This week in English we started to read Dostoevsky's Crime and Punsihment. Dostoevsky was a brilliant fiction writer, a journalist, and a publisher. He also had a gambling problem, suffered from epilepsy, and had constant financial problems. Like the hero of our novel, he spent time in prison in Siberia. He wasn't imprisoned for murder, though, but for being a member of the Petrashevsky Circle.(source). Crime and Punishment opens up to Rodion Raskolnikov, a poor ex-student in St. Petersburg, Russia who goes to a pawn broker and plans on murdering her for her money.
I, of course, had my doubts about the story. However, when I read the first few pages, it started to interest me. The only problem is with the crazy Russian names, like Alyona Ivanovna and Marmeladov. I know these names are difficult to pronounce since they're from a different culture, but it makes me wonder how phonetically-challenging American names are in comparison. Alex or Jan doesn't seem that difficult to pronounce compared to most Russian names. I also found names from Africa even harder to pronounce.
But enough about that names. I am only a few pages into C&P, but I hope that there is more in store as I read on!
I like how you provided background on the author. It's nic to see who the person is that did the writing. Also, Russian names are annoying sometimes, but my name is Russian! So they aren't all bad.
ReplyDeleteEven though I think that Crime and Punishment has a slow start, you make some valid points. I think that once we're halfway through the book the names won't be as hard to pronounce.
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