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Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

This was an interesting analysis. I noticed that it says 200 pages for Metamorphosis, my copy (W W Norton) is 126 pages of large print, including a forward and afterword. It's really a short story.

Also, though I suspect it evens out, personally my reading speed varies a lot depending on the author. Orwell, or ironically Kafka reads pretty fast. Something like the Brother's Karamazof (which I've started twice and failed to get anywhere with) I have to read way more slowly.

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I feel you on restarting Dostoevsky, was using an audiobook and a list of characters at hand to reference and it still took me six times to get started with The Brothers K, without concentration the sounds would go into my head with no comprehension. IIRC there are way too many times where the author refers to different characters with the same title, like father and son are both Prince so hearing someone speak the parts differently helps a bit. I also have to pause when French is used to translate bits or do a lookup on the text with Gutenberg and translate it.

Yeah, I have the one included in the penguin classics edition which even shorter (54 pages). But this edition on Goodreads says 200. I wonder what font size they use :D https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/485894.The_Metamorphosis.

How far do you get with Brothers Karamazov? And which translation? I could hardly put it down once it got rolling.

I have the Constance Garnett translation (I'm not familiar with the options). I'm embarrassed to say that according to the bookmark I just found in the book, I made it only 40 pages in my last attempt. I feel like I would read it and just end up zoning out and realizing I wasn't really following.

That might be contributing. The Pevear translation is highly regarded. I researched which to read quite attentively, I found many who reported not being able to make progress via the Garnett translation found that the Pevear version opened the book up to them. I don't I like big dense works that feel like a chore, and I was really surprised how easy this read. I'm not sure what part you're up to, but it clearly picks up steam at a certain inflection point.

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