.

[Desolation]

I started reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov expecting the world out of it. After all that I'd heard about it, I thought that it would be THE novel...And then I spent two weeks reading it, and when it was over, I was dumbstruck by my first thought, "It wasn't that good."

However, I spent longer thinking about it afterward than I did reading it, and after replaying it over and over in my head, after recalling all of the scenes, I realized that it was in fact THE novel. So, I guess it doesn't really count.

I also recently picked up Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, expecting substantially less out of it but still quite a lot(being that the two names are brought up together so often, I did expect the psychological darkness that flows through Dostoevsky's work, though...that was a horribly inaccurate expectatio). And I got through the first hundred pages and had to put it down, I could not stand it. I plan on trying again at a later point in time, though. I figure that right now just isn't the right time in my life for that book.

[Pollopicu]

Thanks for the advice. I initially wanted to buy C&P, but couldn't find an undamaged copy at any of the bookstores near me. I'm going to visit a new book shop today, and hopefully I'll find it.

[mal4mac]

I'm reading Demons at the moment and re-read C&P recently. I agree with Nabokov and other critics that Dostoevsky is 'not a great writer' and that his 'powerful emotional and ideological impact' is achieved in spite of his style. His style is marred by clumsy construction, excessive emotionalism, banality and vulgarity.

Some translators translate the clumsiness, others smooth it. The former say the 'bad writing' reflects and distinguishes the characters in his novels! Demons ( in Penguin) is a 'clumsiness and all translation' and is a difficult read. More difiicult than Shakespeare, and much more badly written.

Being fairly experienced with Dostoevsky I can ignore this and just plough through the bad style. The C&P I read was a much smoother translation - Coulson from Oxford World Classics. It might be a good one to start with. But, even then, don't get upset if some passages seem boring, or lacking in style. Dostoevsky just doesn't have the style of Jane Austen or Tolstoy or Dickens.

Read him for psychology and flashes of lightening in the fog of words. Expect him to be pernicious, expect to be worn down, expect it to be an experience of "reading Macbeth as if written by Macbeth". Don't expect to love him, expect to be bored, shaken and violently stirred by him. He's a rickety big dipper ride on a ghost train, not a sojourn in a gondola.

[grotto]

I'm reading Demons at the moment and re-read C&P recently. I agree with Nabokov and other critics that Dostoevsky is 'not a great writer' and that his 'powerful emotional and ideological impact' is achieved in spite of his style. His style is marred by clumsy construction, excessive emotionalism, banality and vulgarity.

Some translators translate the clumsiness, others smooth it. The former say the 'bad writing' reflects and distinguishes the characters in his novels! Demons ( in Penguin) is a 'clumsiness and all translation' and is a difficult read. More difiicult than Shakespeare, and much more badly written.

Being fairly experienced with Dostoevsky I can ignore this and just plough through the bad style. The C&P I read was a much smoother translation - Coulson from Oxford World Classics. It might be a good one to start with. But, even then, don't get upset if some passages seem boring, or lacking in style. Dostoevsky just doesn't have the style of Jane Austen or Tolstoy or Dickens.

Read him for psychology and flashes of lightening in the fog of words. Expect him to be pernicious, expect to be worn down, expect it to be an experience of "reading Macbeth as if written by Macbeth". Don't expect to love him, expect to be bored, shaken and violently stirred by him. He's a rickety big dipper ride on a ghost train, not a sojourn in a gondola.

Very well put! Have you tried any of the Pevear & Volokhonsky translations? When I bought the Idiot, I sat down with three different translations In the book store and passages that seemed dull and boring came alive in theirs. Dostoyevsky has a creeping ability, months after reading him ideas, passages and thoughts still stir in my head, I have reread the horse dream from C&P numerous times, it’s harsh and disturbing yet beautifully painful. I don’t read Dostoyevsky for a nice story, I read him to have my guts ripped out and enjoy doing it! Go figure!

[Pollopicu]

May I suggest as a primer that you read Crime and Punishment first? The Idiot is a wonderful book but I wished I would have read it after I had a better feel for Dostoyevsky, I plan on rereading though!

As far as the original question goes, yes, Far from the Madding Crowd by Hardy! I read Jude the Obscure and loved it! Was so looking forward the Madding crowd and when I read it, I was also so disappointed by it. Oh well. Also Sartre’s Nausea Nauseated me.

I followed your advice and went out and bought it today. First I have to finish what I'm reading now though.