Old Books, New Readers discussion

The votes are in and have been counted. The winner is Crime and Punishment 🎉. It has been the tradition of OBNR, for the month of November, to read a long Russian novel that carries into December. Since, Crime and Punishment is a relevant short novel with 206 pages, we will have a Bonus Read. The Bonus Read is the runner-up Doctor Zhivago with 706 pages.

The thread to post your thoughts on the novel Doctor Zhivago is as follows: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

In this thread post your thoughts on the novel Crime and Punishment.

Crime and Punishment has nearly 700pp! 671 to be exact.
Crime and Punishment
Paperback, Penguin Classics, 671 pages
Published December 31st 2002 by Penguin

I'm sorry but 'short novel' doesn't come anywhere into the equation.

Also, my copy of Doctor Zhivago only has 544pp, not 706!
Doctor Zhivago
Paperback, Vintage Classic Russians Series, 544 pages
Published January 5th 2017 by Vintage Classics

which makes Crime and Punishment the longer of the two, even taking into account the fact that the version of Doctor Zhivago you have linked to is 592pp, Crime and Punishment is still the longest of the two novels.

The average reader will spend 10 hours and 41 minutes reading Doctor Zhivago at 250 WPM (words per minute).

(for the P&V translation)
The average reader will spend 13 hours and 31 minutes reading Doctor Zhivago (Vintage International) at 250 WPM (words per minute).

The average reader will spend 13 hours and 33 minutes reading Crime and Punishment: Pevear & Volokhonsky Translation (Vintage Classics) at 250 WPM (words per minute).

https://www.readinglength.com/

How fast do you read? Apparently after reading a passage from A Tale of Two Cities, I found out I was reading at 467 WPM, which means I should be able to finish a lot more books than I do!

Jazzy wrote: "The average reader will spend 10 hours and 41 minutes reading Doctor Zhivago at 250 WPM (words per minute).

(for the P&V translation)
The average reader will spend 13 hours and 31 minutes reading..."

For Doctor Zhivago I picked up the paperback page numbers - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2.... I should have picked up the Kindle version to be consistent.

For Crime and Punishment I picked up the Kindle page numbers -

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...

ah you should have gone with paperbacks for both. I have that 544pp copy of Doctor Zhivago, a very nice copy too.

If anyone is a bit skint, you can always get a free ebook of Crime and Punishment.

Planet eBook, 767pp, unknown translator, pdf
https://www.planetebook.com/free-eboo...

Project Gutenberg, trans by Constance Garnett, several formats
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2554

Hello, I am thrilled that this book was chosen. I read it a second time when I was 25 or more years old, finally ready to hear of another's trauma after so much of my own. I had read it in English and found it flat. Not so, when I read it in Italian!!! (later I learned of the Garnett overload (her)story) Now there are several translations and I was considering reading Oliver's from Penguin.
For those who fear how long it is, I am sure that any modern translation will grab you in an audio version. Just keep an eye on the translations,,,,

Ladyfilosopher wrote: "Hello, I am thrilled that this book was chosen. I read it a second time when I was 25 or more years old, finally ready to hear of another's trauma after so much of my own. I had read it in English ..."

I'm not sure of the first translation I read as it was also so very, very long ago, but I do think Pevear/Volokhonsky work wonders and anything they touch is magic.

Have you read The Fixer by Bernard Malamud? I read that for the first time when I was 15 - about the same time as the first time I read Crime and Punishment. A few years later I read another book based on the Blood Libel but have not been able to remember the title or find it again.

PS. Reading it in Italian? Do you live in Italy and speak Italian as a second language or are you just a student? I love languages myself, but only studied one intensive year of Italian, which I no longer remember.

Jazzy: Hello, P & V seem a bit stilted but ANYthing is better than poor Garnett's versions. (i bow to her determination to bring them to the western reader, but we have to recognise their limitations and improve the offer). I am a Magarshak fan as a translator but it seems he did not do one of C &P.
I lived and raised kids, started university pathway in Italy. Am now also Italian citizen but live in England (where I finished my degree and did Post Graduate studies) . Italian and Russian have an affinity of mind and culture that moved me to read Russian Classics in Italian. What a discovery! First read Dead Souls by Gogol, C&P, then on and on.

YES!! The Fixer! I read it and then somehow astounded my high school teachers by writing a startlingly creative comparative essay between it and The Forest People (about the pigmy tribes); My 2 favorite books at the time. I still do not know how I did it!!! The teacher commented that he had not thought I could pull it off, but by gum! seems I did.

Ladyfilosopher wrote: "Jazzy: Hello, P & V seem a bit stilted but ANYthing is better than poor Garnett's versions. (i bow to her determination to bring them to the western reader, but we have to recognise their limitations..."

I am also in England - beautiful Newcastle upon Tyne.
I don't think I've read The Forest People! Now i'll have to be on the lookout for it :)

PS I'm not familiar with Magarshak either, oh the more I know the more I'm aware of the less I know!

I'm happy to see this book chosen for the BOTM. I read it immediately after I read "Brothers Karamazov" because I was hungry for more Dostoevsky. I won't be re-reading it at this time, but hope to follow the comment thread. Happy reading.

I can't believe I was able to actually nominate and book and that it was chosen! I am anticipating starting this book at the end of this week! I have not read Dostoevsky yet but I read Anna Karenina and War and Peace in the past few years. Russian lit is always a wonderful way to kick off the colder weather.

On a side note, thank you, Jazzy, for sharing that reading length resource. I was a little concerned about trying to read both books but after doing the test to see how many words per minute I read and putting it into the Crime and Punishment calculator, I think I will be able to finish before the end of the November.

Dana wrote: "I can't believe I was able to actually nominate and book and that it was chosen! I am anticipating starting this book at the end of this week! I have not read Dostoevsky yet but I read Anna Karenin..."

Congratulations Dana and happy reading! x

I have the Oliver Ready translation and am psyched to read this book in English (again!) I read the Constance Gardner version in highschool and loved the story line but was not captured by the language. I learned later why. I read the book in Italian and was thrilled and finally felt the 'gravitas' of Dostoyevsky's thinking. Ready's commentaries on why and how he engaged with this project are exciting

I am about halfway through Part 2 of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhosky's translation. It is amazing how translations differ so much and makes you realize how much you are missing by not reading the original text.

Do you like Ready's translation better than the Italian one or do you need to wait until you have finished the book to decide?

Dana wrote: "I am about halfway through Part 2 of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhosky's translation. It is amazing how translations differ so much and makes you realize how much you are missing by not reading..."

I am reading the Penguin Classics (Penguin Translated Texts) English Version. Enjoy Reading, La Tonya 📚

Dana wrote: "I am about halfway through Part 2 of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhosky's translation. It is amazing how translations differ so much and makes you realize how much you are missing by not reading..."

Hi Dana. You are spot on, I have to see near the end to soundly say what the Ready translation is like for me. All the same, I am thrilled by his introduction and the tidbits he has to offer. LOVE FOOTNOTES! for example, Sonya is actually a diminuitive of Sophia, i.e. wisdom in Greek to which D. often refers to in women educated or not. Wisdom is knowing what to do in each situation, not necessarily having an (ill fitting) overarching universal rule. His intro talks about words, wordiness, narrative, imagination, lies, and the decisions we find ourselves making as if they are between dichotomies. How we can lose ourselves in words instead of DOING things. Ready highlghted some behind the scenes humor and wittiness He reminds us how D. had been arrested as a revolutionary who was distributing words in a fever and fevour about changing the governmental system, which Ready suggests could be equated with murder of a person as R is planning. I do not agree, but then women have often dissociated with State (Medea, Antigone, any black woman in the western world etc) . My belief is that living beings (humans for the moment of discussion) have an intrinsic Universal right to living and life for the simple fact of being alive a State does not and often needs to be toppled (even right winger Hobbes believed as much (Leviathan)) When the State is injust -> dismantle, but when a human is injust -> hold accountable and educate better.
I have started the first chapter and find the translation refreshing.

Jazzy wrote: "Ladyfilosopher wrote: "Jazzy: Hello, P & V seem a bit stilted but ANYthing is better than poor Garnett's versions. (i bow to her determination to bring them to the western reader, but we have to re..."

May I recommend the Magarshak translation and a famous actors reading of Bros. Karamazov on audible? It is not expensive because it is an old unabridged version; it was like having an Uncle come to visit and tell me the story, at my convenience!!!

Ladyfilosopher wrote: "Jazzy wrote: "Ladyfilosopher wrote: "Jazzy: Hello, P & V seem a bit stilted but ANYthing is better than poor Garnett's versions. (i bow to her determination to bring them to the western reader, but..."

I'd love it but i don't have audible and have spent all my money on guitars - lessons/set ups/strings/etc.

I'm trying to finish some other books I'd started earlier in the year, but thinking I may brush up my copy Crime and Punishment when Im done with them! Thank you! If i get some money I don't put into my music I'll be sure to have a deeks.

Also I'd need a link as the only Magarshak translation of Crime and Punishment i can find is a book that cost £449.99!!!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/CRIME-PUNISH...

the printed version can be hard to find at a good price. The audio book is how I came upon this translation
https://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Brothers...

Jazzy wrote: "Also I'd need a link as the only Magarshak translation of Crime and Punishment i can find is a book that cost £449.99!!!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/CRIME-PUNISH..."


Sorry,
Magarshak has not translated C&P but Bro Karamzov

Happy reading, I enjoyed Crime & Punishment very much!

This is my first time participating in this group ever since I joined. I just finished P&V's translation of C&P. What a book! I expected more, not less, after I finished Brothers Karamazov and this book blew me away, yet again. And I read my new copy to its rightful raskolnik (schism) state. The spine broke off since III in Part 5 and the spree continued until I finished the book...

Ooi wrote: "This is my first time participating in this group ever since I joined. I just finished P&V's translation of C&P. What a book! I expected more, not less, after I finished Brothers Karamazov and this..."

Awesome 😃 Enjoy Reading 📗

I really enjoyed it too! I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did and I'm glad I had this group to give me the push I needed to read it!