The House of the Dead
by Fiódor Dostoievski · first published 1881
50% recommend50% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Semi-autobiographical prison memoir-style novel praised for its raw, unsparing picture of human nature and character studies; short, so a good entry point to Dostoevsky and a key to his later work.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The House of the Dead (Russian: Записки из Мёртвого дома, Zapiski iz Myortvovo doma) is a semi-autobiographical novel published in 1860–2 in the journal Vremya by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, which portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian prison camp. The novel has also been published under the titles Memoirs from the House of The Dead, Notes from the Dead House (or Notes from a Dead House), and Notes from the House of the Dead. The book is, essentially, a disguised memoir; a loosely-knit collection of facts, events and philosophical discussion organised by "theme" rather than as a con
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One of my favorite character studies is a brief section in Dostoyevsky's The House of the Dead. The man truly understood people. He was a man with a terrible strength of will and a proud awareness of his strength . . . [He] . . . was not really quite an ordinary mortal. . . . I can say unequivocally…
on “Dostoevsky’s Empathy” ↗…With the Quill" by Andrzej Bobkowski, "My Correct Views on Everything" by Leszek Kolakowski, "The Captive Mind" Czesław Miłosz, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "The House of the Dead" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "Conversations with an Executioner" by Kazimierz Moczarski, "Diary 1954" by Leopold Tyrmand, "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov, "A World Apart: A Memoir of the Gulag"…
on “Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?” ↗…weird. It's also short, so one of the best first things to read by him. All that happened before he went to Siberia, which of course was transformative. His memoir of the prison camp, Notes From the House of the Dead, is another masterpiece and a sort of decryption key for all his later work. It was Tolstoy's favorite.
on “What It’s Like to Almost Get Executed” ↗His “House of the Dead” was amazing too. It was not unlike watching “Lock Up” but from mid 1800s Russia.
on “Floating in the Air: The World That Made Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment” ↗I suggest House of the Dead. His life transformed immensely during the course of that book, to put it simply.
on “Dostoyevsky's “Dream of a Ridiculous Man” (2014)” ↗>House of the Dead was Tolstoy's favorite and it it was on his bedside table when he died. Very interesting, never heard that, but I'm not surprised! Incredibly raw depiction of human nature. Much less verbiage than…
on “On Fyodor Dostoevsky’s the Brothers Karamazov” ↗No, not binary. I love the House of the Dead and the Gambler, but Brothers is a soap opera with a few great chapters and passages hiding inside. They don't make the overall experience worth it though.
on “On Fyodor Dostoevsky’s the Brothers Karamazov” ↗…nature were also his flaws. This leads to so many profound scenes and scenarios. And it gives greater texture to Christian philosophy and the image of Christ than any other analysis I have ever read. "The House of the Dead" changed the way I looked at prisons, "Crime and Punishment" about ego and justice, "Notes From Underground" about the lone genius - I can't say that Brothers K. gave me any of this.
on “Brothers Karamazov was Einstein's favorite novel” ↗House of the Dead and The Gambler are both highly underrated in my opinion.
on “On Fyodor Dostoevsky’s the Brothers Karamazov” ↗Your first line is similar to a Dostoevsky quote: "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." (The House of the Dead)
on “The feds are making it hurt in every way for Weev, but for what?” ↗Not in the imperial time, no. Dostoyevsky's The House of the Dead is an interesting account of his time in Siberia, and it wasn't all that bad. It was different in Stalin's time, though. Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma tales tells a very different story. But even he survived…
on “My life after 44 years in prison” ↗I keep thinking about Dostoevsky's account of late 19th century Russian prison in "The House of the Dead". It's in a remote town, but it's pretty open, civilians walk in and out and do business with inmates. Why are modern prisons so cut off from society in comparison?
on “The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)” ↗…Devils), if even 100 pages can be completed, are impossible to finish. I am unaware of anyone who has read Dostoyevski's first three novels, The Village of Stepanchikovo, Humilated and Insulted, or The House of the Dead, so the assumption is they are either illegible or inscrutable, the result being they can't be read.
on “Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective” ↗…and Labyrinths: Their History and Development -Matthews, W.H. A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare -Harris, Robert Our Lady of the Flowers -Genet, Jean *The House of the Dead -Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Current: Black Swan, Nassim Taleb
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗House of the Dead was Tolstoy's favorite and it it was on his bedside table when he died. The Gambler has a hell of a backstory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21152240. And since gambling was Dostoevsky's own…
on “On Fyodor Dostoevsky’s the Brothers Karamazov” ↗