Brain Pain discussion

This discussion covers Part I: Underground, pg. 3 – 41

I've started this. So far, I can at least say that I like it better than the Brothers Karamazov. Though perhaps that's not saying much.

I will say, I see what he means about enjoying your own suffering, your own degradation. I think this is a thing.

Thanks to him, I avoid dentists until my teeth rot out of my head. At least I would like to blame him so as to make my worst habit literary.

Wallow is a good word for it, actually.

Which reminds me, I have no idea what translation I am reading. I am reading it on project gutenberg, during those slow moments that have been cropping up at the office lately, but there is like no info at all about the translation.

Nicole wrote: "Wallow is a good word for it, actually.

Which reminds me, I have no idea what translation I am reading. I am reading it on project gutenberg, during those slow moments that have been cropping up ..."

Out of curiosity, how are the first two sentences translated?

I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased.

It probably doesn't matter much, actually. I think people routinely overestimate their ability to distinguish between translations from a language that they don't know, and I'm certainly not going to change to another version.

Still, I think it's nice to credit people for the work they've done.

Nicole wrote: "I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased.

It probably doesn't matter much, actually. I think people routinely overestimate their ability t..."

Richard Pevear translated it as "I am a sick man...I am a wicked man." In his foreword, he expands on his reasons for why "wicked" works better for what Dostoevsky is getting at in the book.

I love the opening sentences to Notes. I've read them many times over the years. For some reason I find them quite cathartic.

Isn't Richard Pevear the one who doesn't actually speak Russian? I remember reading a long and pleasantly bitchy rant about him by some professor of Russian lit (possibly from NorthwesternU?)

ETA, indeed, if I remember correctly, the rant included a long section on why "wicked" is a disgraceful choice for this sentence, and "spiteful" is the only way to go.

Which is, btw, exactly why I think people who don't speak any Russian cannot possibly evaluate which translation is the "right" one.

I think the translation on Project Gutenberg is Garnett's. I have the Norton Critical Edition in which the translator (Katz) provides the opening sentences in 10 translations prior to his own. Garnett and Katz are the only ones with that exact translation, and the following sentences don't match Katz's so....

This is my first reading, and I'm finding it interesting so far. Although, like Cphe, I also felt a bit worn down by the narrator at times throughout Part 1. I don't know if I got used to the narration or if the second half of Part 1 was genuinely more engaging, but I found myself more involved as it went on.

Nicole wrote: "Isn't Richard Pevear the one who doesn't actually speak Russian? I remember reading a long and pleasantly bitchy rant about him by some professor of Russian lit (possibly from NorthwesternU?)

ETA,..."

He does his translations with his colleague, Larissa Volokhonsky.

Found it:
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/ar...

Instead of “spite,” they give us “wickedness.” Now, the Russian word zloi can indeed mean “wicked.” But no one with the faintest idea of what this novella is about, with any knowledge of criticism from Dostoevsky’s day to ours, or with any grasp of Dostoevskian psychology, would imagine that the book’s point is that people are capable of wickedness.

Nicole wrote: "ETA, indeed, if I remember correctly, the rant included a long section on why "wicked" is a disgraceful choice for this sentence, and "spiteful" is the only way to go."

I liked 'spiteful' and 'spite' (I'm reading the Gutenberg as well). The contradiction of whether he is spiteful, or pretending to be spiteful out of spite, reminded me of book of knights-or-knaves logic puzzles I've been reading.

EDIT: Gutenberg has another copy of Notes with identical text, and Garnett is identified as the translator: White Nights and other stories.

Thanks MKFS!

Chapter 8, on free will and the tyranny of determinism, I feel like I am somehow missing some sort of context (as I so often did with Maldoror). Unlike with Maldoror, though, I feel zero motivation to find out what it might be.

I think I maybe just don't care for Dostoevsky.

I was hesitating about reading this book, because of what I have read and heard of it. I've tried twice, this year, to begin doing it. The first time I felt quite cheerful (something that seldom happens), so I didn't feel like it, and I didn't want to spoil my mood! So I thought I would save it for a time when I felt (precisely) more spiteful. So the spite time came, but, to my surprise, I didn't want to read absolutely anything: I just wanted to hide in my bed.

Today I feel better: not too cheerful, but not too spiteful either. So I thought this might be the right time (I hope so). I started it morning and I've liked it very much so far.

Poncho wrote: "Today I feel better: not too cheerful, but not too spiteful either. So I thought this might be the right time (I hope so). I started it morning and I've liked it very much so far. "

Ha, ha! Good stuff Poncho! Here's wishing you have just the right level of spitefulness to 'enjoy' this book but not too much to make your life miserable. :-)

What a brilliant quote:

I am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly. I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows. I tell all old men that to their face, all these venerable old men, all these silver-haired and reverend seniors! I tell the whole world that to its face! I have a right to say so, for I shall go on living to sixty myself. To seventy! To eighty!

I'm 45 and I so I think I must be a worthless fellow! Or maybe a fool!

Jonathan wrote: "What a brilliant quote:I am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Wh..."

(I know the following quote is from part II, but it comes apropos of your comment, Jonathan.)

At that time I was only twenty-four. My life was even then gloomy,
ill-regulated, and as solitary as that of a savage. I made friends with no one and positively avoided talking, and buried myself more and more in my hole.

I'm about to turn twenty-four and in this second part I just keep identifying with the narrator more and more! Am I to become an underground man?

I know you guys read this months ago. I intended to read it with you then but am somehow just getting to it. I have a paperback that is translated by Mirra Ginsburg. I've used her translations before with no problems.

I'm liking this. I think if I had read it in my mid 20's I would have LOVED it. I had more patience for wallowing (love that word) in self pity and pain. Now I'm more of a get on with it kind of person. I don't really like the narrator but I do sympathize with (relate to?) his lack of social skills and his anxiety. There is something about his attitude that there is some pleasure to be found in suffering that strikes a chord with me.