Do you spend a lot of time thinking about God, morality, and the right way to live? If so, this is a book for you. I am not one of those people, but I do like to check the classics off my list, so here I am. The book tells the story of the titular siblings and their father, using them to examine various approaches to existence. The father, Fyodor, is a grotesque old man who badly mistreated both of his wives and completely neglected his children. He’s spent his life amassing money, chasing women, and drinking. His latest obsession is a young woman called Grushenka, who he knows doesn’t love him but hopes to entice into marriage with his money. His rival for her affections is his oldest son, Dmitri (also called Mitya). Dmitri is in some ways a chip off the old block in that he is a hardcore party boy, but he has zero money management skills and also is not complete trash as a human. He’s desperate to get money to make a play for Grushenka before she takes up with his father but is already 3,000 rubles in the hole because he stole that amount from his fiancee, Katerina. Katerina loves Dmitri no more than he loves her. Rather, she loves the middle brother, Ivan. Ivan is highly intelligent and rational, rejecting the religious faith that drives the youngest brother, Alexei (almost always referred to as Alyosha). Alyosha is, when the story begins, a novice at a monastery and devoted to an Elder in the Orthodox church. The characters are richly drawn, with Alyosha the obvious hero but all three of them are interesting in their own ways. The plot is both sprawling and simple: tension builds, followed by a murder about halfway through, and then a trial. It’s unwieldy and constantly wanders off down little theosophical side paths. I liked it much better than the first Dostoyevsky novel I tried (Crime & Punishment), but I don’t know that I’d say that means I liked it in a global sense. There were things that I found compelling, primarily in terms of character development. The trial at the end is propulsive and very engaging. But ultimately there was just way more religion than I’m looking for in the sorts of stories I enjoy. ( )

Is This An Overview?
Moral philosophy in a novel. Questioning the role of the state, the influence of faith, the operations of the law, and love. A novel that is seeking to understand the complexity of the human condition. Trying to understand what role humans are meant to have. Expressing the diverse behavioral responses. The contradictions in character. What is sought for and what is deserved.

The story revolves around the Karamazov brothers. The logical Ivan. The emotional Dmitry. The spiritual Alyosha. Along with their father Fyodor. Tensions among the relatives escalate, for various reasons. Tensions made clear at the trial, for Fyodor’s murder.

Caveats?
A very difficult book to read. Readers should seek to understand the cultural references of the book, before reading the book. ( )

My goodness but those 19th-century Russian authors were verbose! ( )

Dostoyevsky is intensely introspective and emotional ( )

This novel has been profoundly instrumental in the shaping of my own existential philosophy and Christian faith, perhaps more than any other, and easily falls into my top ten favourite novels. On the surface, the plot is quite simple and it contains two primary aspects: one is a drama of patricide and the other is the conflicting development of three brothers, the libertine, the intellectual and the faithful. But underneath all of this, and what determines the actions of the characters, is the philosophical ideology which Dostoevsky expresses primarily in the renowned essay, "The Grand Inquisitor", which is a masterpiece of writing in and of itself. It is as a result of these findings that we are invited into the unique psyches of our characters to find out what determines each one's behaviour, and we are thus met with Dostoevsky's own view of life, expressed most acutely in the brothers' separate destinies. ( )