Some of the best ideas are destined never to make it into print. They’re usually the ‘wouldn’t it be great if…’ ideas, that you know probably aren’t true, and even if they are, there’s no way you’re ever going to prove them. At the same time you don’t want to let them go altogether. And […]
All posts in category Dostoevsky
The Crocodile and the Crystal Palace: a whimsy
Posted by Sarah Young on June 5, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/06/05/the-crocodile-and-the-crystal-palace-a-whimsy/
Summer reading
The exam season is more or less over, my marking marathon is finished, and one of the things I always look forward to at this time of year is being able to read intelligent books for fun. First up is my annual Dickens fix, and this time I’m reading Oliver Twist. This was the book […]
Posted by Sarah Young on May 27, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/05/27/summer-reading/
Dostoevsky and Holbein
I have a new publication, but unfortunately I fear that most of my readers will be as incapable of reading it as I am: ‘“Hakuchi” to Holbein “Hakano nakano Kirisuto”,’ Gendai Shiso, 38.4 (2010), 298-307. That’s ‘Holbein’s Christ inthe Tomb in The Idiot‘, translated by Kyohei Norimatsu (to whom many thanks) in a special Dostoevsky issue […]
Posted by Sarah Young on May 15, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/05/15/dostoevsky-and-holbein/
The Crystal Palace in Russian Literature (2)
I think the general assumption is that Chernyshevsky’s use of the Crystal Palace as the basis for his utopian vision riled Dostoevsky so much that he then included in the polemic against rational egoism in Notes from Underground (Russian text here). But by the time What is to be Done? was published, Dostoevsky had already visited […]
Posted by Sarah Young on April 22, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/04/22/the-crystal-palace-in-russian-literature-2/
Dostoevsky, the biography
I’m currently reading Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time (Princeton University Press, 2010), the abridged version of his five-volume biography. So far so good; it preserves a lot of the best features of the original work, in particular the focus on Dostoevsky’s intellectual development and role of the intelligentsia in nineteenth-century Russian life. […]
Posted by Sarah Young on March 10, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/03/10/dostoevsky-the-biography/
Sonia: another thought
William Burnham’s article, ‘The Legal Context and Contributions of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment,’ Michigan Law Review, 100.6 (2002), 1227-1248, suggests another dimension to Sonia’s role as a registered prostitute. Burnham states that while confession and eye-witness testimony were considered the most reliable forms of proof in Russia at the time, ‘the law disqualified several classes of […]
Posted by Sarah Young on February 2, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/02/02/sonia-another-thought/
Crime and Punishment: Sonia and prostitution
I’ve been thinking a lot about Crime and Punishment recently, partly because I’m teaching it on our MA course on the nineteenth-century Russian novel, partly because of the recent adaptation I saw, and partly because I’m starting to plan a new digital project on the novel (more on that anon). What has really piqued my […]
Posted by Sarah Young on January 26, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/01/26/crime-and-punishment-sonia-and-prostitution/
Crime and Punishment in a squat
Last week I went to see a production of Crime and Punishment by the Ashes and Diamonds Theatre Company at the Oubliette squat in Mayfair (their website is currently being upgraded so hopefully there will be something to see there soon). The production was a bit of a mixed bag, but overall I liked it […]
Posted by Sarah Young on January 13, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/01/13/crime-and-punishment-in-a-squat/
Four short links: Dostoevsky
1. The Complete Works of Dostoevsky. A really pioneering website; the concordance and Gospel, with Dostoevsky’s textual markers, are a must for any scholar. It’s been around for years, and used to be very slow (in the late nineties when I was working on my PhD, searches were best conducted after midnight — at other […]
Posted by Sarah Young on December 27, 2009
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2009/12/27/four-short-links-dostoevsky/