Similar authors?

[omahaha]

Fair enough, UM.  I agree with what you say, and I certainly didn't want to mislead smbaig in his search for similar writers.  I now see that by mentioning Camus, both smbaig and others may have inferred that I thought he was as gifted a writer.

Now I did not say he wasn't gifted. I am just repulsed at the fact that he tries to use Dostoevsky accompishments  AGAINST the very things Dostoevsky was trying to save and protect by those great innovations. To me camus was a sham-moooo. You don't have to agree. No big deal. But hey at least we're talking about it. Aleast your of a mind to even to begin to approach these things

But I would caution both smbaig and others.  You rightly say that "Nothing that Camus wrote could compare to (D)."  True enough, but who could claim such "innovations to literature" through the technique of polyphonic composition and such "prophetic works", as you put it?  No author.  So by that logic, you can't give any answer to smbaig's question, since I think (and I suspect that you would agree) that NO other writer, not just Camus, could compare to the best passages in D.  You can make that same reply about any author that is mentioned as a writer of similar themes: "Nothing that ________ wrote could compare to (D)."  So I regret if I left smbaig or others with the impression that Camus was as good.  My orginal response wasn't to imply equal artisitc quality between the two, or equal depth of insight, but as far as any author offered as a response, I believe that most members on this board would say, "yeah, but he doesn't compare to D."

Agreed the heart of my point is that if you love what dostoevsky wrote AND what he stood for, Camus might not be your thing. Since I feel from camus' attempted rebuttal to the grand inquisitor where shamoo I mean camus DEFENDS the inquisitor and SIDES WITH HIM, he was in his heart an enemy of dostoevsky's and was so threatened by big D he had to at once act like he was embracing him to then undermind him. Just my opinion.

Maybe I should revise my answer to smbaig in this way:  I still do think that Camus dealt with many similar themes, but be forewarned, you won't reach anywhere near the same heights as when you read D."  How's that?

I hope you understand that I am sincere. As I hope this post is..If it is to be satircal then it all might be just be too much..

UM and MikeK, it seems like you both a agree that Camus is not on the same level as D, and I agree.

How would you compare Nietzsche with D? It seems like a lot of atheistic thinkers have tried to answer D's work, but have not been able to. As the saying goes, or as I've heard it, Dostoyevsky's shadow is far reaching.

I was very struck with Nietzsche when I read him at the time, because of his grand style and the fact that I was a religious skeptic at the time. But after reading enough D, it seems like Nietzsche was himself merely a Dostoyevskian character. Have you read any atheistic authors that have been able portray humanity quite like D? Or religious ones for that matter?

[lerik]

When you look at Camus, I think "the stranger" is not the book to look at,  though i think it is more philosophically deep then previously suggested on here.. Absurdism is interesting.. Look at "The Fall", and i think in this book you can see something of Dostoyevsky's influence though I do agree that Camus has nowhere near the talent of Dostoyevesky, he is still a decent writer..  Marquez, is also obviously heavily influenced by Dostoyevsky, at least in ideas, somewhat in writing style though he writes with a much more exaggerated passion and a flowery style that is not really like dostoyevsky i guess so scratch the somewhat, just ideas... I find Borges similar as well, for another of the latin writers... Well, enough for now...

The only work that I liked from Absurdism is "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" by Edward Albee.I strongly suggest reading this play or`watching it.
Marquez style is really interesting.He mixes realism and magic in his works(in our school it was called 'magical realism').That makes his works really stand out

[K.]

I agree. Having read Nietzsche after reading much of D, it seemed that D had already anticipated and responded to N. The part I find the most ironic is that characters who have a philosophy similar to N's usually end up suicidal (stavrogin) or insane (ivan). N lost his mind at the end of ten years of writing, and shared the fate of Ivan.

Fair enough, UM.  I agree with what you say, and I certainly didn't want to mislead smbaig in his search for similar writers.  I now see that by mentioning Camus, both smbaig and others may have inferred that I thought he was as gifted a writer.

Now I did not say he wasn't gifted. I am just repulsed at the fact that he tries to use Dostoevsky accompishments  AGAINST the very things Dostoevsky was trying to save and protect by those great innovations. To me camus was a sham-moooo. You don't have to agree. No big deal. But hey at least we're talking about it. Aleast your of a mind to even to begin to approach these things

But I would caution both smbaig and others.  You rightly say that "Nothing that Camus wrote could compare to (D)."  True enough, but who could claim such "innovations to literature" through the technique of polyphonic composition and such "prophetic works", as you put it?  No author.  So by that logic, you can't give any answer to smbaig's question, since I think (and I suspect that you would agree) that NO other writer, not just Camus, could compare to the best passages in D.  You can make that same reply about any author that is mentioned as a writer of similar themes: "Nothing that ________ wrote could compare to (D)."  So I regret if I left smbaig or others with the impression that Camus was as good.  My orginal response wasn't to imply equal artisitc quality between the two, or equal depth of insight, but as far as any author offered as a response, I believe that most members on this board would say, "yeah, but he doesn't compare to D."

Agreed the heart of my point is that if you love what dostoevsky wrote AND what he stood for, Camus might not be your thing. Since I feel from camus' attempted rebuttal to the grand inquisitor where shamoo I mean camus DEFENDS the inquisitor and SIDES WITH HIM, he was in his heart an enemy of dostoevsky's and was so threatened by big D he had to at once act like he was embracing him to then undermind him. Just my opinion.

Maybe I should revise my answer to smbaig in this way:  I still do think that Camus dealt with many similar themes, but be forewarned, you won't reach anywhere near the same heights as when you read D."  How's that?

I hope you understand that I am sincere. As I hope this post is..If it is to be satircal then it all might be just be too much..

UM and MikeK, it seems like you both a agree that Camus is not on the same level as D, and I agree.

How would you compare Nietzsche with D? It seems like a lot of atheistic thinkers have tried to answer D's work, but have not been able to. As the saying goes, or as I've heard it, Dostoyevsky's shadow is far reaching.

I was very struck with Nietzsche when I read him at the time, because of his grand style and the fact that I was a religious skeptic at the time. But after reading enough D, it seems like Nietzsche was himself merely a Dostoyevskian character. Have you read any atheistic authors that have been able portray humanity quite like D? Or religious ones for that matter?

[omahaha]

The story goes that Nietzsche saw a man whipping his horse in Turin, and he threw his arms around the horse, much like the scene in Crime and Punishment. After that he caused a public disturbance and went completely mad shortly after. So the story goes.

[emmyymme]

I have another question how long does it take you guys to read D's longer novels like C&P, TBK etc.

I am not a slow reader but I spend so much time thinking of what I am reading, the book ends up taking so much longer... I feel that D's philosophy's deserve alot of thought... does this happen to any of you.

PS- I have ten pages left of Poor Folk and can't finnish them because I am running a fever of 102F. I am so frustrated with that..

To reply to an older message (I just joined so I'm reading through the forums all at once) time frames on books vary -   I recently had to read 150 pages of Paradise Lost in two days for an English paper (correspondence courses are never good for procrastinators) which was alright but I prefer more time to absorb the ideas.  C&P was probably two or three days; TBK took about 6 months - the ideas in it seemed so important at the time that I'd put it down and read another shorter story inbetween some of the chapters just to let my mind process everything.  Anna Karanina was the same way - I think I read The Gambler during Anna as a breather.  In terms of other authors I would recommend Rimbaud - Season in Hell but also his shorter works, there is a collection which contain all of his published works which is definately worth the read - I recommend it from a sense of writing style rather than content; I've found Dostoevsky's stream of consciousness fluidity in his writing has a strong sense of rhythm and imagery which is one of my favourite aspects of his writing; I recommend Rimbaud on this level rather than that of a great philosopher or great believer in humanity/Christianity.

[RodionRaskolnikov]

If you like hardboiled crime novels, I'd strongly recommend Jim Thompson. He was often referred to as "The Dimestore Dostoevsky".

[Sicman]

The Ray Davison book 'Camus - The Challenge of Dostoevsky'  sheds some light on this subject.

"Camus' work appears to be conceived in a profound spirit of debate and dialogue with (Dostoevsky)...".

[Silvio]

I havent read the book to which you refer but F.D
strides the narrow world like a colossus, it would be
difficult not to be influenced by him. Nietzsche said
that his introduction to F.D was the most important
in his life- even more so than Stendhal.
What's also interesting is how far behind English prose
was the rest of the continent. There was nobody of the like of Smollett or Dafoe either in France, Germany or Russia. Stendhal's 'psychological novels'
didn't have any earlier French equivalents, nor Goethe and as F.D himself has stated "we all came out of The overcoat". Has anyone read Andre Gide's
book of lectures on Dostoevsky?

[ivans_nightmare]

Authors that I would recommend on the level of Dostoevsky are Andrei Platonov (especially The Foundation Pit), Hermann Hesse (esp. Steppenwolf), Sasha Sokolov (A School for Fools), Philip K. Dick (esp. A Scanner Darkly), Knut Hamsun (esp. Hunger), Venedikt Erofeyev, Samuel Beckett, Flann O'Brien.