I am a huge Russian literature fan. In my opinion Nabokov, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Pasternak, Tolstoy, and even Solzenitzyn need to bow before the great meloncholic Dostoevsky. This is certainly in my top five novels ever written, and it is so well written and condensed in content that every time i revisit it, it feels as if I am reading a new book. Just a hint, as with a lot of Russian lit, the key is to keep track of characters by way of a cheat sheet, that way you can follow character lines and arguments, as well as the copious number of Russian titles, names, and surnames used for each character. ( )

Kurt Vonnegut (or one of his characters) said, "Everything there is to know about life is in the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but even that isn't enough any more." Or something to that effect, and after that rattling around in my head for years, I finally got around to reading the book. I encourage others to do the same. It is not what you are expecting. I won't go into the permutations of the plot, except to say that it is labyrinthine and very Russian. You won't understand why the characters do half of what they do. But you'll be pulled along by the ironic and often very funny (yes, funny) narrative. That was the part that surprised me. Along this is a very long book, it is not at all dry, and although it may take you a while to read it, it never seems like a chore. ( )

The classic Russian tale of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his sons Ivan, Dmitri and Alexei. I can see where it would be considered great literature, and I am certainly glad I read it, but it took me a long time. When the story was interesting, it was very interesting, but when it got bogged down in politics, religion, or just rhetoric, I found it difficult to plod through. ( )

I liked this book - but I fully expected to love it, and perhaps that was the kiss of death. I love Dostoevksy and classic Russian Literature, so with so many people hailing this as perhaps the best book ever written, I was sure I'd love it. Was it the too high expectations? Was it the fact that I read the first 400 pages with nary a break while traveling 28 hours back from Europe? Not sure. The one thing that stood out to me versus books like Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground was that in those books the characters' reactions were so real, so believable. In this book I found myself often feeling that characters' reactions to events in the book seemed not entirely believable, which took a lot away for me. ( )

For some reason, two bits of this stay with me --one, when old Katramazov tells of a skeptic telling an Orthodox prelate "there is no God" and the prelate replying "the fool says in his heart there is no God" and the other when Fr. Zosima dies and his followers expect the odor of sanctity but instead he rots and stinks. ( )