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Klassische russische Erzählungen.
229 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 14, 2017
Twenty-five years ago, when I was young, I read quite a few nineteenth-century Russians in English translation. I guess I thought it was good for me.
It was the usual: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Gogol, and, a bit later, Chekhov. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky didn't make much of an impression on me, positive or negative, Pushkin's stories I quite liked, and Chekhov's I enjoyed, too, if perhaps a bit less. Gogol I detested.
Now, after not really having read any of those Russians since my distant youth, I'm returning to them, but this time in Russian--or, to be more exact, in Russian/German or Russian/French editions. The odd thing is that although I've read pretty widely since I first explored the Russians and have learned a number of languages, my tastes in writing have remained mostly unchanged: I still detest Gogol, for example, whose manic stories (included in this collection was Заколдованное место/Der verhexte Platz) bore and irritate me to no end.
Of the other stories in this collection I also very much disliked Честный вор/Der ehrliche Dieb, by Dostoevsky, and Привиденние в Инжеиером замке/Das Gespenst im Ingenieurspalais, by Nikolai Leskov, whose work I had not previously read. I enjoyed the stories by Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov and, to my slight surprise, Tolstoy. The story of his that's in the collection is Три смерти/Drei Tode. I found it moving.
It was the usual: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Gogol, and, a bit later, Chekhov. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky didn't make much of an impression on me, positive or negative, Pushkin's stories I quite liked, and Chekhov's I enjoyed, too, if perhaps a bit less. Gogol I detested.
Now, after not really having read any of those Russians since my distant youth, I'm returning to them, but this time in Russian--or, to be more exact, in Russian/German or Russian/French editions. The odd thing is that although I've read pretty widely since I first explored the Russians and have learned a number of languages, my tastes in writing have remained mostly unchanged: I still detest Gogol, for example, whose manic stories (included in this collection was Заколдованное место/Der verhexte Platz) bore and irritate me to no end.
Of the other stories in this collection I also very much disliked Честный вор/Der ehrliche Dieb, by Dostoevsky, and Привиденние в Инжеиером замке/Das Gespenst im Ingenieurspalais, by Nikolai Leskov, whose work I had not previously read. I enjoyed the stories by Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov and, to my slight surprise, Tolstoy. The story of his that's in the collection is Три смерти/Drei Tode. I found it moving.
July 1, 2024
I love Russian classics but this collection really wasn’t for me (expect for a few stories). It was still a nice exercise for my Russian knowledge though
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews