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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295 |
Aha, thanks Anna! To keep these things clear we turn it around , teacher English, teacher French, teacher German etc. If not postmodern it certainly is trendy. Language art teacher The outward stylistic upgrading of practically everything.  Most of my punctuations marks are out of order. Till I fix this problem my posts may not be totally punctilious. /never were anyway/
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295 |
Quote:
Tolstoy's characters are more balanced. He's much more sympathetic to his characters, even the bad guys and the foolish ones. I noticed this first with Anna Karenina when I was mentally berating Anna's husband for being such an ass, and then thought suddenly, "You know ... I'm just not sure. Had I been in his situation, I might have behaved the same way."
Dostojvksi may seem more black and white because he does not do the moral value thing. And I think he is thrice as sympathetic with his characters as Tolstoy, who, being of solid Russian noblity has the tolerant values of his class and the idealistic ideas too. I know he is one of the great writers for sure , but I would like to put Dostojevski against Tolstoy as Van Gogh stands against Rubens.
Dostojevski suffered like his characters. Acknowledged the injustice and arbitrariness of social structures and relations.
His writing is feverish, lucid, compassionate.
His smaller works are worth reading too. White Nights and the Meek One. - maybe the English title is Weak of Heart or The weak of Heart
Wonderful short stories.
Dostojevski was of lower Latvian noblity and suffered from epilepsy.
Was senteced to death but was then changed onto forced labor. He´s a realistic, he lived what he wrote. Maybe Tolstoy did too , but from a more comfortable desk chair.
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295 |
Sorry , mr.TheFal F /////, I got a little carried away. They were the first books I bought from pocketmoney when I was about 15/ 16. Cheep editions of good quality, available to everyone who did not spend their money on candy or french fries.(patates frites)  For less than 3/4 dollar a piece (at that time's value)the whole Russian classic library was to be had.I know I should give Tolstoi one more try for a more just opinion. Still keep that line of worn out browned-paged pocket books.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
No apology necessary. If anything, you confirmed in my mind what I thought. The Idiot may well have been an cathartic for Dostoyevski. Maybe that's how he sees himself - a pure person trying to do right amidst a bunch of sleazy people.
It's not that I don't think that there are some people who really are more 'pure' than others or more evil than others (like old man karamazov). It's just that I think there are more people lying somewhere on a spectrum between those extremes.
Tolstoy might not have had the worst life, but it wasn't the best, either. It was, it seems to me, a life largely based on service and the improvement of humanity.
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Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 293
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 293 |
Quote:
"Act now while the supply lasts, and you can buy a rare facsimile of an 11th-century, illuminated German manuscript for only $16,425. After
March 15, the price will rise to $19,205. This is what the publisher
has told prospective German buyers interested in acquiring a 410-page,
gilded copy of a pericope."
Craig R. Whitney; Medieval Marketing; The New York Times; Nov 9, 1994.
Advertisements like these always cheer me up to a high degree.Especially the "for only" is hilarious. Come to look at it it's almost a gift. Good grief , it's a facsimile, a smiling fake and a pericope, meaning only a part of a book as well.
I guess however something like this might be attractive to thieves.
That is at the heart of all (successful) advertising, right?
"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world" -Michael Crichton
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Joined: Oct 2006
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 1 |
For those who appreciate lists of classics, such as those mentioned in this thread previously, here's another that I like, assembled some years ago at the University of Texas at Austin. It's called the Texas List of Unrequired Reading.
http://utopia.utexas.edu/parents/txunrequired.html
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295 |
That is at the heart of all (successful) advertising, right?
To get your neighbour to buy something you might envy him for?  Hm.I guess so. And many people respond to that little game.
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Joined: Nov 2006
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Nov 2006
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hello! i read your comment to wordsmith.org (AWAD issue #232 October 22 2006) and was very interested in the idea of "Great Books for a Lifetime's Reading" that your teacher, Miss Rosenfield, had given to you. was this a list she had created herself? if so i am wondering if you would mind sharing it with me? if it is an actual bibliography that i could buy somewhere perhaps you could point me in the right direction? i live in australia.
thanks in anticipation!
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
The Texas list is fascinating but not nearly as fascinating as a conversation with the person or persons who put it together, discussing the rationale for their choices, might be.
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295 |
The Utopia Texas list site, besides being interesting for what it shows in bookchoices, also gives to a foreigner a clear vieuw of how the school system is organized. At last I know these steps now: preschool,
elementary school, middleschool, highschool, college, university.
(don't know the age range of all these following up schools)
So different from ours, which gives elementary school right away from 4 up to age 12 , then a combination of highschool-college from 12 to 17/18 and from there on the choice between a higher professonial education and university. It interests me , as my two younger grandchildren are growing up in the U.S. And as my feelings about thia are ambivalent, being on this board helps and gives so much information (in between the recreational elements).
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