this collection of short stories<\/a>, translated by Pevear & Volokhonsky, and it\u2019s not solely for completists. I mean there is a lot of recognizably Dostoyevskyan howling, and some situations and images I hadn\u2019t seen elsewhere in his work. If you like him you should move it up your queue a bit, is what I\u2019m saying.<\/p>\nP\/V are controversial. I don\u2019t know enough Russian to have an informed opinion, but my uninformed opinion is that they make Dostoyevsky sound clunky and hysterical\u2026 which is kind of what he is, yes? Reading him in Russian, which I have only barely dared to attempt, is like trying to read a nest of snakes. Everything is the most that thing ever<\/em>, he just galumphs around throwing weird convoluted phrases and suffix-laden words at you, and you submit to it rather than appreciating it. He\u2019s my actual favorite author and I\u2019ve mostly read him in the P\/V translations, so that\u2019s my bias.<\/p>\nI think my favorite story in this collection was the first one, \u201cA Nasty Anecdote,\u201d in which liberal class-mixing goes wrong. Every party in Dostoyevsky is the worst party ever. There\u2019s also rampant self-abasement in almost every story. The vision of an edenic planet in \u201cThe Dream of a Ridiculous Man\u201d is straightforward and surprisingly touching.<\/p>\n
Dostoyevsky Drinking Game<\/a> Score<\/strong>: One story includes the sentence, \u201cAnd forever after there remained in his memory, there came to him awake and in his dreams, those tormented eyes of a tormented child, who looked at him in mad fear and with her last hope.\u201d So I suspect if you play the Drinking Game with this book you will die.
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