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Skimming through YouTube I found this. It's very impressive because she read all of this in one year. I don't think I read so much Russian Lit in one year till I decided to go to graduate school in Russian. I'd taken quite a few courses in Russian language, but I hadn't taken the literature survey courses. So, I went on quite a binge like this myself, once I was certain I wasn't getting drafted (and potentially sent to Vietnam).
Her choices (all of which she says she liked)
16 Griboedov - Woe from Wit (also translated as Woe to Wit). A play about a clever young man who has trouble when society can't begin to understand him.
15. Turgenev - Torrents of Spring. Turgenev spent most of his later life abroad, and this book drifts far from the typical 19th century Russian fare. It wasn't a work brought up in the class I took on Turgenev, I don't own a copy and never read it.
14. Dostoevsky - The Double. I probably read it, but don't remember it. From Carolyn Marie's description, it seems like Dostoevsky's spin on "The Overcoat" (see below).
13. Lermontov - A Hero of Our Times. One of my favorite books. A young noble, who is full of himself, goes off to exotic lands, and has what could as easily be called misadventures as adventures.
12 Tolstoy - Resurrection. His last novel, written well after his immersion into the deep end of religion. It's quite moralistic, and not his best work. Somewhat comparable to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, but doesn't have the same depth.
11 Dostoevsky - Poor People. His first novel. An epistolary novel. Early Dostoevsky just isn't up to his later work. He talks about similar things early on. But after having personally experienced the rougher side of life, he became a much less superficial writer.
10 Gogol - The Overcoat. Everyone gets the humor, but this one is easy to misinterpret, his contemporaries did, and so does your average lit teacher today, who doesn't know that much about Gogol. Yes, Dostoevsky in his early days did, too!
9 Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground. Probably the most accessible of his later works about madness.
8 Chekhov - Ward Six. A novella, longer and more serious than his usual prose. I don't remember it well. For his serious works I'd recommend his plays first.
7 Turgenev - First Love. I vaguely recall it, but it's not one of his most outstanding pieces.
6 Tolstoy - Childhood, Boyhood and Youth. Three separately published semi-autobiographical novels. Not what I'd recommend to read first of his.
5 Dostoevsky - White Nights. More early Dostoevsky.
4 Bulgakov - Heart of Dog. Kind of a cross between Animal Farm and Flowers for Algernon. Absolutely hilarious.
3 Tolstoy - War and Peace. Carolyn Marie gives tips for plowing through this immense book. I have to admit I first read it in a severely abridged version in high school. But I've read the full version repeatedly since both in English and in Russian. It's my all-time favorite novel.
2 Tolstoy - Anna Karenina. I have to congratulate Carolyn Marie on having both this and War and Peace as high favorites. Generally, folks strongly favor one or the other. There is plenty of romance in War and Peace, but this one is Tolstoy's Romance novel. Too bad all Romance novels aren't so well written!
1 Pushkin -Eugene Onegin. I'm quite surprised Carolyn Marie would pick this as the top of her list. I try not to be a snob about knowing Russian, but this is one book that can't be fully appreciated in English. I took a look at the page she showed in the video, and folks that translation in verse is not good, and worse it's much better than the translation in English verse I own! I wish people would stop trying to translate it, other than into prose! Pushkin is beloved in Russia because his poetry flows along so gracefully you forget it's poetry. The things Carolyn Marie says about it are true. But they are so much more true in the original.
Her choices (all of which she says she liked)
16 Griboedov - Woe from Wit (also translated as Woe to Wit). A play about a clever young man who has trouble when society can't begin to understand him.
15. Turgenev - Torrents of Spring. Turgenev spent most of his later life abroad, and this book drifts far from the typical 19th century Russian fare. It wasn't a work brought up in the class I took on Turgenev, I don't own a copy and never read it.
14. Dostoevsky - The Double. I probably read it, but don't remember it. From Carolyn Marie's description, it seems like Dostoevsky's spin on "The Overcoat" (see below).
13. Lermontov - A Hero of Our Times. One of my favorite books. A young noble, who is full of himself, goes off to exotic lands, and has what could as easily be called misadventures as adventures.
12 Tolstoy - Resurrection. His last novel, written well after his immersion into the deep end of religion. It's quite moralistic, and not his best work. Somewhat comparable to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, but doesn't have the same depth.
11 Dostoevsky - Poor People. His first novel. An epistolary novel. Early Dostoevsky just isn't up to his later work. He talks about similar things early on. But after having personally experienced the rougher side of life, he became a much less superficial writer.
10 Gogol - The Overcoat. Everyone gets the humor, but this one is easy to misinterpret, his contemporaries did, and so does your average lit teacher today, who doesn't know that much about Gogol. Yes, Dostoevsky in his early days did, too!
9 Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground. Probably the most accessible of his later works about madness.
8 Chekhov - Ward Six. A novella, longer and more serious than his usual prose. I don't remember it well. For his serious works I'd recommend his plays first.
7 Turgenev - First Love. I vaguely recall it, but it's not one of his most outstanding pieces.
6 Tolstoy - Childhood, Boyhood and Youth. Three separately published semi-autobiographical novels. Not what I'd recommend to read first of his.
5 Dostoevsky - White Nights. More early Dostoevsky.
4 Bulgakov - Heart of Dog. Kind of a cross between Animal Farm and Flowers for Algernon. Absolutely hilarious.
3 Tolstoy - War and Peace. Carolyn Marie gives tips for plowing through this immense book. I have to admit I first read it in a severely abridged version in high school. But I've read the full version repeatedly since both in English and in Russian. It's my all-time favorite novel.
2 Tolstoy - Anna Karenina. I have to congratulate Carolyn Marie on having both this and War and Peace as high favorites. Generally, folks strongly favor one or the other. There is plenty of romance in War and Peace, but this one is Tolstoy's Romance novel. Too bad all Romance novels aren't so well written!
1 Pushkin -Eugene Onegin. I'm quite surprised Carolyn Marie would pick this as the top of her list. I try not to be a snob about knowing Russian, but this is one book that can't be fully appreciated in English. I took a look at the page she showed in the video, and folks that translation in verse is not good, and worse it's much better than the translation in English verse I own! I wish people would stop trying to translate it, other than into prose! Pushkin is beloved in Russia because his poetry flows along so gracefully you forget it's poetry. The things Carolyn Marie says about it are true. But they are so much more true in the original.