A Vital Question, or, What is to be Done?
Gelesen von Expatriate
Nikolai Chernyshevsky
(3,882 Sterne; 17 Bewertungen)
Despised by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, What Is To Be Done? is a fascinating, sympathetic story of idealistic revolutionaries in mid-nineteenth century tsarist Russia; translator Nathan Haskell Dole affirms in his preface his conviction that it is a thriller that no one can put down once s/he begins it. Its variegated cast of characters includes Vera Pavlovna, a boldly independent woman in a time of great oppression, and the inspirational radical Rakhmetov. The author wrote the novel from the depths of the infamous Peter & Paul Fortress of St. Petersburg, the Abu Ghraib of tsarist Russia, and later spent many years of exile in Siberia. Dostoyevsky disparaged Chernyshevsky's novel repeatedly, most notably in The Possessed (as sort of bedside reading material for some of the more despicable characters) and in Notes From Underground. Chernyshevsky's legacy, however, was in inspiring an ascetic, self-abnegating radicalism in later revolutionaries and activists. - Summary by Expatriate (18 hr 45 min)
Chapters
Bewertungen
Well read and interesting
Alan
(5 Sterne)
Very well read by Expatriate. Interesting to hear the ... wishful ... ideas of socialist utopianism at the root of the Russian Revolution. The story itself was OK, at times compelling and dramatic but at other times far-fetched. One can see how some of the ideas put forth by this book outraged Dostoevsky.
John Weaver
(4 Sterne)
Overall, this was well read if slightly too speedily (which is hardly Expatriate's fault). The actual novel is terrible, but I knew that going in.
omg this book
Lilly Wade
(1 Sterne)
very well read THE WORST BOOK