When I was living in the United States and studying Russian, I started to read some Russian literature. After reading some short stories by Chekhov, I decided to delve into something harder: Dostoevsky.
I couldn't understand the first page of Crime and Punishment even with a dictionary. Dostoevsky has a very eloquent way of writing with very long sentences and complicated grammar, but it's very hard for a non-native speaker to understand.
So, I went to a Russian colleague of mine, who recommended that I try to read "The Master and the Margarita" instead of Crime and Punishment. I found that I could read and mostly understand it, but the plot made no sense.
I told this experience to my Russian teacher, and she laughed uncontrollably. She said that it's true that the grammar in The Master in the Margarita is easier, but you'll never really understand the plot without having lived in the Soviet Union. She said that every element in the story is a jab at some aspect of life or politics from that era.
I continued to stick with short stories by Chekhov and Gogol after that.
Dostoyevsky is a hard read even for native speakers of Russian. I would not characterize him as eloquent, more like raw and rough around the edges. I can definitely imagine how hard it is for a non-native speaker to understand his writing, with his archaic words, words for things that do not exist anymore, references to Russian folk tales, or cultural context of the 19th century Russia, on top of all the things that you mentioned. In a way, Dostoyevsky is somewhat watered down Russian precursor of James Joyce.
But Dostoyevsky is brilliant, his impenetrable style notwithstanding - in Crime and Punishment he paints such vivid scenes that I can still in my mind’s eye see Raskolnikov’s crappy apartment, the widow slumping to the floor, axe in her head, the markets of St Petersburg, the reeking drunks by the stables... it builds into something glittering, always, even when painted only in dun and ochre.
Joyce is an apt comparison - he’s similarly a painter with words - I feel like I’ve visited 19th century Dublin having read his works, although he does make Dostoyevsky look sedate and restrained.
I would think it's hard to appreciate it completely, but I don't see why the plot makes no sense - I think even if you ignore all the references and the background, it has pretty good basic plot. Which part didn't work for you specifically?
> She said that every element in the story is a jab at some aspect of life or politics from that era.
This is a common thing for many literary works. Swift surely meant a lot of contemporary references in his Gulliver's Travels, most of which are lost on modern reader without special background, and Shakespeare was no stranger to contemporary matters either. And so on, and so forth. But we can choose to enjoy their works both with and without the background. If the literary work is good enough - and I think most of Bulgakov work is - it can be enjoyed even on the surface layer, without going in too deep.
But if you don't like Dostoyevsky (I do not and feel no shame about it - it's just not my cup of tea) or Bulgakov - by all means Chekhov and Gogol have enough good stuff for anybody.
I continued to stick with short stories by Chekhov and Gogol after that.
If that's your fallback position on difficulties with Dostoevsky and Bulgakov, you're pretty much killing it at learning Russian. And it's not like those guys are going anywhere either.
As someone who's struggling to complete "The Master and the Margarita" (I still have about 80 pages to go), I completely agree with this comment. The book is a light read, but the plot is basically gibberish unless you understand the subtext, which the book doesn't really bother to explain in any way. I find myself constantly going to chapter breakdowns online to figure out what a certain chapter even means.
It's disappointing because the book currently has a 4.2+ rating on Goodreads, but if you had to ask me, I'd find it hard to give it anything greater than a 3/5. Literally struggling to get through it, purely as a sunk cost of having read (total - 80) pages of it.
I've read my fair share of old school classic literature and enjoyed a lot of it, but Russian literature (or maybe just Bulgakov) may just not be my cup of tea.
I couldn't understand the first page of Crime and Punishment even with a dictionary. Dostoevsky has a very eloquent way of writing with very long sentences and complicated grammar, but it's very hard for a non-native speaker to understand.
So, I went to a Russian colleague of mine, who recommended that I try to read "The Master and the Margarita" instead of Crime and Punishment. I found that I could read and mostly understand it, but the plot made no sense.
I told this experience to my Russian teacher, and she laughed uncontrollably. She said that it's true that the grammar in The Master in the Margarita is easier, but you'll never really understand the plot without having lived in the Soviet Union. She said that every element in the story is a jab at some aspect of life or politics from that era.
I continued to stick with short stories by Chekhov and Gogol after that.