Your Daily Penguin: The Brothers Karamazov!

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[@jaye2491]

You speaking about knowing what is good and bad actually reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from Dostoevsky's letters! The letter was sent by him on the 27th of March 1878, which he wrote in response to a mother who was asking him questions about raising her child, and he says to her "You know in your soul what is good and bad." Very cool ☺️

[@someonerandom8552]

I will now forever refer to the Brothers Karamazov as the War and Peace of Russian Literature. Lmao!!!

[@vilstef6988]

Hilarity! Makes one wonder what the Brothers Karamazov of Russian Literature might be. Such a question could lead to some really strange creative tail chasing.

[@someonerandom8552]

Gene Miller Lol! Crime and Punishment perhaps?

[@vilstef6988]

@@someonerandom8552 Sounds like it could be made into a fun game of literary references.

[@someonerandom8552]

Gene Miller Haha. Wild goose chase through literature using references. Sounds awesome

[@javidmammadov]

I also snorted when he said that part :)

[@vilstef6988]

I like your occasional reference to this feature as A Waddle Through the Penguin Classics.

[@saintdonoghue]

Months ago a viewer informed me that the term for a group of penguins is a waddle!

[@vilstef6988]

@@saintdonoghue That's perfect! I'd not heard of that one. Goes along nicely with a murder of crows, an unkindness of ravens and the like. Edit: I just looked into it a bit closer and found out a group of penguins in water is a raft!

[@TalinaBarajas]

The Daily Penguin has become three highlight to each of my days.

[@avocadonabura]

A cute dog, AND classics?! A special video on TBK?!?! INSTANT SUBSCRIBE i wish to live like you one day sir

[@EastLancashireJohn]

Highly entertaining Steve. Thank you.

[@philtheo]

I love The Brothers Karamazov, though admittedly the Penguin or McDuff translation didn't suit my tastes. Instead I switched to the Ignat Avsey and enjoyed it a lot. And the Michael Katz translation was released not too long ago, it is also awesome. In fact I'd recommend Michael Katz for any of the major Dostoevsky novels. Katz has done The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, and The Devils aka The Demons. And Katz told me he's currently working on The Idiot. 😊

[@avocadonabura]

True!! Though I didn’t mind the McDuff *much,* I feel like Katz or Avsey are pretty much the go-to for Dostyevsky. P&V are good too, though I do understand all the criticism they get

[@ianbanerji]

I was waiting for this one!!!

[@ami1649]

"Let us make a compact here, at Ilusha's stone, that we will never forget Ilusha and one another. And whatever happens to us later in life, if we don't meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw stones, do you remember, by the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so fond of him....And so in the first place, we will remember him, boys, all our lives. And even if we are occupied with most important things, if we attain to honor or fall into great misfortune-still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us, for the time we were loving that poor boy, better perhaps than we are." I feel like Alyosha (the clear protagonist of the book) offers a kind of antidote to those self-lacerating obsessions and navel-gazing philosophy that you deride. But oh boy - I would have loved to have been a student in that class you taught!

[@freddyshaw1905]

Also would be interested in your list of the best books of all time

[@freddyshaw1905]

I feel very called out as a young man who was blown away by this book man 😣

[@cadenconley3153]

As a young man who considers this his favorite novel of all time, I can certainly understand why this novel enrages some people. I cannot speak for any of the dude-bros, but the reason why I love this is simply for the plot. While I am weird and do enjoy the 100-page philosophical arguments, I enjoy it because it’s just a damn good story. It succeeds as a narrative better than any book I’ve ever read. But again, I do not speak for the stoner bros.

[@mohammedhanif6780]

Dostoevsky has three books in the top twenty: C&P, Demons, TBK.

[@gourmetghost]

you forgot The Idiot

[@tripp8833]

I believe this is both Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin’s favorite book.

[@Gagging4Lit]

i need to read this! It's always a toss up between starting this and Swann's Way though 🧐

[@ThatReadingGuy28]

Steve, I’m a young man and I’ve got 100 pages left until I finish the exact edition you are holding up, but to be honest I felt rather let down by all the philosophical discussions in the novel. None of them really struck me as awe inspiring, or all that thought provoking. Obviously I had to do some reflecting just to follow along with the crazy plot, but it wasn’t at all what I was expecting (I’ve read Crime and Punishment before so I was at least introduced to Dostoyevsky beforehand).

[@saintdonoghue]

Well this is certainly refreshing to hear! Wonderful!

[@vilstef6988]

A better choice for a translator might be someone fluent in Russian and English who is a world building SF writer, since 19th century Russia is so different in many ways than the modern world.

[@DIPLOMATCENTER]

I don’t know how I stumbled into this video today, I’m about doing a kinda spoiler free review of BK as I just finished it yesterday and started W&P, in my estimation, I found it a little bit overrated but do not take the extremity of Dostoevsky’s plots for granted.

[@bleepiestofbloops]

Steve, would you care to list which translations of this work you find best and worst?

[@brettzicari5233]

13:30 you're welcome friends

[@Manfred-nj8vz]

One of the most overestimated writers of all time. What can one say about Aliosa's theological discussions with a 13 year old boy? What can one think about the ending of Brothers Karamazov, where Aliosa together with some pre-adolescent children (!) are happy and celebrate the coming of Last Judgement Day!... Seriously? Is this suppose to be good literature? In Dostoevsky there is always the following concept: All "good" guys get to be rewarded and all "bad" guys either commit suicide or go to prison or get crazy. Ivan Karamazov, the one that could have saved Dmitri's, his brother's, life, gets crazy one day before the court! And why? Because he is the "atheist" of the novel! Excuse me, but is there anything more p r e d i c t a b l e in whole literature? Do you want your literature to be predictable in that silly way? How can a healthy human mind accept this forced and totally disgusting solution? This is the most horrible, boring and kitsch author out there. Not even his language has anything to offer. Horrible.

[@Mnnwer]

How are they celebrating the last judgement day? They are remembering a kid that died and make a sort of pact despite what happens, not to forget how cool that kid was. I mean, being responsible for the death of your father I hardly just "being an atheist"... Also I don't think having a little innocent boy die is "all good guys get rewarded". Another thing you missed is how the philosophical discussion between Alyosha and the 13 year old is clearly Alyosha wanting to ,instead of arguing about religion or socialism, is to get to know the kid and befriend him. Also idk since when predictability was an indicator or literary merit. Because if it's done well it's done well. Basically, clear urself of a bias towards Dostoyevsky's ideology and then try to evaluate its actual literary qualities.

[@jeddred-e3m]

Quit squeezing the dog!

[@mohammedhanif6780]

You just proved that young women are shallow.

[@mohammedhanif6780]

" a miserably cynical book"; really?

[@markkrol545]

BK is the most overrated novel of all time. (The Devils is better, because it predicts the Stalinist horror, followed closely by the slaughters inflicted by the Nazis.) BK is Jordan Petersen's favourite work of literature. Dude-bros love this novel. The loss of the emperor alpha ape in the sky is an enormous wound to these sensitive warriors. They adore the idea that atheism is a form of Satanism. The worst fascists are the ones who murder while sobbing.

[@saintdonoghue]

Yeesh, what a concentrated crock of crap! If "The Brothers Karamazov" were an overrated novel - much less the most overrated novel of all time - I'd have mentioned that in this video. It's not. And a book's "prediction" of some real-world event has nothing to do with its merit. And who gives a rip what Jordan Peterson's favorite work of literature is? Or that dude-bros love this novel? Etc., etc., etc.

[@markkrol545]

I dislike intensely The Brothers Karamazov and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigmarole. No, I do not object to soul-searching and self-revelation, but in those books the soul, and the sins, and the sentimentality, and the journalese, hardly warrant the tedious and muddled search. V. Nabokov

[@ryanthomas7119]

@@markkrol545 I completely disagree with V. Nabokov

[@burntgod7165]

I'm an atheist, and I enjoyed it. Oh, and not young (56).