My name is Patrik Bergman and I have created courses for you to understand the Brothers Karamazov. New to the novel? Then take the shorter intro course to get a sense of what happens (often below 10 minutes per book). Want to dive in deep? Take my full course (often 40+ minutes per book). Want to belong to a group of highly insightful people: also take the über course based on Robert L. Belknap's book "The Structure of The Brothers Karamazov".
To expand your experience even more, dive into my full course on Crime and Punishment, or why not my summary of John Vervaeke's Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.
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Are the photos AI? Is the text written by AI? Just wondering because some photos look like they were generated and the text is very well worded. But awesome video either way!
Yes the images are and I asked AI for help to understand and then wrote the texts based on that. Thank you for your comment!
How can you allow an AI to inform you on the nature of the human soul! Dostoevsky? Sure. Some computer? NEVER.
This has helped me very much in my understanding of the Brothers Karamasow and it was obviously a LOT of work. Thank you so much for this.
Minute mark 1:31 the AI severely mispronounces John’s last name. The YT algorithm fed me this because I love his work. Why don’t you just read the AI text summary yourself?
This is very extensive as you know and given I have a full time job besides this and many other commitments some errors can sneak in. But I will think about it. Meanwhile, I am glad I can summarise each episode in 5 minutes and point to John's original for those who want to see it.
Thank you so much for this video, it's very helpful!
Great! Please continue other chapters too
Please do the whole book been waiting for full audio book with clear audio quality never found one I can't read for so long without drifting away
This is beautiful
Thank you!
Which english translation would you recommend for someone who has english as a second language? I've read a lot in my life so proficiency might not be a problem, but I have very little experience with classics.
I enjoyed Oliver Ready a lot but Sidney Monas is just lovely. A translation not talked about that often but which is wonderful. Ready is quite British but Monas has another tone.
@@patrik_bergman I compared the two, and Monas is quite good as well. But I'm probably going to go with Ready, it's been recommended quite a bit and the cover is very interesting. Thank you!
The translation I own is by David McDuff. Any comments on that?
Not for Crime and Punishment but for The Brothers Karamazov. For me, his use of language is just a bit too much in the sense of words chosen etc. But he is an excellent translator so see what you think.
Is garnet translation good for who is new to the language
I would say yes also because it is a free resource. Just mind that she smoothed out some of his Russian to be more like English, thereby missing some parts.
I might try Katz, but I also might stick with another Mcduff translation. Thanks for the video!
Which do you like the best?
Andrew MacAndrew and Ignat Avsey give us the best of two worlds. You?
thank you for posting, an outstanding analysis.
Thank you very much! Yes, I thought it was time to take this to the next level. Belknap is fenomenal.
Thank you so much for making these insightful inspiring artsy vids!
Love this! This video just shows how complex “The Brothers Karamazov“ is.
Thank you very much for this video. I'm game for more of them! I'm half way through the Constance Garnett translation of The Brothers Karamazov. I'm a native English speaker and I'm quite content with the translation. I put a lot of time into choosing the translation I wanted, as well as the affordability of the book. The only other contender was the Pevear and Volokhonsky version. However I just bought the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of Crime and Punishment.
Great! I avoid P&V since they follow Dostojevskij exactly but misses the nuances in English (I think). So it is very correct but a bit boring to me. MacAndrews is my no 1 still for Brothers Karamazov but for Crime and Punishment I found Oliver Ready and it is fantastic. Both these translators follow Dostojevskij but then turn it into prose that sings! To me anyway. Glad you found the versions you like.
@@patrik_bergman I'll keep that in mind. I don't mind having different translations of the same book in my home library.
LOL 😂 😂
Some see English as puerile when compared to Russian. This criticism comes from a native Russian using English as a second language, who adds that Russian is pliable to invention and thus is meaningfully more expansive than English. The correct reply to this very specific criticism uses Melville's Moby Dick as a counter example of invention in the English language. Melville perfected figuration in this one work. Both writers, Dostoevsky and Melville, are steeped in either Cristian theology or Russian Orthodoxy and thus both are inheritors of Biblically expansive metaphor. Thus, of the five translations presented, which of the five interprets Dostoevsky's figuration through the lense of Biblically charged figuration? In Dostoevsky, is there rationale to avoid or ignore the backdrop of Russian Orthodoxy as an engine of invention??
I agree- best book ever! This is very interesting - I read a lot of Russian lit, but have very little knowledge or understanding of Russian, or the nuances of translation. I’ve mostly stuck with Constance Garnett - I guess because I started with her and wanted consistency in style. I can’t really agree he meant it was a “ nice” little family - and “fishy” doesn’t feel heavy enough to me. All so individual, as comments have said. Great video!!
Thank you !
The thing about translating a dense piece of literary work such as Dostoevsky's is that you just cannot escape the trade-off that comes with it. At one end of the spectrum, there's a translation that tries to adhere to the original prose by retaining the syntaxes and nuances which may perhaps be semantically rewarding in the original language but looms over obscurity in the other. In the process, the work either invariably succumbs to becoming cerebrally verbose in a clunky way (if done right!) or just becomes a mess of unnecessary jargons, dead-ends and non-sequiturs. On the other end, there's a translation that seems to flow organically and manages to maintain a riveting pace throughout (possibly on account of superior prose rather than the subject matter itself) but takes immense liberties at cropping redundancies, modifying cadence, altering diction, transposing or completely omitting phrases to augment or curtail parts of the text. This rendering is done in a manner that holds the hallmark of the translator's own unique writing style and insight, much to the peeve of purists. There are no winners in this tug of war. The soul of the original work gets sacrificed on either end because the soul of a text is not merely a mixture of discrete constituents, but rather their amalgamation, each inseparable from the other; and then some more... Reason would dictate that the sweet spot must lie somewhere in the middle of that spectrum or perhaps slightly tilted towards either end of it depending upon personal preferences. But against what reference point must they be placed on an ordinal scale? The only qualifier would be the original written by Dostoevsky himself. I needn’t expose the glaring fallacy here that one needs to have an equally good command over both Russian and English to compare the translations, although then it would be a self-defeating exercise to search for one in the first place. But as the adage goes - “perfect is the enemy of good”. There's only one way to find out.
Thanks! I am learning Russian slowly but of course that is a great way forward. But so is comparing my main language Swedish versions to what I feel about the English ones.
@@patrik_bergman English is not my first language as well. But I feel I'm fairly comfortable in it. Unfortunately there aren't any worthwhile translations in my native tongue. But all the best to you for your endeavours! Slavic languages usually appear daunting to non-natives but it'll open you up to not only colossal amount of rich literature but also some very interesting socio-economic works of the region.
I have the msduff version right now but idk if i want to start with that, might try the double author one since its more accurate?
Hello again, Patrik. Are you aware of an English dramatisation of the Grand Inquisitor, from 1975? It was made for the Open University and broadcast by the BBC, featuring Sir John Gielgud as the Inquisitor. For some unfathomable reason, YT are behaving like colossal knobs and are deleting links on comments, even when on point. But all you have to do is type in the actors name, the year and the Open University and you should find that the short, roughly half hour, piece, examining just this one chapter is still available. There is also another one, first broadcast in the UK on Channel 5 on the 22nd of December, 2002, starring Sir Derek Jacobi. The one with Gielgud in it is, apart from the brief introductory narrative, a monologue with the Inquisitor questioning the visual but silent Christ. Being an academic production, it sticks faithfully to the text. The one with Jacobi is a retelling with a strange twist in the plot. But I won’t say anything more because I don’t want to spoil it for you, should you want to watch it. In essence, it is told from a political and ecclesiastical point of view as the Inquisitor wrestles with how to deal with a reappearing Christ who has been openly seen working miracles by the masses, with him worrying about how to keep a lid on the affair and the tensions that this causes for his staff as he struggles with his anger. It may be that you have seen these productions already. But if not, one or both of them might be a pleasant bonus for you.
Will look for this! Lovely how we can help each other in finding gold here.
@@patrik_bergman Indeed it is! You helped me yesterday. I’m happy to help you today. 👍
This is something that i hadn't thought before, to read an awesome book also means that the translation is good. Now there's something more to look out in a book 😅, life is complicated
Thank you so much for this. Very helpful. I always struggle with finding “the best” translation.
To be honest, all of them carried the essence of the story over well enough to understand at least the surface version of what was going on, even if some sounded more poetic and flowed better than the others. At least that is, with the first round of comparisons. I suppose it’s a bit like comparing Bible translations; the Good News version gives a general but rather crude account of the scriptures and butchers the language, whilst the King James Version sounds poetic, though some modern tastes might find much of it archaic. And yet, the New International Version sounds modern but it doesn’t have the beautiful prose of the King James. But I digress … going on to the second set of passages, the versions that used the words obscure and fishy may be seen by some to indicate that after 13 years had passed, people were beginning to talk and weren’t satisfied with the original verdict and perhaps they believed that Mitya was innocent and that Smerdyakov was guilty after all. From the Magarshack text that I read, it’s generally accepted that Mitya is guilty because the letter he wrote to Katya damned him when Ferytukovich looked to be carrying the day in court with his malapropisms. But if I had read obscure or fishy, I might have wondered if, like with Smerdyakov’s paternity, the author wanted to leave the reader uncertain concerning what people thought about Fyodor Karamazov’s murder many years later. By then though Smerdyakov had hung himself the evening before the verdict, and Mitya may have escaped to the United States,; so yes, those words may very well have an impact upon the listener; especially so down the line, much later on as the story reached its conclusion.
Excellent insights and comments. Thank you.
@@patrik_bergman Thank you. It was a good presentation. I will look some more of your videos over. I’m no expert, but I have read a few of Dostoyevsky’s novels. The Brothers Karamazov is a real brain bender. But it’s well worth the effort and one of the best books ever written in the whole of world literature.
It seems to me that too many Russian to English translators have either a Russian sensibility or an English one . . . but not both. So they either don't have a feel for the Russian . . . or don't have a feel for the English. For example, take the famous Chekhov story ""Дама с собачкой" ("Lady With a Lap Dog"). The equally famous first line in Russian is: " Говорили, что на набережной появилось новое лицо: дама с собачкой." (Notice the comma and the colon, which along with word order, affect/effect the feel a lot . . .). Here are 3 published translations: (1) "It was reported that a new face had been seen on the quay; a lady with a little dog." (very bad) (2) "People were telling one another that a newcomer had been seen on the promenade - a lady with a dog." (bad) (3) "It was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog." (fair) And here's my own feel for it: (4) "They were saying, that on the sea-front someone new had appeared: a lady with a small dog."
I understand your intention but your translation is too literal with the word order. We should transfer meaning not arbitrary unnatural grammar rules. In English, “they were saying” does not make sense there. Who was saying? “People were saying” works better because it conveys a rumor. The comma there is not necessary. It’s common before что by convention but it’s unnatural in English.
@@lucasm4299 You know nothing about Russian or English rhetoric . . . or about this story.
Thank you for this. This passage is so beautiful.
Klopps younger brother
Do you read Russian? It sounds like you're comparing the English to the Swedish versions..
Not yet, but getting there slowly 😁
iam reading Katz now and i love it
Your analysis is good.
Juergen Klopp is good at translations
Hi from Canada…I’m looking for literature that holds my interest. Men authors dominate the classics…the same theme…women, debauchery, gambling etc . are the threads that run throughout 🤷♀️. This DOES NOT SPEAK TO ME!!!!!…I will however listen to your summary and reserve judgement.👋🇨🇦
Read the book. Dostoevsky is a Christian author who certainly doesn't endorse debauchery and gambling.
English is my first language and I can't understand it. I was tested at 10 years old and had the reading ability of a 17 years old.
Best of luck on this project. It is just what I had hoped for as I found Vervaeke's series a bit too intimidating but so fascinating. Groundbreaking stuff. Bless you and thank you very much!
Thank you for making this Patrick!
Deep thanks to you.
The last translation is written for dummies who don’t know what the meaning of indecisively is. If that is so, they don’t need to be reading “Crime and Punishment”.
Good to see Jurgen Klopp taking an interest in literature.
This comment is what I came here looking for
Gold! He must’ve been looking for the Die Rauber references! 😂✌️ Jurgen Klopp is a talented linguist himself. He’s been known to correct translators at press conferences before. It’s probably that German penchant for exactitudes. Even Tolstoy in War and Peace makes a wisecrack about German efficiency and over planning before the Battle of Austerlitz! I’m going to miss him. I can’t help but like the man, even if I’m a Manchester United supporter.
From Liverpool, hope he doesn’t give up the day job.
Аз не съм англо-говорящ, и те гледам на превод от алгоритъма на преводачката. Но това, което прочитам долавям доста несъответствие с оригинала на руския език. Пасажа, който четеш е далече от оригинала, смисъла леко се долавя, но не е същото. В превода няма звяр и печат, а точните думи са; „Свине сте! Със скотски образ и подобие; -- "звяр" е заместено с скотски, а печат е заместено с "подобие" а ето и целия пасаж, който четеш -- „Излезте - ще каже, - и вие! Излезте, пиянички, излезте, слабички, излезте срамотници!“ И ще излезем всички, без притеснение, и ще застанем пред него. И ще каже: „Свине сте! Със *_скотски образ и подобие;_* но приидите и вие!“ И ще рекат премъдрите, ще рекат разумните: „Господи, поради що сих приемлеши?“ И ще каже: „Затова ги приемам, премъдри, затова ги приемам, разумни, защото нито един от тях не се е смятал достоен за това…“ И ще простре към нас ръцете си, и ние ще паднем ничком… и ще заплачем… и всичко ще разберем! Тогава всичко ще разберем!… И всички ще разберат… / превода е от руски на бългаарски, а двата езика са почти идентични; използва и цитати от църковно-славянския език, което е различно от библията. По-скоро намирам вашите преводи, като адаптация за англо-говорещи.
За да познаеш оригинала, трябва да съвпаднат най-малко три определения в изказа; драма, комичност, ирония. Изказа му е стремеж към цялото, трябва да получиш усещането за цветна картина. В Русия не случайно писателите ги наричат и художници; изхождайки от факта, че текста в същото време е и картина, образ.
I read it in its original language. And now? Maybe I should read it in English or German.
Great! Yes, or Swedish 😁
Wow!
Thanks for offering your insights. I'm digesting this most interesting book slowly and your analyses help give me a fuller appreciation for it.
Of the four, I liked the Katz the best. Thanks for the comparison!
"Science is too much ruled by one mind, Aristotle. Everybody here is trying to make existence poor. The scientists are trying to make it poor by saying that it is only matter and nothing else. The religious people are trying to do the same by saying it is only God, nothing else; only the soul, nothing else. These people who are trying to prove that existence is only one-dimensional are wrong. Why make existence so poor? It is multi-dimensional. One thing may be true in one dimension, and may not be at all applicable in another dimension. One thing may be right in one dimension, may become wrong in another dimension. But science is too much ruled by one mind: Aristotle. This one man for two thousand years has been dictating everything in the world of science: the laws, the logic that he wrote two thousand years ago continue to be applied. Anything against Aristotle is simply unacceptable. No man in the whole history of humanity has dominated so much. A single man - and he created the whole system of logic, and science goes on following his logic. He himself is not very logical. Looking into his books you can find so many flaws, even according to his logic; it is not a scientific mind who is writing it. And in his personal life he was absolutely illogical. He writes in one of his treatises, “Women have fewer teeth than men.” He had two wives, not only one. It is not a scientific mind who is writing it. He could have said to Mrs. Aristotle One, or Mrs. Aristotle Two, “Please just open your mouth.” And it is not such a big thing just to count the teeth. In fact there is no need even to tell women to open their mouth; you always have to say, “Shut up!” You can always count their teeth without saying anything! Just a little alertness is needed. Or, if he was so afraid and henpecked, in the night he could have managed it; when one of the Mrs.’s was snoring he could have counted. But my feeling is that he never tried. He simply accepted the view prevalent among the masses for thousands of years, that the woman has to have everything less than the man, naturally. It is a logical corollary that if the man has thirty-two teeth then the woman must have no more than thirty-one. She can’t be allowed to have thirty-two. This is not logic, this is superstition. And this man has been dominating the whole world of science for two thousand years. Only just now, within these fifty years, have a few scientists started feeling a little uneasy with Aristotle because they have come very close to a few things in existence which don’t follow Aristotle’s law. For the first time when it was found that nature goes on its own way - it has its own laws, it has no obligation to follow Aristotle - it was such a shock that even though people had discovered things which went against Aristotle, they were not courageous enough to publish them. People kept those discoveries for years without telling anybody, because how could anything go against Aristotle? He had put logic so tightly together …. For example, A can only be A. It cannot be B. Now this is a simple logical formulation: A is A and can never be B. But in the East twenty-five centuries ago we also had discovered many systems of logic, not just one; that is significant. The West knows only one system of logic, that of Aristotle. The East knows many logical systems developed by different people, very contradictory to each other but in themselves very logical. According to their own logic they are absolutely logical. According to somebody else’s logic of course they are not. The fact that in the East there are many systems of logic symbolizes one thing: whatever man creates is going to be a very small fraction of reality. It may represent a fraction of reality, but it cannot represent the whole reality. Hence Buddha … if Aristotle and Buddha had met, it would have been really something just fantastic, because Aristotle says A is always A and can never be B. But Buddha has a fourfold logic: he says A is A, A sometimes is B, A and B sometimes are both together - so much so that it is difficult to decide which is A and which is B; and sometimes A and B both are absent - still, their absence is their absence. He calls it fourfold logic. And if you look at existence you will find Buddha a better logician than Aristotle. In those fifty years science has come closer to fourfold logic than Aristotle’s onefold logic. Now there is non-Aristotelian logic, which is absolutely contradictory to Aristotle; still, it works. Just as Aristotle’s logic works in a certain fragmentary reality, the non-Aristotelian logic also works in the same way in some other part of reality. Euclid’s geometry works for one fraction of reality, non-Euclidean geometry works for another fraction of reality. But there are still more parts or reality to be discovered. Buddha had a fourfold logic, Mahavira goes a little further; he has a sevenfold logic. And it is almost impossible to think that there can be more dimensions than seven. He has managed every possibility in that sevenfold logic. If you ask Mahavira about God his answer will be sevenfold. Of course you will not get any answer. You wanted an Aristotelian answer, yes or no. Mahavira says yes, God is. Then, he says, wait; don’t run away with that statement, it is only the beginning. The second statement is: God is not. But don’t be in a hurry. The third statement is: God is both - is and is not; and the fourth statement is: God neither is nor is not. The fifth statement is: God is indescribable. And the sixth is: God is, and is indescribable. And the seventh is: God is not, and is indescribable. You cannot get anything out of it, you will think this man is crazy. If you had come confused, you will return worse. At least you were only puzzled abut two things: whether God is or God is not. Now there are seven openings. But modern science is coming very close to such openings. Physicists, digging deeper, have reached into matter they have found very strange …. They had never expected that they would find something in the deepest core of matter which would defy all their logic, all their laws. First they tried somehow to manipulate matter according to their logic - but you cannot manipulate reality. Finally, Albert Einstein had to say that whatever reality is, whether it goes against our laws and logic does not matter. We will have to say good-bye to our laws and logic and listen to reality. We cannot force reality to follow our laws and logic. But reality has logic and laws of its own. It is not freedom. Aristotle’s logic helped, at least on the surface; as far as the waves on the surface were concerned, he was perfectly right. But as you start diving deeper into reality, more and more new facts start emerging. Aristotle is already abandoned, and Euclid is no longer part of modern science. But that does not mean that science has come to feel that matter is free; it simply means that matter has its own laws."
Thank for your work. Dostoyevsky with his profound writings was one of the people who brought me to Christ to the Truth. I cant thank him enough. I was baptized Orthodox Christian in usa and that was the most beautiful day in my life. My spiritual birth for eternity. And that's the real understanding of Dostoyevsky. When his writing moves all your being to Christ
✅ 'Promo SM'