The Adolescent

By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator

Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan

The narrator and protagonist of Dostoevsky's novel The Adolescent (first published in English as A Raw Youth) is Arkady Dolgoruky, a naive 19-year-old boy bursting with ambition and opinions. The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, he is torn between his desire to expose his father's wrongdoing and the desire to win his love. He travels to St. Petersburg to confront the father he barely knows, inspired by an inchoate dream of communion and armed with a mysterious document that he believes gives him power over others. This new English version by the most acclaimed of Dostoevsky's translators is a masterpiece of pathos and high comedy.

©2013 Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (P)2019 Tantor

A masterpiece of nerve racking stupidity

If there is a book that drove me nuts, it is this one - but of course, unless there was skill there wouldn’t be such stupidity expressed with so much style and detail.

Meaningful but intricate

Long and intricate story which is hard to understand at times, but written with much meaning as this author always does.

Great story! But the narrator is eh eh

I haven’t finish reading the story, the translation of Pevear & Volokhonsky is not bad. however the narrator of this version, sounds like a bad Eng dub anime voice actor. The narrator reads well, but he reads it as if he weren’t feeling what the protagonist of the novel emotions is at the moment in each chapter. His narration tone doesn’t differ from the protagonist narration of his story or when the protagonist or other characters are speaking. Is all monotone and only presents a tone of emotion in a bland form. Unfortunately this is the only audio of Pevear & Volokhonsky translation. I’m sure this is a great story, however I won’t continue hearing this audio as I reading along.
I’ll just read it on my own and make a music playlist that would match the ambience of the story.

delightful

exquisitely astute narrator, a pleasure from start to finish. Dostoyevsky at his freshest and most exhilarating.

An Oft-Forgotten Dostoevsky Gem

One of his last novels, The Adolescent (f/k/a A Raw Youth), tells of a young man starting life on his own in Russia with an eccentric and dark family saga. I mean, socialism is still wrong, but we can forgive the youthful ignorance of these characters. The tone, style, and pace are incredible, they scream adolescence for all 28 hours. Despite the critics, this P&V transition brings this oft-forgotten classic to life all over again.