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Comment by nineplay | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to challenge this because I think it suggests that reading the Russian classics is an intellectual challenge with a perquisite of studying Russian history and culture.

Dostoyevsky's works are amazing without any background knowledge. No 'intellectualism' is required, just a love of stories. With a few tweaks they could be set in a modern era and turned into Netflex series.

War and Peace is considered a challenge because of the rambling philosophical chapters between the main action, but strip those out and you have Gone with the Wind. Easily enjoyed without any extra frontal lobe matter.

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I don't think there was an inference that the books are opaque, just that people reading these books in 2022 are already weird ducks. Well, as weird as anyone reading, say, Tao Te Ching or other non-standard-academic-curriculum "classic" books you'd have to go out of your way to read.

Anna Karenina was an Oprah book club selection. War and Peace occasionally pops up on bestseller lists.

One of my nits is implications that Great Works require some sort of extra mental exertion. I've read many Great Works and it's not just that Crime and Punishment is better than As the Crawdads Sing <ugh> but it is also more engaging. People think that these books shouldn't be read without understanding Russian history or society and without careful comparisons of the best translations but it isn't necessary.

One of my mantras as a reader is that I no longer am in school and no one is going to make me write a paper or discuss overriding themes. I can read the way I like and enjoy what I like and if I missed all the mustard seed references than it doesn't matter to me.

I could go into a side discussion on how literature is taught but I'm sympathetic to English curriculum developers who have to give students some books to read and have some criteria by which they can make sure students have read and understood it.

While you don't need to study history, you should definitely read the Wikipedia article on Napoleon's invasion of Russia before starting War and Peace. Not even from an intellectual standpoint, but to just so you're not taken out of the book every other sentence by another reference to a figure or event.

Almost every book has interesting reference that the reader can choose to follow up on. I'm reading a mystery set in the 30s and took a happy diversion into colonial British officers.

I'm a science fiction fan and I like to approach books as though they were set in Jupiter in the far future. One of my beliefs is that great literature transcends the time and place of where it was written. I haven't been disappointed yet.

I'd chalk up some of that to bad/archaic translations. An overwrought translation can easily transform a page-turner into a slog.

It's always worth researching translations to make sure you find the best, most readable one before embarking on a non-English classic.

Dostoyevsky could be read by any random Joe, but the fact is, random Joe does not read Dostoyevsky.

> Dostoyevsky's works are amazing without any background knowledge.

Surely, it's a matter of taste :-) I've read Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Demons, and The Idiot without particular enjoyment. I would take Tolstoy any day.

YMMV :) Moby Dick didn't do anything for me despite people telling me it's their favorite book. Even stripped of the diversions into the history of whaling I felt like it just went on and on.

>With a few tweaks they could be set in a modern era and turned into Netflex series.

And Anna Karenina was in production too...

So... not knowing the subject Anna Karenina, I once put the audio book on while in the car the morning after spending the night with a Russian ex who was married, while driving along a train track with a train on it. She asked if I was encouraging her to kill us both.

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