The Brothers Karamazov (1) Which translation is best? Kameyama? Hara? Yonekawa? Rumors of outrageous mistranslations & guidebooks introduced!

You know.

I haven't been reading much literature lately, but I used to be a literary girl back in the day.

And, basically, once I start reading, I'm the type who reads to the end even if it's boring.

Five volumes of 'Tibetan Travelogues'! Seven volumes of 'The Count of Monte Cristo'! Bring it on!! The only book I ever gave up on was maybe 'Moby Dick'! That's the type I am.

But, actually, Dostoevsky was the only one I avoided.

1 In this note, I, Mayokonne, will teach you the tricks to not give up on The Brothers Karamazov

For those who are thinking of challenging themselves with the thick classic literature 'The Brothers Karamazov' during the holidays, those who have to read it for a university seminar, or those who are going to read it for a summer book report, I have written some good tips for reading The Brothers Karamazov without giving up, so please use this article as a reference.

2 Even the title and the name sound heavy and dangerous

First of all, the name Dostoevsky sounds heavy, and for example, the title 'Crime and Punishment' sounds like it's going to be preachy, doesn't it?

I mean, 'Crime' and 'Punishment'?! It's too straightforward and negative, it's just too crazy. Maybe Dostoevsky-san was a bit sick because Russia is too cold or something, at least, that...

Can't you just let me off with 'Crime and Punishment'?

And so, when you open a book of 'The Brothers Karamazov', first of all

it starts witha Bible verse that gives off a nasty vibe like, 'First, die like a grain of wheat sown in the earth, then you, the wheat, will die and many new sprouts will come forth, of course'you're going to die though!Haha!and then,

there'sa bookmark with a super complicated-looking 'character relationship chart'tucked inside,

and the atmosphere is already at maximum exhaustion.

3. It's crazy because each character has way too many names

And what's more, the names! The names!

At the very least, there are two types of names for one person, a 'nickname' and a 'real name,' randomly scattered throughout the text, and on top of that, there are other nicknames andall sorts of varied ways to call them,and even though the story's theme is the conflict between father and son, in Russia there isthe son's middle name = the father's nameaway too confusing custom!!!

No, seriously,

when translating, couldn't you just unify it to one person = one name!!

That's why I always closed the book immediately whenever I flipped through Dostoevsky at a bookstore.

However.

'Before talking about love, a person should at least read something like The Brothers Karamazov once in their life'

by Tetsuya-chi, a current recluse, minimalist, ultimate enlightened one, and former pick-up artist,

I was told that, and I got a little interested.

I wondered, 'Is there really something that incredible written in there?'

And besides, The Brothers Karamazov is Dostoevsky's

final work and apparently his greatest masterpiece...

And so...

4. It's incredibly ominous that there are way too many first volumes being sold at used bookstores (and there are no second or third volumes)

When I saw Mr. Dokko Yamazaki tweet something

that was hard to describe, I finally made up my mind.

I don't really get it, but

well, anyway, one thing is for sure: you can definitely buy this cheap...

I figured that, so I went to the local Book Off andthey were really selling it cheap...there were ten copies of just the first volume...

It seems everyonegave up on reading itat the first volume...

What does this mean...???

Why??

Why does everyone sell them to Book Off without even buying thethird volume, let alone thesecond volume...???

And the first volumes lined up at Book Off are all in strangely pristine condition, with no signs of having been read...?

This... this looks dangerous! I have a feeling it's going to be extremely dangerous...!!

(The second and third volumes weren't at the local used bookstore, so I bought them on Amazon... In the end, it seems buying used books on Amazon is the best way to go)

5. The trap that the Ikuo Kameyama translation, which is touted as the easiest and newest, is actually the most difficult to understand for some people is just too crazy

By the way.

Ikuo Kameyama's translation istouted as the newest translation, translated into simple language to match the modern era, and therefore very easy to understand, but personally

I find the Kameyama translation the most difficult to understand, to the point where I could cry because it makes no sense!?

This is just Mayokonne's personal opinion, but I felt the Kameyama translation was like 'a strange, translation-ese style that is confusing, convoluted, and actually hard to understand, just taking difficult phrasing that you wouldn't normally use and writing it in hiragana,' which you sometimes find in certain translations in the Iwanami Bunko series.

For Mayokonne, Takuya Hara's translation in Shincho Bunko and Masao Yonekawa's translation in Iwanami Bunko were much easier to understand!

6. There are multiple experts who argue that the Kameyama translation has too many and terrible mistranslations

Just like me, there are quite a few people who have the opinion that "the Kameyama translation, which is touted as the easiest, is actually incredibly difficult to read." ↓ Furthermore, since there are opinions that the Kameyama translation has over 100 mistranslations ↓, you shouldn't just assume that "the Kameyama translation must be the easy one" and buy it right away. It is better to actually read the same parts using Amazon's 'look inside' feature or similar, andcheck for yourself which one is truly easy for you to readbefore you decide!

Mayoko's recommendation: Takuya Hara translation (natural as Japanese)

The blogger's recommendation from earlier: Masao Yonekawa translation (it seems not just the main text, but the commentary and such are also polite, excellent, and useful!)

Ikuo Kameyama translation, which is said to be the easiest in the world but which Mayoko does not recommend (and it has many volumes, so it's surprisingly expensive if you buy the whole set)

7. Moreover, the guidebook for "The Brothers Karamazov," "NHK 100 Minutes on a Masterpiece," is a trap that is incredibly confusing for people who don't click with it, despite being a guidebook

And since it's an abnormally long book, you might try to reach for a guidebook just in case, right? If it says "100 Minutes on a Masterpiece," you'd think it would be easy to understand if you just read this, right? But... that... yes... it's explained by Ikuo Kameyama-sensei, with whom Mayoko is very incompatible, and it's unnecessarily difficult, and I have no idea what's going on lol

Well, maybe there are people who are compatible with it, but for Mayoko, the more I read, the more confused and bewildered I became, and we were super incompatible.

So, you might be very worried, but please rest assured

Actually...

8. There is an incredibly easy-to-understand summary written by an individual noter on note that you can read for free, so don't worry

ThisDonstop F. Suzuki's "Summary of The Brothers Karamazov"

Try reading this a little, and then decide whether or not to read The Brothers Karamazov. When you can't grasp the meaning of the book while reading, it would be good to just

check Donstop F. Suzuki's note. As a personal impression from Mayokonne, Donstop F. Suzuki is about 20 times easier to understand than "Dostoevsky 'The Brothers Karamazov' November 2021 (NHK 100 Minutes on a Masterpiece)"...

Donstop F. Suzukiis 20 times easier to understand...

↓
★Michio = Eldest son Dmitri,
★Guru-mi = Grushenka, the mistress of the merchant Samsonov (the heroine in question whom the eldest son and father are fighting over),

This is the scene where Grushenka accidentally elopes with her first love who abandoned her long ago (who has now turned into a pathetic middle-aged man wearing a wig). No, this isn't dramatization; this is the story.

9. By the way, the manga version is also quite accurate and very well-made, so I recommend it

Wow, this person is really an incredible manga artist!

Well, since the author completely eliminates their own personality and sticks strictly to the original text, unlike Golden Kamuy, it doesn't have much appeal as a manga. However, it explains the content almost entirely through dialogue and the power of the art, and it's of a quality that allows you to read through it smoothly without getting discouraged. Plus, with zero unnecessary dramatization, it's at a level where you could probably write a report based on this alone without the professor noticing. For those who absolutely must read The Brothers Karamazov for university, it's better to read this manga and the commentary written at the end by Masao Yonekawa in the Iwanami edition than to watch something like '100 Minutes on a Masterpiece'.

11 Impressions of reading the Shincho Bunko version by Takuya Hara by Mayokonne

...

It was something completely different from what I expected.

And yeah, I kind of understand why there are piles of these at used bookstores.

You see, this is a

world-famous masterpiece by a literary giant, and if you read it thinking it must contain amazing deep and profound insights,

?!?!?!?!?!

You'll end up thinking that, get confused, and probably just throw it away.

Listen.

People say the long religious debates are tough, but the reason you'll get discouraged is actually not that...!

To put it bluntly, it's because all the characters are completely insane and hysterical, making it impossible to understand!!

Wait, this is a world-famous masterpiece, right? There's no way it's such a weird story, am I misreading the content?????? You get confused and lose the ability to understand it.

For example,

the eldest son Dmitri's reckless behavior—you don't need to force deep philosophy onto that.

He gets into an infinite loop of debt by taking out loans to pay off loans, hires a carriage in that situation to stalk a woman eloping with another man, and when he finally catches the woman and her lover, he kisses the woman's shoes and breaks down crying, then says 'I won't get in your way' and starts drinking with the woman he loves and her elopement partner, and the moment she gives him the OK, he violently kicks the man out, and then with the easy money he swindled from others, he flashes his cash and has the 'chorus he hired just to liven up the drinking party' sing at the tavern...

That... something like that... really... you don't need to assign any deep meaning to it...!

They are idiots no matter how you look at itidiotsand... and actuallyDostoevsky himself is a person who is quite similar!

In other words, first remove the
mental bias that 'since it's a classic literary work, everyone who appears must be a respectable person'

"Oh, I see, so this is a story about pathetic, stupid men born into a bloodline of sex addicts and gambling addicts who immediately snap and fight, or play 'Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor' despite having zero gambling sense, all while feeling horny and agonizing over life and love."

If you realize that honestly, the difficulty suddenly disappears and you can understand the story smoothly!

They are terrible at gambling but love to gamble, and because they have too much sexual desire, the father and the eldest son are on the verge of killing each other over a mentally unstable bitch, in other words

"A very small-scale Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor for men with zero gambling sense"

If you realize it's a story like that, the fog in front of your eyes will clear.

In the first place, Dostoevsky himself spent most of his lifethrowing away his fortune by indulging in bad gamblingand was apparently atotally hopeless gambler.

Wait!! That's no good!!

Therefore, this is Dostoevsky's final work and

an autobiographical masterpiece... that's what it is

Dostoevsky himself is a person who is somewhat similar to everyone in the Karamazov family to begin with.

Wait... hold on!!

If this story is autobiographical...

Hey!!!!

Seriously, that's no good!!!

And the father, eldest son, second son, and third son in the novel repeatedly, repeatedly say

"The Karamazov blood is dangerous, the Karamazov blood is dangerous, seriously, it's really dangerous"

They keep repeating things like that as if they were spells...

It's vaguely written as 'vulgar attachment to life,' but could this actually be mainly an obsession with sex?

Certainly it seems too completely insane to be comprehensible.

Beyond the insane, self-destructive, and crazy romantic behavioral patterns that completely ruin the eldest brother Dmitri's life,

even the father, Fyodor, who should be the type to not be picky and be okay with anyone, is about to throw away his entire fortune to marry his mistress and even though he has money and could get any number of prostitutes, he rapes? a homeless woman and ends up having a child with her...

The second brother Ivan's love seems the most normal, but why he goes out of his way to fall for his older brother's fiancée, who is such a troublesome character, is somewhat unnatural,

and above all, the romance of the protagonist, the only person of character, the third brother Alexei,

is strangely odd.

Why does the popular monk Alexei, who is liked by everyone, not get fed up with that wheelchair-bound mentally unstable girl's 'I wrote in a letter yesterday that I wanted to marry you, but I changed my mind! Give the letter back! I'm having a fit! Aaaah!' of a

crazy hysteria, and instead 'Hmm, I won't give the letter back. I love you. Let's get married. I'll cherish you forever.' while saying things like that, happily devotes himself with all his heart and soul to her, I have no idea.

。。。。。。。。？

。。。。。？

Well, I mean,

there's no need to be obsessed with such troublesome, good-for-nothing, short-tempered women who keep smashing champagne glasses on the floor until they shatter into pieces...

Seeing him reach a point where his lust grows so intense that it transcends lust and becomes something like an incomprehensible service to God, as a woman, I feel something that goes beyond pity,

and

I truly find it grateful, beautiful, and sublime.

Yes, it is not unpleasant, but...

even so, it is simply incomprehensible.

The four men, at points where an ordinary man would come to his senses,

do not come to their senses.

They remain in the exact opposite of a sage mode, a true 'fool mode,' and keep charging forward without turning back.

Why? Why is that?

Why does everyone keep charging off in the wrong direction without turning back???

That was when I suddenly realized.

Come to think of it, this feeling of the third son, Alexei.

This crazyvibe of forgiving any woman, no matter how insane, once he falls in love with her...

It reminds me of someone...

Yes, it's a bit similar to the behavioral patterns of my own insatiable husband...

...

And then, I stumbled upon a passage in a biography of Dostoevsky↓ regarding his...

overly vigorous sexual desire (I am truly sorry)

which says:

....Ahhhh.

This 55-year-old... it's similar... this feeling...

to my husband (in his 50s)...

Ah.

I finally understand the incomprehensibility of the Karamazovs' behavior,
their crazy circumstances,
and the pitiful blood of the Karamazovs.

Ah, so they're hypersexual.
That's why they're like this.
How pitiful.

I'm sorry...

...I'm sorry for that terrible conclusion.

------------------Postscript:-------------------

So, as for what happened to the author who wrote this novel, Dostoevsky—the sex-crazed old man Dostoevsky, a gambling addict who was terrible at gambling,—here is what happened.

Well, I don't really get it, but,
it took until he was nearly 50, but,
anyway

it's really great that he finally settled down in a pretty good way.

And that's the end of the story.