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Orebtoday at 6:18 AM1 replyview on HN

Not really. The problem with the names in Dostoyevsky (and Russian literature more generally) isn’t that the names on their own are difficult to remember, it is that all names also have familiar forms, which are sometimes very different from the formal name. On page you get introduced to a character named Alexander, a few pages later the text talks about Sasha. For non-native speakers, it’s hard to guess that it’s the same person. An e-reader’s search function isn’t going to make this problem disappear.


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orthoxeroxtoday at 7:55 AM

> For non-native speakers, it’s hard to guess that it’s the same person.

Like "Mrs. Thatcher", "Margaret" and "Peg"?

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