Rod Dreher linked to my piece on Gogol yesterday, and we got to discussing the difference between people who like Austen and those who like Russian novels. In an email, I suggested:
In my experience, Austen fans love her because of the detailed character portraits, the well-turned phrase, subtle plot development. etc.Russian novels tend to be novels of ideas. The dialogue is often abrupt and slightly off balance–when Russian characters are angry, the world is black; when they are happy, they are positively giddy. It’s as if they are all manic depressives. People read Russian novels–at least most of them–for the ideas represented in characters’ actions, the social commentary, the existential crises. This is all speaking very generally, of course. When I put it like this, there are a number of objections that pop into my head, but voila.
Two questions: First, I’m sure this distinction has been made by others, but what do you think? Is it accurate? Second, Dreher—who admits to struggling to get into Russian novels—asks his readers for their favorites. What are yours?
December 13th, 2011 | 11:10 am
Russian novels are tricky: so long and so complicated and so foreign. I think the best bet is to start with shorter ones like Dostoyevsky’s _Notes from Underground_ and work your way up.
December 13th, 2011 | 11:35 am
Try the new translation of Brothers Karamazov, I’ve heard it’s really great (sort of sorry I already read that one). You can find it on Amazon, published 2002.
The passionate dialogue and interior explosiveness does strike me as a bit crazy – I just dial it down in my reading.
I’m sure everyone has read The Death of Ivan Ilyich, but I think it’s a great introduction to Russian literature.
December 13th, 2011 | 11:36 am
[...] Continuing yesterday’s discussion about Russian literature, a private e-mail exchange between English prof Micah Mattix and I resulted in his mentioning that people either liked Jane Austen, or they liked Russian novels of the period, but rarely did they like both. I asked him why. Here is his answer. [...]
December 13th, 2011 | 12:00 pm
There’s a difference between me and me?
Okay, maybe I don’t count, because TBK is the only one I really liked. But I did love it.
December 13th, 2011 | 12:03 pm
Solzhenitsyn: April 1914. Alternatively, the First Circle or Cancer Ward.
December 13th, 2011 | 12:12 pm
Perhaps some readers might be interested in the two adaptations of Dostoyevsky tales by the film-maker Robert Bresson: Une femme douce (A Gentle Creature) and Four Nights of a Dreamer. The tone of the films is very different than D’s but both are, un my opinion, great films.
December 13th, 2011 | 12:40 pm
As a devotee of Russian literature and someone who like Jane Austen, I’m puzzled by the either/or affections of readers. I’ve always seen Austen as a Russian at heart – at least many of her themes are very similar to Pushkin, Turgenev, et al.
Re-read Mansfield Park, then read Fathers and Sons by Turgenev (my recommendation for a Russian novel Rod might be able to get into). You’ll see very similar themes in both works and the views of both authors when taken together create quite a dialog about family, inheritance, the handing on of culture from one generation to the next and the dangers that ensue when all that is lost. To say that Austen does not deal with ideas, I think, does her a disservice.
December 13th, 2011 | 12:59 pm
It also occurs to me that perhaps the Russian character really does have this kind of schmaltzy passion on display in Russian novels.
Look at the crazy action-hero antics that Putin puts on. It is a complete joke to us non-Russians: wrestling bears, diving for hidden treasure, showing off his chest as a ninja warrior. They are the kinds of things a high school boy would find compelling, but apparently they move the Russian soul.
You could never imagine a British Prime Minister pulling this crapola, Jane Austen or not.
December 13th, 2011 | 1:50 pm
I can’t speak for Rod Dreher, but can’t it just be as simple as nearness of culture? Most of us in the U.S. have breathed English culture in the background like so much secondhand smoke. The world of Jane Austen’s writings are closer to ours culturally than most of the classic Russian novels. It is more accessible. We don’t read the novels in translation, either.
The best of the Russian novels are a bit like the book of Leviticus to me. A bit tedious, but worth the effort.
December 13th, 2011 | 4:02 pm
For years I have told my students that they should count themselves not educated if they have not read TBK be the time they have graduated. Toborrow from Karl Brth who said that in heaven the angels play Bach before the throne of God and Mozart when off duty, I say one reads the Russians for life and Austen for recreation.
December 13th, 2011 | 4:03 pm
“The Death Of Ivan Ilyich”
December 14th, 2011 | 9:54 am
[...] Of Jane Austen and the Russian novel(s). [...]
December 14th, 2011 | 9:55 am
[...] Of Jane Austen and the Russian novel(s). [...]
December 14th, 2011 | 10:09 am
One thing that helped me really get into Russian novels was the realization that, despite whatever else the novel is about or even whatever else the writer intends the novel to be about, all of them are ultimately about Russia: Russians who love Russia and believe that God will not forsake her forever (_The Brothers Karamazov_), Russians frustrated that Western philosophy just doesn’t fit the Russian context (_Anna Karenina_), and Russians worried about what the new generation will do to Russia (_The Cherry Orchard_), for example.
December 14th, 2011 | 10:42 am
As a teenager, decades and decades ago, I read Crime and Punishment. I remember tremendous narrative momentum.
Austen not my cup of tea. I remember complaining to a friend that the women could waste half-a-dozen pages deciding the place setting for dinner. She thought it no waste. All sorts of writers I admire, love Austen. Maybe some day I’ll get it – probably about the same time my spouse gets “Rio Grande.”
December 14th, 2011 | 11:05 am
“I remember complaining to a friend that the women could waste half-a-dozen pages deciding the place setting for dinner. ”
I’m not sure what you’re referring to here. There isn’t a scene remotely like this in Austen, nor anything comparable to people obsessing over external trivia for more than a paragraph or two, as a means of illustrating their character.
December 15th, 2011 | 5:50 am
I recommend “War and Peace.” I know it looks big on the shelf. But after you’ve read fifty pages, you’ll wish it were twice as long.
Although the thread is about novels, I would also like to put in a word for “Ruslan and Lyudmila.” It’s not as profound as “Onegin,” but it’s unbelievably beautiful at every scale.
December 15th, 2011 | 11:43 am
pentamom. No doubt you’re right. Just a wisecrack, responded to by my friend in the spirit it was made.
Re: “War and Peace.” First try, I was defeated by its length. I loved the first hundred pages or so, but realizing I was not even a tenth done, I gave up. Then I saw the six-hour Russian movie, and being able to see in my mind’s eye the faces of the actors, and knowing what was coming, I found the length less challenging. Sergei Bondarchuk was the director, and he also played Pierre, IMDB informs me. I don’t know that I’ve read a greater novel.
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