One of the aims of this blog is to bring you the latest news and views from the world of Dostoevsky studies. Everybody knows that hardly anyone, my students included, actually bothers to read Dostoevsky, as this article from The Onion*, Film Adaptation Of “The Brothers Karamazov” Ends Where Most People Stop Reading The Book, proves:
“The 83-minute film, which is based on the first 142 or so pages of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s acclaimed work, has already garnered attention for its stunning climax, in which the end credits suddenly appear midway through Katerina’s tearful speech about an unpaid debt.”
* Not Grushenka’s onion**
** See The Brothers Karamazov for details.
Andre van Loon
/ December 5, 2009I would be interested to hear why you say that Blogs are the newspapers of Dostoevsky’s day…What exactly is the link? Are blogs not be far more numerous in number than 19th century Russian newspapers ever were? Or do you have a different point in mind?
Best,
Andre
Sarah Young
/ December 7, 2009I had to review a very bad book (I shall not name it) which among its many faults contained a highly inappropriate analogy for newspapers in Dostoevsky’s day. It’s become something of a running joke.
Ivan's_Nightmare
/ April 2, 2013I’m sorry to have joined the conversation so late, but seeing as we are still talking about Dostoevsky more than a century after his death, discourses never die, do they? The analogy of blogs to the newspapers of Dostoevsky’s day strikes me as apt, as it is easy to envision “A Writer’s Diary,” given its periodical and topical nature, as a kind of 19th century printed blog. His manner of remarking on current events in Russia, Europe, and the world is reminiscent (if one can speak in reverse chronology) of the kind of journalism we often see in blogs–reporting of facts with admittedly biased or opinionated commentary–rather than institutional newspapers. Moreover, the number of competing periodic journals in Dostoevsky’s Russia competing or collaborating with one another ideologically probably outnumbered actual newspapers, but that’s just my impression.
N.B. (a Dostoevskian flourish) — Sarah, thank you immensely for dragging yourself into the internet age, I’ve only just stumbled upon your “Blogger’s Diary,” but I look forward to exploring the vast archive you have by now created.