Introduction
In one letter, Nikolai Osmidov asked novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky whether he should believe in God; in another, he asked him what he should give his daughter to read. Dostoevsky found none of Osmidov’s questions easy to answer, but he was sure about one thing: the girl absolutely must read the novels of Sir Walter Scott.
Staraya Russa,*
August 18, 1880.
At twelve, I read right through Walter Scott* during the summer holidays; certainly such reading did extraordinarily stimulate my imagination and sensibility, but it led them into good, not evil, paths; I got from it many fine and noble impressions, which gave my soul much power of resistance against others which were seductive, violent, and corrupting. So I advise you to give your daughter now the works of Walter Scott, and all the more, because he is for the moment neglected by us Russians, and your daughter, when she is older, will have neither opportunity nor desire to make acquaintance with that great writer; therefore hasten now, while she is still in her parents’ house, to introduce him to her. Besides, Walter Scott has a high educational value. She should also read all Dickens’s works without exception.*
From ‘Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family and Friends’ (?1914), by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), edited and translated by Alexander Eliasberg (1878-1924) and Ethel Colburn Mayne (?-1941).
* Staraya Russa is a small spa town near Veliky Novgorod in northwest Russia, probably dating back to the ninth century and first recorded in 1167. Dostoevsky kept a dacha (summer home) here from 1872 to 1880. A sizeable portion of The Brothers Karamazov, published in the November after this letter was written, was written at the dacha, and the story is set in a village that closely resembles Staraya Russa.
* Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) was a Scottish poet, critic and author, who won envy and admiration among his fellow writers (including Jane Austen) for producing large numbers of extremely popular novels and volumes of poetry, anonymously at first, but after 1827 under his own name. Today, his best-known stories are probably Ivanhoe (1819), Rob Roy (1817) and Waverley (1814). In about 1854, the railway line from Carlisle to Edinburgh was dubbed ‘the Waverley route’ since it passed through Scott’s beloved Borders region, and to this day Edinburgh Waverley is the only station in the world named after a work of literature. See posts tagged Sir Walter Scott.
* Later in the same letter, Dostoevsky wrote: “She should read Leo Tolstoy all through; also Shakespeare, Schiller, and Goethe; these writers are to be had in good Russian translations.” An oft-quoted passage detailing a meeting between Dostoevsky and Dickens, in which Dickens discoursed freely to the Russian on his own characters, has been shown to be a fraud. As we can see, Dostoevsky was nevertheless a genuine admirer.
Précis
In 1880, Fyodor Dostoevsky was asked to recommend literature for a twelve-year-old girl. He named Charles Dickens, but above all he sang the praises of Sir Walter Scott, for stimulating the imagination in a manner that was not dark or violent. And as Scott was becoming unfashionable, he urged her to hurry and start reading now. (56 / 60 words)
In 1880, Fyodor Dostoevsky was asked to recommend literature for a twelve-year-old girl. He named Charles Dickens, but above all he sang the praises of Sir Walter Scott, for stimulating the imagination in a manner that was not dark or violent. And as Scott was becoming unfashionable, he urged her to hurry and start reading now.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, although, because, just, may, ought, unless, whether.
Archive
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 He. Summer. You.
2 Not. Power. Read.
3 Exception. Good. High.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
dmn (5+4)
damn. demean. demon. domain. domino.
adman. admen. admin. daemon.
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