Chapter VI.I | Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment #33

[@detectiveassassin7937]

Every time I see you've uploaded my day gets a little bit better.

[@JanBamm]

Thanks again!!!

[@MarkESchneider]

I love your channel. I am a huge Dostoevsky fan and I have a suggestion that I hope you will consider. I have listened to all the free Dostoevsky audio that is on Libravox and I am now listening to what you have posted. I really appreciate your asides within the stories and the preface and conclusion discussions. These are most insightful and helpful to me. What I suggest is that if you want to tackle more of the long Dostoevsky classics (like The Possessed, the brothers karamazov or house of the dead) you consider using the Libravox book narrations and just add your comments at the ends and after any critical chapters. The best versions of these are Brothers K Ver 3 narrated by Bruce Pirie, House of the Dead and The Possessed narrated by Expatriate. Unfortunately, The Idiot on Libravox, which I have listened to in entirety, is not great, the first two parts narrated by Martin Geesen are excellent, but parts 3 and 4 are not up to the standard of the other narrations I mention (or your narrations). I would love to hear your narration of at least the second half of that fantastic novel. Just for reference I love the Libravox Crime and Punishment ver 2 read by Expatriate and Notes from the Underground ver 2 read by Bob Neufeld. All the cited readers are exceptionally good and read other great literature beyond Dostoevsky worth looking into. Again, many thanks for all you have done and my encouragement to continue however you choose to.

[@hippiasminor6264]

Thank you very much for this thoughtful suggestion. Yes, I certainly will consider it. Actually, I had thought of doing something very much like this before starting out on Crime and Punishment, given that C and P is such a significant time commitment, and I was already quite certain that I couldn't improve upon George Guidall's work, which somehow found its way onto KZbin. I even contacted the publisher to ask permission to use it in much the way you suggest here for Librivox, but didn't get an affirmative answer. (I'm convinced that its appearance on YT constitutes piracy, since Guidall's recording was done professionally.) Now...I don't tend to be too candid about how I rank my own narration against that of others, but to engage with your suggestion fully, I suppose this kind of evaluation does need to happen. My own self-evaluation is this: I doubt I matched Bob Neufeld's work in Notes. I haven't tested Martin Geesen's stuff, but all the chatter I've heard about him has been so positive that I doubt I could match it, either. (I've also heard that the second half of that Librivox production of Idiot could be improved, as you've noted.) I'm not yet sure what to say of how I'd stack against Bruce Pirie's work on BK--I *just* took a listen to a couple of passages, since you've mentioned him, but he does sound very good. On my own self-assessment, though, I think my work with C and P (and, I think, with House of the Dead) is a bit of an improvement on Expatriate's narration for Librivox. (This is why I wasn't tempted to make use of Librivox's stuff before starting the current project, the way I was tempted to use Guidall.) If I'm reading between the lines correctly, the impression I get is that your assessment is different, and that whatever improvement I have over Expatriate's recording (if it exists at all) is marginal at best. I suppose this is a matter of taste... (One caveat, though: the other day, I tried listening to my stuff through different earbuds--and I was surprised by how poor the sound was. Using those same earbuds did not have the same negative effect on other people's recordings. So, it's possible I need to engage in some audio engineering improvements--a need which was not revealed to me through any of my other earbuds or through playing through PC or phone speakers.) (One other caveat: I tend not to like my older stuff.) Even aside from this issue, though, there is an independent reason to take up your suggestion: *time.* Especially where I'm not sure that my improvements will be significant, the best value for my time would likely involve making use of Librivox's stuff. Just to let you know what I'm thinking for the near future, my next port of call would be The Adolescent. I've made some promises here, and the requests I received were primarily for a better narration than what's currently available. After that, the comments I've received regarding narration in particular have concerned The Possessed and the second half of The Idiot. I suppose I'll have a long time to ponder my next move. Thanks much, and best wishes!

[@MarkESchneider]

Great thanks for the detailed response. It would be really a great service to record the second half of The Idiot. It is a spectacular book and frankly the Libravox reading of the second half was so bad that I simply read the second half myself without audio. Given the available audio versions of The Possessed, C&P, and BK it is a great shame that there is not an adequate version of the second half of The Idiot on line anywhere. Thanks again for your response and for all your great work!! @@hippiasminor6264

[@cannad6367]

@hippiasminor I love your reading very much, it makes me wish everyone could read like you, or if can read some other short stories. If you could read Edgar Allan Poe's short stories. That would so interesting. This is my new year wishes! Happy new year to you!

[@hippiasminor6264]

Thanks very kindly, and happy new year! I will certainly consider your suggestion. As D's works get a bit more daunting, it might be good to branch out. (Might be good to try out a different audio setup on some smaller stuff, too.)

[@roberttoney3929]

I feel the same way 😊😂