Kafka vs Dostoevsky vs Nietzsche

[Zeno]

Kafka or Dostoevsky or Nietzche?

[den]

Can't I pick all three? ;)

Kafka... "...the innocent and the guilty, both executed without distinction in the end.... " A very timely quote from this existentialist, but Camus is my favourite. ...

Dostoevsky... of all the three, I've read the most of his works. He's expanded the notion of original sin and tragedy, that's for sure.

Nietzche... my favourite nihilist... said " Dostoevsky is the only psychologist from whom I was able to learn anything. I rank my acquaintance with him among the most splendid achievements of my life."

Kind of simplistic I know but I can't compare the three.

[Schiller]

For me Kafka is the best. He's one of my favorite wrtiters because he shows all the absurdity of our modern life. His characters (esp. in The Castle, The Trial and The metamorphosis) loose the ground under their feet. They don't know anymore what they are doing and why and even who they are. So their connection to work, family and friends and their surrounding is getting lost. And with all that sense of life vanishes too. In the end they don't know where they come and where they should go. The modern existentialistic problem, even in our digitalised world. So Kafka is quite up to date.

[Zeno]

I had to pick Dostoevski Myself. While all three are brilliant i like Doestoevski because he was a man of action and willpower. While Kafka lived more in his inner dream life since he was spineless, although he enjoyed more personal succes then the hapeless Nietzche. I am more and more convinced that it is absurd to seprate the works from the author.

[Koa]

DOSTOEVSKIJ! Forever and ever! Deep and ingenious....

I don't despise Nietzsche, though my knowledge didn't go much further than school lessons...

I can't stand Kafka. I guess it must be great if you find a way to understand him...but i don't seem to be able to. Moreover i can't stand insects, so i never managed to read The Metamorphosis- not even trying to read it in German, which i don't undersatnd so well. My skin starts creeping after reading 2 lines...

[Zeno]

Kafka is in the lead 4 to 3 over Dostoevski

[LLBowen]

No hesitation at all: Kafka. Read his diaries, his letters, his stories, his books. Can't abide Dostoevski. Nietzsche is in a different league as far as I am concerned.

[pankaj]

All these are great but I think Dosovesky is the greatest of all.

[pankaj]

All these are great but I think Dostoevsky is the greatest of all.

[the pianist]

Am I the only one who voted for Nietzche?
Both Kafka and Dostoevsky are great (though I haven't read anything by the later), but none of them compere to Nietzche.
I think that Kafka is a much better writer than Nietzche in the objective sence of the word, yet Nietzche's ideas are surely more profounding and more inspairing.

8)

[chrissy]

I''m going with Kafka. I think if your struggling to interpret his work he's done his job.

Chrissy

[Mirrorshades]

I have to vote for Kafka. I have been into his work for about 10 years and when I first discovered it I was amazed. I have never really been able to dig Dostoyevski (sp?) and when I came to Nietzsche quite recently I wasn't actually that impressed by it. He didn't really seem to be telling me anything I hadn't already considered for myself, and accepted or rejected as I saw fit. How arrogant does that sound? lol! I maybe need to read some more of his work before I form a concrete opinion on it, but so far I agree with one of the previous posters. Gimme Camus or Sartre over Nietzsche anyday.

[AbdoRinbo]

Pf! LOL! That picture is hilarious! I love 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'. You just made my day.

Nietzsche had more of an impact on the Western world than Kafka or Dosteovsky ever could. But that being said, critical acclaim has almost nothing to do with legitimacy these days. I think Frederich Nietzsche had a cute ***, so he gets my vote.

[Mirrorshades]

True. Neitzsche was far more influential. Maybe I should withhold judgement until I read Zarathusa. I will get round to it one day.

[Munro]

Welll I'm about to spend the next two months devoting my English studies entirely to Kafka, I'm quite looking forward to it. We get to study a classic text and write why its valued, and then write a separate transformation of it. Can anyone tell me any transformations of The Metamorphosis that I could look at?
Also, forgive me as I don't know much about these writers as yet, but what links all three of them together exactly, making them worthy of comparison?
Fear and Loathing was mad, yes.

[stavrokin]

Both Dostoevsky and Neitzsche are not strickly in the scope of either Literature or Philosophy.

I forget some one said"Neitzsche turned Philosophy into Literature"

and Dostoevsky can not be classified under something seriously.

Freud said :"Dostoevsky cannot be understood without psychoanalysis."
however, Neitzsche called Dost a Philosopher as someone mentioned above.

Kafka and Neitz red Dost who exerted influence on both
On the contrary, Dost might well not know Neitz, needless to say Kafka.

That don't mean Dost is superior to other two posterity
only Dost is my preference

[odersven]

hi saw this late in a search and wanted to add mine.


In relation to my own personal life, Nietzsche would be by far the most influential. When I was able to look into the beauty he was actually talking about, there was an apperance of love I had not felt from literature for such a long time. From all of his works, Thus spake Zarathustra sounds out as the most interesting and tuned to my own ear.

Nietzsche also has the best relation to his works. The very fact that he went mad by witnessing and stopping the abuse of a horse on a street is empathic-humanity at its best. He was no lover of the weak, but he went mad defending a horse. Totally amazing.

F.D, although also very much loved by me, lacks the realness in relation to his work that Nietzsche had given.

[Sindhu]

It's Dostoevsky for me. I read Nietzsche as a cultural thinker/ intellectual philosopher- more intellectual than emotive. While Kafka and Dosteovsky were undeniably philoshophers too, they writngs went beyond just the transmission of ideas. I find Kafka's works fascinating, but there is in my opinion a certain excess amount of solipsism which always jars on me in the final analysis. Dosteovsky while sharing the same intellectual calibre, "goes out" more and that is a quality I value in writers.
Sindhu.

[Dr Cynic]

Nietzsche is definitely the most boring of all three.:D :D

[odersven]

......nietzsche presents the most interesting concepts to western culture in over 2000 years. The most boring? To offer the best reply I will use the author.

"The higher a man gets, the smaller he seems to those who cannot fly."

[Dr Cynic]

Originally posted by odersven
......nietzsche presents the most interesting concepts to western culture in over 2000 years. The most boring? To offer the best reply I will use the author.

"The higher a man gets, the smaller he seems to those who cannot fly."

Well, that's what they call a hardcore fan! ;) ;)

Western culture? Well, maybe. But judging frm your short-sighted loyalty (and with all due respect for Nietschze and his work), I'd say it's time you started reading some Oriental literature (Roumi, Hafiz, Khayyam) and got a glimpse of those who have flown (much) higher than Nietzche:D :D

[IWilKikU]

I'm reading "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" right now, and Its tedious, but I wouldn't say that its boring. Granted, its not a riviting narrative, but the stuff that he's saying is really deep (that's why he's a philosopher :D), and the continuous plays on words are great (unfortunatly I can only appreciate them through translator's notes. :().

[atiguhya padma]

Dr Cynic said:

<I'd say it's time you started reading some Oriental literature (Roumi, Hafiz, Khayyam) and got a glimpse of those who have flown (much) higher than Nietzche>

Well I've read Rumi, Khayyam and Nietzsche and I would have to say that Rumi and Khayyam don't measure up to Nietzsche. Nietzsche is by far a deeper thinker than the other two.

[odersven]

IWilkikU - I have read the German and the translations work well in their transition. English came from German so its never so bad. The only difference is the compassion/power in the words. Since English had so much more religious wirtings tied to fiction instead of deduction and synthesis like german, the aesthetics of the work produced a more lovely or compassionate diction. German remained mostly entitled to the base of words in relation to their meaning. So, thats why german can come off so harsh in English, when the diction and passion behind the words leads to a more harsh base tied to the original words, instead of the crafted passionate ones within English fiction.

Mainly, to make it more actual, just don't look at the verbs as if Nietzsche is a vampire. That was history's fault when they looked at him. But, I am sure you knew this well enough :) Keep on. Its beautiful.

[Dr Cynic]

Originally posted by atiguhya padma
Well I've read Rumi, Khayyam and Nietzsche and I would have to say that Rumi and Khayyam don't measure up to Nietzsche. Nietzsche is by far a deeper thinker than the other two.

I've read them too but I don't think Nietschze is quite up there with the likes of Roumi and Hafiz. (After all, you are supposed to stick up for your compatriots :D). Or maybe I'm not sufficiently interested in philosophy to appreciate Nietschze :rolleyes:

Well I guess at the end of the day it's largely a matter of opinion and I'm not gonna be drawn into one of those endless arguments on the merits of this or that writer. :p :p

Enjoy your reading.

[poeboy]

Dostoevsky is the MAN. I don't know how you could even try to compare Kafka and Nietzsche with him.
Crime and Punishment is simply great. The depiction of the murder haunts me to this day.

[IWilKikU]

Indeed Dostoevsky is the best of the three in fiction, but as far as philosophy and thought, I would have to go Nietzsche.

[Comrade_Ogilvy]

Didn't Hitler put many of Nietschze's ideas into use? I've read half of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" and unless he was being sarcastic or hiding his real intentions, it sounded like he wanted men to improve themselves by being warriors and stripping away any trace of morality. No positive mention of women either. I'm a high school student so I probably am not interpreting these works like a college class or an adult would. I haven't read the other two guys, and I probably won't until I can look at their works more objectively when I am older.

[odersven]

Yes, hilter did put his work into use. The same way white supporters of slavery did with the bible. And by looking at Hitler's history with literature, especially his autobiography, it can be said he had no care of what was said in it, unless he could mold it to fit his own ideal.

The book is a allegorical novel. He writes basically in the same way one would read of Jesus, Socrates, and in his contemporary Hesse's Siddhartha. It is an extremely indepth look at the world in a prolific mode that is amazingly personal. That is what allows most people to missunderstand Nietzsche.

When you read it, you have to take into account Nietzsche's other writings that do not bare the same style, but do compose his ideas in a more logical way to most readers than his metaphoric Zarathustra.

His idea of the warrior is basically any person who is willing to dawn armor each day and venture into the battlefield of life. They have to continually battle because they understand that the structures around the life they use to live are now falling on their head. The people who survive each day, live to battle again through the restraints of society that holds back the actual human or superhuman form which exists beyond good and evil.

Most people take to the women notes as you do. But, there are still considerations of interpretation.

I personally think that his critique of women comes as resentment not of their sex, but of their subserviance. The way he talks of them, especially when he talks of nature and wisdom both being women, are too loving to be hateful. His distain in the writings suggests, and again this is my opinion, that he resented women for sitting on the sholder of the giants in that time; which were men. He saw that the social structures of religious dogma and primitive cultural manner made women a tool in that time. A means for something of men. That is what I think he is critical of.

[Comrade_Ogilvy]

Thats a very thoughtful explantory reply, thank you. I haven't read any of his other works but I read how Nietzsche's ideas influenced Hitler in a chapter of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. So I defintely looked at "Thus Spake Zarathustra" with a bias.

[IWilKikU]

I am just about finished with Zarathustra right now, and I must admit that I started it thinking about Hitler too, but the more I got into it, the more I thought Hitler used and warped Nietzsche's philosophy to justify his internment and anihillation of "inferior" peoples. Odersven's reference to misuse of the Bible is a perfect analogy.

What I got from Zarathustra is that mankind should be advancing. There's one quote in my translation, "One day the overman will laugh at man, the way man laughes at the ape", you can already see that evolution through the history of mankind. Today we laugh at people who thought that your soul flys out your nose when you sneeze, and other rediculous religeous/philosophical/political/scientific ideas. He was teaching advancement, not ethnic cleansing. Hitler took his idea and said, the best way to advance our species is to kill all Jews, Blacks, and Homosexuals. That was Hitler's sick twist to Nietzsche's good idea.

[Sancho]

Odersven, WilKik, I enjoyed your posts. You’s have a much more complete understanding of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche’s writings than do I. I feel compelled, however, to throw in my two cents since Comrade is a younger reader and he is tackling a difficult text.

If the Nazis thought they were adopting Nietzsche’s Ideas, then they just were truely not paying attention. In the words of the late-great Moe Howard (in a Stooges skit were Moe is playing you-know-who) – “Vee are Nazis, Vee haff no brainz.” Hitler, incidentally, put all three of the stooges fairly high on his “To be executed” list after that. Yes they were Jewish.

Friedrich Nietzsche would have abhorred the Nazis. One of the main reasons he dissolved his friendship with Richard Wagner was that Wagner was a colossal anti-Semitic. Additionally, Nietzsche was a huge critic German nationalism in his day.

[Sancho]

Comrade, one more thing:

Nietzsche’s “Oberman” (over man) in “Zarathustra” is one of the ideas Hitler and the Nazis hijacked when they decided that they were the master race. Never in the history of ideas has an idea been so tragically misunderstood. The Oberman, I think, was more someone who was true to himself rather than a servile slave to convention, society, the church, someone else etc.

As far as the warrior you spoke of I think that’s an allegory for Nietzsche’s idea of creation as a destructive force. I order to create something, you must destroy what’s already there.

Friedrich Nietzsche explored the deep recesses of the subconscious human mind and world weighed heavily on him. Perhaps the world has not weighed more heavily on anyone since. Sadly he was a man whose brain pathologies had driven him somewhat mad towards the end of his short and troubled life. It troubles me greatly to hear Nietzsche and Hitler mentioned in the same sentence.

[IWilKikU]

try reading a short basic book on Nietzsche like those published in the "Great Philosophers" series, or another secondary source. That will give you a look at what he was saying without dragging genocide into the picture.

[odersven]

I want to take this time, because Sancho reminded me of a dream I once had of Nietzsche, the only one I have had of Nietzsche.

I had known the history and events of his madness and had also finished reading a part of Zarathustra. The selection from which I read had Zarathustra sitting in his cave located on a mountain. So, the impulse of my brain still had this in its memory.

When I slept, I saw Zarathustra just as I imagined and read in the book. Sitting, eyes closed, pale from the sun's light entering parallel to the cave, and with the animals circling him; wondering what he was thinking, doing, if he was ok. During all of this, my mind dictated the passage I had just read when awake. There was a love between Zarathustra and the sun; and the sun constantly enveloped him. When the repetition of dialogue ended, Zarathustra stood up and into the sky from the cliff's ledge. His eyes were still shut as he opened his reach while marching forward toward the sun that was no more than 7 or 8 feet from the ledge. When Zarathustra got to it, he put his arms around the sphere and held it for a peace in time. Then his face turned to a silent scream and the sun became a horse. The sky became a street. The man that enveloped the sun became pale not by light but by nature, and blinder by that nature to require glasses. The hue at the neck of the horse's coat matched the man's mustache and seemed as if merged. And soon after the transmission from a heaven to hell, the scream became audiable to me and Nietzsche fell to the ground. It ended there.

Die at the right time: thus Zarathustra teaches.

[IWilKikU]

thats pretty effed up right there.

[Sancho]

I’m diggin’ that dream. Unfortunately I’m such a simpleton that most of my dreams revolve around me showing up to work <sans pantalon.>

[IWilKikU]

My dreams tend to have talking animals, awkward situations, old wrinkly naked ladies, airplanes, every now and then some sex (usually not the same one as the old naked lady), Oh and guitars. Lots of guitars. Don't know why. I don't even play guitar.

[Comrade_Ogilvy]

Oh well, I still don't get Nietzsche, I'm also a Catholic so that has something to do with it. His references to the "blond beast" and not caring about the weak doesn't really strike a chord in me. Can anyone tell me where Nietzsche's ideas have been expressed or used in a way more true to his actual thoughts? This would prove whether or not Nietzsche's ideals do not lead to a form of Nazism.

[IWilKikU]

Try the book on Nietzsche from the "Introducing" series. I havn't read it personally, but other books from that series are easy to understand and fun to read.

[Sancho]

Commrraaaad, I’m heartened by your reaction to Nietzsche. “You are wise beyond your years, grasshoppa.” Sorry, I’m starting to sound like an old fart again, which was not my intention.

For my money, the best understanding of Nietzsche is gained from a close reading of the text itself and Kaufmann’s footnotes. Like any translation, Walter Kaufmann’s translation loses some of the nuances of the original text, but his footnotes help to fill in the gaps. As with most Americans, I only speak poor restaurant-German, so I’m stuck with the translation. -- “Die spiesikarte bitte” unt “Vo ist der toiletten?”

[Sancho]

For a better explanation of the “Blonde Bestie” try Nietzsche’s essays “Genealogy of Morals.” His ideas are more clearly developed there. He most certainly didn't have in mind some superior Nordic race of people as the blonde beast; after all he refers to a blonde beast at the core of Arabic, Japanese, and Homeric heroes. Many scholars believe that it is simply a lion metaphor.

Anyhow, that’s for you to decide. Nietzsche can be a tough read for a devout Catholic.

[Sancho]

I keep splittin’ up my posts tryin’ to get promoted to “Book Worm.” Kauffman wrote a book a while back called “A Heretic’s Faith” or something like that. I’m sure it’s out of print now, but still a worth while peruse in the library.

Rock-on brother.

[roland64]

I'll take Nietzsche,one of the great analytical minds and intellectual iconoclasts and then Kafka for the confusion and complexity of modern life(i.e.,post-renaissance).
Dost was a big Christian.That doth make one big strike against him.Dost it not? smirk,smirk.
Just kidding,halfway anyway.He had a big heart,ol' Dost did.Roland.

[IWilKikU]

Nietzsche's philosophy was warped by Hitler the same way Marx's was warped by Stalin.

[mouaten horr]

i've read little kafka, some Nietzsche, and a lot of Dostoevsky.
So i guess my choice won't be so objective. I choose nevertheless Dostoevsky.

[avid_reader]

Dostoevsky
but .. how do I vote ?
what do the 3 radio buttons with Yes , No , Yes mean ?

[IWilKikU]

well, you can't really, cause whoever started this thread didn't know how to do a poll, or somthing. But its made for some good discussion.

[emily655321]

My two cents, for absolutely no reason at all: My buddy, Fyodor D. Of course, he's already listed as my favorite author, so that's kind of obvious.

Kafka is good, but I always get a sort of amateurish feeling from him, like he knows the feeling he's trying to convey but doesn't quite get it across. It could be that my mind is just more receptive to Dostoevsky's way of thinking, though.

[avid_reader]

am yet to read any Kafka . so I cant say much about him
Dostoevsky ... the first few pages of 'Crime and Punishment' - and i knew that i'd never be able to forget him . but whenever i think of him , there s a heaviness that develops in my heart . i feel really sad. after 10 yrs may be , i'd re-read C&P , Idiot and Brothers ...

[scottb]

This is my first post. I found this forum a few days ago and I am intrigued. I hope to learn a great deal and maybe provide a few unique observations.

My choice would be Nietzsche.

scottb

[piquant]

DOestoevsky is my all time favorite, although both kafka and nietzsche hold a dear place in my heart. I think I like nietzshe so much because although he's a philospher he is still readable. For instance, I've been trying to get through Heidegger's "poetry, language, and thought" for the past forever, and I'm still on the first page because the prose style and the approach to the issue is just so dry that I usually wind up screaming and throwing the book accross the room.

Kafka I love because he does short stories. It is so hard to capture everything perfectly in such a small space, so I give him props for that.

Doestoevsky still wins though.

[IWilKikU]

Damn, when this post first opened I was half way through Thus Spoke Zarathustra and I promised myself that the next two books I read would be Crime and Punishment and Metamorphasis. Havn't touched either of them :(

[subterranean]

Anyone read The Poor People by Dostoevsky?. This is his first novel before he "went" to Siberia. I only read half of it so far and I consider it as one of his bests..I don't know why most people recognized him particulary for "Notes from nderground"

[subterranean]

And o yeah...Nietzsche gives me headache :D

[emily655321]

Read Metamorphosis, Kik. Read it read it read it, I dare ya. :p What I mean is, it's a one-afternoon read, with a break or two for some brainless zoning and absorption, TV or a phone call. And it's about a giant bug, man, what could be funnier? (I'm serious, it really is funny. I actually laughed out loud once or twice at the imagery.)

[IWilKikU]

Someday soon Em, someday soon.

[Zooey]

As I've only read Kafka's Metamorophosis, Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground and a smattering of Nietzsche I can only rate them on my VERY limited experience. And I have to go with Dostoevsky.

Both of the pieces I've read from K and D are masterpieces of existential literature, but I prefer the bumbling, pessemistic Underground Man for some reason. Everybody in my class hated him, but I find him fascinating in his flaws, a really tragic character. He's a complex, unlikable character, and it takes a terrific writer to make him interesting and endearing despite himself.

For that reason I'll go with the Russian master.

[emily655321]

Don't feel bad, Zooey. My friend and I were the only ones in our class who didn't hate Raskolnikov in C&P -- or the whole book, for that matter. Everyone else was like silent and glaring at us, and we'd have l-o-n-g enthusiastic discussions about the book with the teacher (who was super cool). Everyone else was like, "You're so cruel! How can you like the murderer??" :D Which is, of course, the entire point of the book -- to have it dawn on you that you can understand what it's like to be the criminal, and that you're actually rooting for the "wrong" guy.

[piquant]

...0r that there is no such thing as a wrong guy.

[Koa]

if there was a poll, Dostoevsky would be up there i think...

my opinion is on the first page so i won't repeat it...though i should resume the reading of Also Sprach Zarathustra, which I've started once and never went on...I might try Kafka once again, but it'd be like the 5th time...Maybe I'm better off hating him even on weak basis :D

I hope to have time to read the Karamazoff Brothers someday cos I feel something is lacking in my culture...And I don't think I have too much of the main Dost. stuff left to read...well The Idiot is missing too...
For those who like C&P, read The Demons...it was what made me adore Dost. and Russia...Maybe I liked it even more than C&P...ah I'd love to re-read these deomns thing but it's huge too...

And Raskolnikov is one of my ideal men...(who are all either dead or never really existed...oh except the real one who doesnt give a damn ;)). I like the way he's troubled, slave of his mind but trying to rule it...sort of, if I make sense... He's clever, he must be to have so deep an idea that it takes hold of him... (and let's not go in the endless discussion about the end of the book which makes me go *cough cough* ;))

[Zooey]

Originally posted by emily655321
Don't feel bad, Zooey. My friend and I were the only ones in our class who didn't hate Raskolnikov in C&P -- or the whole book, for that matter. Everyone else was like silent and glaring at us, and we'd have l-o-n-g enthusiastic discussions about the book with the teacher (who was super cool). Everyone else was like, "You're so cruel! How can you like the murderer??" :D Which is, of course, the entire point of the book -- to have it dawn on you that you can understand what it's like to be the criminal, and that you're actually rooting for the "wrong" guy. Though I should be used to it by now, I'm always surprised when others fail to grasp that critical point that you describe. In one of my Lit classes last semester (where I read both Notes and Metamorphosis) for a while there was a theme of unlikable but sympathetic main characters, including Emma Bovary, Hedda Gabbler, and the two main characters from the two aforementioned pieces. After we finished each book the professor would ask "now who liked ___?" "Who didn't like ____?" Everybody but me and several other people would like the characters, and everybody else would hate them. "Emma's so whiney," "she's a whore," "she got what she deserved," blah, blah, blah. They somehow didn't understand that all of these characters were meant to be liked despite their flaws. And personally, I find flawed characters much more interesting to read about than the idealized heroism and physical perfection found in the Greek epics, etc.

I really need to read Crime and Punishment. If I didn't have so much already on my plate to read this summer, I'd add it to my "summer reading" list.

[musikpoet]

In my personal, bias opinion, Kafka is the man!!

[EAP]

How about none?

all three are pretty boring and pretentious.

[mono]

Argh, too difficult to decide! :rage:

[davidlskulski]

i think one shouldn't dismiss any one of them. i look at them and take what i want. i think if they get you to think a little bit different or broaden your thoughts then there is something to gain. people can evolve then, and not just be "The Idiot",but can become Nietzsche's "Superman." i think then life won't seem so absurd. we can define ourselves by our growth and " The Metamorphosis" we go through.


(the references["The Idiot" & etc] are a bit silly)

[dramasnot6]

HOW CAN I CHOOSE?
wow...well I LOVE all three. I am best read in Nietzsche and Dostoevsky though, so either of them would be my top choice.

[quasimodo1]

Of all three, Kafka is the least understood. He thought some of his own work was hilarious. Too many read him assuming he is inacessable and distant. Enlighten up might apply here. RJS

[flor]

At the risk of putting on a Texas accent and mispronouncing something, Dosti's the man.

[Robert Jordan]

Dostoyevsky by far. Kafaka is very overrated in my opinion. His stories usually are just to incohesive for me. They jump around and don't make any sense. I don't know, maybe I'm not deep enough to "get" Kafka.

[billyjack]

Can't I pick all three? ;)

Nietzche... my favourite nihilist... Kind of simplistic I know but I can't compare the three.

i'm cringing. nietzche a nihilist. sorry, i hate to get caught up in semantics, but ay,ay,ay he loathed nihililsm. just to clarify, no biggee. i enjoyed the nietzche quote you used about D. i don't think there is bigger honor than to be recognized by nietzche in his aphorisms.

[Robert Jordan]

I dont know, after reading Beyond Good and Evil I feel the same was about Nietzche. I know he attacks nihilists but his outlook just seems so goddamn nihilistic in a very caring and critical way. Dosty is the man by far.

[billyjack]

I dont know, after reading Beyond Good and Evil I feel the same was about Nietzche. I know he attacks nihilists but his outlook just seems so goddamn nihilistic in a very caring and critical way. Dosty is the man by far.

i'm pickin up what your throwin down. i like how you put that, caring and critical (funny but true in a way). i think nietzche sees nihilism as negating life. nietzche affirmed it! dyinsyian (spelling way wrong) view of the world, eternal recurrance! beatiful view of the world. i would say nietzche is the man. dosty was a psychologist, nietzche was psychogist philosopher. two p's beat one p any day.

[marcolfo]

Dostoyevsky.
everytime i read one of his books. I feel like he is playing with my mind. like he chews it and the spits it and then kicks it.

[Desolation]

Kafka's pretty good, but he loses points for dying before he finished his books (THE BASTARD!).

Dostoevsky is one of, if not the, greatest fiction writers of all time. He really got life.

My vote emphatically goes to Nietzsche, though. No other writer has ever had such a profound effect on me.

[stlukesguild]

kafka!


:cornut:

[Eric Vornoff]

Well... dubiuos poll as everybody of them was an unique genius. Yet if to remain strictly within the frame of the question I would prefer a pure mathematical answer :wink5: (I hope quite unbiased because nobody of them is among my favorite writers). Dostoyevsky because he encompassed both of them as close to fully as possible, but nobody of them encompassed Dostoyevsky even close to fully.

[JuniperWoolf]

Whenever I read Nietzsche, I can't get past the misogyny. Try to take the whip to this, you moustached bastard! :boxing_smiley:

[Ahkilleus]

Kafka--no other author has symbolized the modern man's anxiety and alienation in such a vivid, bizarre way.

[Lionheart]

Kafka--no other author has symbolized the modern man's anxiety and alienation in such a vivid, bizarre way.

Indeed, his Metamorphisis is a classic that questions reality and the essential, yet rarely questioned state of being we as humans all face.

[damondarkwalker]

I had to vote for Dostoevsky. I love his work. I've read "House of the Dead", "The Idiot", "The Brothers Karamazov", "Crime and Punishment" and I just bought "Demons" for later this year.

[Theunderground]

I have read nearly all of nietzsches work. And in fact it was the famous nietzsche quote which led me to fyodor.
I remember being in waterstones and reading the first part of notes from the underground. At that time it was the most stunning book i had ever read,humour,polemic,realism and an unparalleled psychological insight and much more. I was laughing out loud and thinking this guy knows what im thinking almost before i do!
Anyway,from that day i was a D fan. Nietzsche was my favourite read before but know i only read fyodor.
I have yet to read Kafka,but i cant imagine he captures psycholgical realism as well as d?

[Patrick_Bateman]

I wanted to choose both Kafka and Dostoevsky as I haven't read the 2 Nietzsche books on my shelf yet but since I couldn't I picked all 3

I'm sure the German won't disappoint.

[Kyriakos]

I have yet to read Kafka,but i cant imagine he captures psycholgical realism as well as d?

You are correct to assume that, since Kafka was not a realist at all. He has a wealth of psychological observations, but mostly they are allegorical, and in some cases at least it seems that he doesnt even understand what the true meaning of his writing is (he himself states so on several occasions).
Perhaps a quote of his, about himself, which is insightful, at least in my view (and i had studied Kafka for more than a decade, for what its worth) is that he likened himself to "a sheep, at night, in the mountain, or another sheep, following that one".
In other words he was indeed lost.

[Theunderground]

Thanks for that. Do you feel its worth having a read of Kafka? Im really only interested in psychological realists,not symbolists or guys who talk in riddles or who espouse depair..

[Kyriakos]

Sorry for my kafkaesque response then :D

[Lord Macbeth]

I'd say all of them, really, would've voted all, but went with Nietzsche since he's my favorite of the bunch and I personally think he might have had more of a philosophical impact, but I'm NOT getting into a discussion about THAT, as I've done so many times and know it to be a fun but often-long debate...

So I'll just state my taste, say I'd have taken Dostoyevsky next, and then Kafka, and leave it at that. :)

[Sine_lege]

kafka, although i like dostoevsky quite a lot too