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Marcus's Reviews > Poor Folk
Poor Folk
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This is a ridiculous book. It is the letters exchanged between a poor old man and a poor young woman who live in the same housing complex but who rarely see each other for the sake of propriety. It's basically something like this:
And so on. These two make Myshkin, the "idiot" look like a genius.
"Oh Makar this week I lost my job and I'm running out of cash and I'm feeling so sick that I just might die! Whatever shall I do!"
"Oh Varvara, you poor child. Let me, as a father figure, send you some flowers and linens even though I have no money and will probably get drunk this weekend and I am only half a man!"
"Oh Makar, stop sending me things you can't afford. You're so poor and you never come visit me and you have terrible taste in books and when I was a child I was once in love with a boy who died!"
"Oh Varvara, my taste in books isn't that bad. True, I can't write and I have no style and everything I write is so deliberate and forced that it's painful to read, except when I declare my love to you, in those instances where I'm passionate my writing improves slightly. Vavara you know that I like sending you things I can't afford but this week my horrible landlady needs money and I have none, and whatever shall I do! I am a broken man!"
And so on. These two make Myshkin, the "idiot" look like a genius.
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Poor Folk.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
November 24, 2009
– Shelved
November 24, 2009
– Shelved as:
russian
November 24, 2009
–
Finished Reading
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Seth
(new)
Nov 25, 2009 10:59AM
haha your review makes me want to read it. i think dostoyevsky's best characters are worms. the father in brothers of karamazov is just perfect for that reason. i can't stand pathetic women but a wormy man that tries to get a pathetic woman to support him on her meager resources...now that is funny.
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I liked your review, especially the last paragraph.
Looks like you made it about halfway through by skimming.
@Bukk - nope, finished it and almost everything else Dostoyevsky wrote :).This is just my least liked book from one of my favorite authors.
Understandable. I was feeling the same way through most of it, but found the characterization to be really excellent. Then it got a lot more interesting than I imagined back-and-forth letters could possibly be.
Interesting review, Marcus. I had this book on my next list to add to my library/reads. Now, I'm a bit torn between, don't and do. Thanks for the review. Reading your review, somewhat has me sliding further towards NOT.
Totally agree with youI read the first 15 pages only and couldn't continue...
That's so true actually, the whole book in a nutshell
it seems that you know what is really behind this novel and how Dostoevsky wanted the audience to perceive this particular novel.
I agree with you .. i started to read and i was thinking to skip some pages but I still had hope that it will get better but unfortunately it didn't so I could not complete it I just read the last page I wanted to know what will happen to the poor girl to give my self a closure. I would say though that he has a good way in exchanging the letters they were so nice
These thoughts were mine when I had only begun reading.. the genius of this novel is the lull of the normality, the wasted time, and then the arrival of cruel and unalterable facts of temporal existence that cannot be escaped. The tragedy lies in the time wasted by inaction - their entire lives spent chasing basics of daily survival and modest comfort in a miserable world, always putting off what was truly important, and then to have it all taken away. Its heartbreaking.
You sir, are a great Mishkin. Thank you for your contribution.
This review is brilliant but also makes the book seem MUCH more interesting than it actually is.
I feel genuinely sorry for people who don't know the happiness of reading Russian classics in original, because in translation it just loses everything. This excerpt makes me more motivated to learn as many languages as possible.
I think the repetitiveness is partly the point of the whole thing. It is not supposed to be that entertaining to read letters that poor people exchange.
