The Brothers Karamazov

I was highly intimidated by this book and put off reading it for a long time. I read many spoiler-free reviews and realized people largely had two popular opinions about this - it is the greatest book ever or they couldn't get past the first 100 pages. I'm someone who hates abandoning books, especially when it is a book as loved as TBK and I'm also someone who deliberates a lot before picking up a book that is over 500 pages.

However, I was positively surprised by how much of a page-turner it was. It still isn't a book you will compulsively read through because you will want or rather be forced to put this book aside and think about faith, God, and morality. At times you will have to reread a few paragraphs or even the whole chapter to show more completely get it, what I didn't know was how much I'd love doing that. How much I would individually love certain chapters. A review here mentioned how the characters care a lot about a person's opinion on God and immortality and they do. Even the young ones. For us, small talk is asking about the weather and for the characters in this book, it is deliberating upon and debating about the existence of God and immortality. I was again surprised by how interesting, how far from boring those conversations were, and how much I loved those in comparison to the other parts which didn't have those deliberations.

Also, those philosophical debates are not all that this book offers you. Right after 50% of the book is when the real plot begins. The murder. That is when it becomes a fast-paced whodunnit followed by an exciting courtroom scene. And that is when you start compulsively flipping through the pages. You cannot stop.

And then the genius Dostoevsky tops it off with some of the best-written characters I have ever come across. There are characters you love, characters you love to hate, characters you sometimes hate and sometimes love and characters you pity.

In short, this is a perfect blend of philosophical debates, well-written characters, a perfect murder mystery, and a scandalous love triangle. I will now start my journey of compulsively recommending this book to everyone and spreading my love for it. show less

Hurrah for Karamazov!

Dosto leaving me speechless yet again - which really puts me to shame because he can make a speech last four chapters! I mean, it's a 1000 page book so obviously it is brimming with depth and stories and character, but I was still surprised at how expansive his world was. Most impressively was the short time frame Dosto used, exploring the past in flashbacks, but mainly focusing on the same two months, just with a different perspectives.

I love the way he played with truth, constantly changing my perception of which characters I can trust - can I even trust the narrator? - and arguing compellingly the case for events that contradict the ones previously told to me. And what should I turn to for certainty? Knowledge, show more religion, or alcoholic vice? For Dosto, all these means seem equal in their destructiveness, and yet all seem to be different means to the same end... some kind of spiritual salvation.

Because The Bros. Karam. is at once a compelling murder mystery, developing into a riveting courtroom drama - and yet that's only really the last 400 pages. Before then is the highly-scrutinised accounts of who the Brothers are, the intense women they surround themselves with, the insightful children of the town, the muzhiks and the aristocrats... and the barin himself!

In the end, I wanted the novel to go on for all eternity, for the death of the book to evoke not so much a putrid smell but leave me in the company of sparrows. Perhaps all I want is for Alyosha to comfort me with certain truths and spiritual naivety... or maybe I should just leave 19th-century Russia all together... show less

The day I started this book I came down with what I thought was COVID. It turned out to be EBV.

Perhaps because of my mental and physical state, this book felt like a twisted, but brilliant, version of the old parable "The Prodigal Son."

But that's the genius of Dostoyevsky. It was a religious, psychological, ethical, political, legal, and historical metaphor--- all while being slightly prophetic.

I spent way too much time thinking about how EBV is similar to reading this book. Your spleen becomes infected (just picking up my baby daughter would cause terrific pain that lasted for hours), I started losing my memory, exhaustion takes over and you would do almost anything to assuage the symptoms--- but there's nothing you can do. So you show more plod along(wanting to forget, but unable to focus on much else). Simultaneously, spring arrived with a vengeance. Rain, blossoms, green, sun, and tulips all caught moments of my attention... just as glimpses of FD's depth shone through the meandering speeches, insanity, poverty, and neverending suppositions.

I instantly loved some nasty people while others, that I disliked from the beginning, I understood better and better until, in spite of their imperfections, it was impossible to do anything but empathize.

And that's the brilliance of this book. At the end, I couldn't really tell what it had been: a metaphor of Russia, herself? A treatise on faith? I'll be chewing on this one for a while.

Note: had a vague memory that Yul Brynner acted in an older version. Relearned a key lesson when I looked it up at the library and discovered that William Shatner had a significant role. Just discovering that made it hard to return to the text. show less

The Brothers Karamazov is an amazing book, although it took me an awfully long time to listen through, the story was well worth it. I’m starting to become more and more adjusted to Dostoyevsky’s writing style and classical writing in general, so I’m hoping to read more and understand more so I can act even more intellectually superior to everyone, a la our main character from Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from Underground”…
Not really, but heck I can’t say it doesn’t give me a bit of a boost to the ego to be able to say I’ve made my way through such a complex story as The Brothers Karamazov.
That said, this story was beautiful, in so many ways, even though it was full of debauchery and stupidity, and stupid debauchery. This show more family is a mess- heck it seems their whole town is a bit of a mess. But overall I found it extremely interesting to see little bits of myself in the characters, and often in the places that I least expected to. I was also surprised by a number of characters who initially seemed to be unlikable, but when pressed, showed themselves to be individuals with noble hearts. Dostoyevsky doesn’t write one dimensional antagonists- we get a sense of every character, who they are, what they’re like, and can find humanity in all of them.
So I think the prosecutor was very apt in his speech when he said we are all Karamazovs; because we are all able to hold seemingly contradictory ideas together in our minds on a daily basis. That’s basically what it is to be human. You may say “other people do that but I don’t- I follow logic and reason - none of my ideas contradict each other”, but I suspect that there will be some point of contradiction between one idea and another that coexist in the mind of any individual you speak to. Hence why I think this book is such a masterpiece, because it fully captures the paradoxical nature of humanity, of reason, of philosophy.

Hurrah for Karamazov! show less

I probably need more time to digest this tome, but parts of this book, the Grand Inquisitor tale in particular, will reside with me for quite a while. I was expecting the normal Russian angst and social insecurity but I was not prepared for what may be the best bit of writing I’ve ever encountered. Does Dostoyevsky know us all that well? It’s all here, everything there is to know about being human. Amazing book; even better writing.

This book tells the story of three brothers, and each one of them has a different existential position towards life and meaning. The way how each character develops is remarkably consistent with their own world view and philosophy. They all search to understand what it means to be human, to be a good person, what it means to be a son or a brother, and they all struggle with the origin of evil that exists in their own heart. Their path is a constant battle between our instincts for good and evil, the power our passions have over us, our lack of dominion of ourselves, the capacity for hate, for love and for forgiveness. This book is absolutely wonderful.

It doesn't surprise me that Dostoyevsky had, later on, such an important role in the show more development of existentialist philosophy, because this book focuses mainly on how we relate to life at the most primordial level, the way we exist (or to some extent choose to exist) shapes our perception of everything, our behaviours, in a way that is more original than our theories or rational understanding of the world. This is what Kierkegaard (the father of existentialism) would call 'mood' or 'tonality', which which is closer to our innermost being than concepts, thought and even perception.

This book is about so many things, and the origin of evil is always there, together with the power that our passions and emotions have over us. Characters like Alyosha (the youngest brother) and Father Zossima are not manipulated by passions in the same way as other characters because they have something transcendent that serves as mediation between their own feelings and desires and life, which is God.

Dimitri and Ivan (the two older brothers) have their own path to follow, their own search for light and goodness. Guilt is an important aspect of both their characters, although they are so different from each other. Ivan is the materialistic character, the one who has no faith in humanity, as we can see in the poem he wrote, 'The Gand Inquisitor'. Dimitri is constantly turned towards the immediacy, to such an extent that he has no control over himself or what he thinks he needs in order to be able to live; he doesn't have the strength to follow the ethical values he believes in.

My conclusion is that this is one of the greatest masterpieces the world has ever created. This is not a book to be read just once in a lifetime, but something I want to re-read over and over again, such is its depth in understanding human nature. show less

The genius of Dostoevsky to see people so deeply and describe the soul of a man with such precision and detail is absolutely astounding. Reading Dostoevsky’s characters brought me again and again to say, “How absolutely true.” Of course, a character for Dostoevsky becomes a lens through which an entire worldview comes to life. The sensuous, flesh-driven Mitya paints the portrait of broken man – “capable of the greatest heights and of the greatest depths,” bound by noble heart and drawn by irresistible flesh. He is a prisoner to both nature and nurture, and he knows it. The intellectual Ivan embodies the secular thinkers of our age, either denying God entirely or just practically, and driving themselves to dehumanized show more insanity in the process. The loving man of childlike faith, Alyosha, embodies the best of what the Church has to offer – a living, breathing Christ in the world. With these, along with many others, Dostoevsky makes a thrilling case for faith. In essence, he says, “Here you are, laid bare and raw with all your best and worst tendencies. Now, what kind of world do you want to live in? Do you want to live in the world of the scoffer? Of the sensualist? Or, of Christ?” Refusing to take any shortcuts, Dostoevsky actually writes some of the best arguments against God in all of literature. Yet, in the end, the reader is more convinced than ever, “I want to live in Christ’s world.”

Personally, there are a number of things that strike me deeply about this book that wouldn't fit in a public book review. For one, I knew from the moment Krassotkin was introduced as a skeptic that the book was going to end on his conversion. Surely, Graham Greene had read Karamazov when he created his Luis for The Power and the Glory. The idea is the Christ-man, Alyosha, is the only hope for the salvation of our future generations – it is the image of Christ living in Christians that carries the pure faith into the future. Along those same lines, I was struck afterward at what a Christ-figure Alyosha really was. The children loved him as he knelt down to genuinely love them on their level. Is it too much even to remember how Ilusha tasted his flesh and blood? Are we to see a garden moment as he wept bitterly following Zossima's death, there experiencing his only crisis of faith, akin to "let this cup pass from Me"?

Of course, the realization that truly hits home is this: I am Mitya. What am I to make of his repeated breast pounding if not to hear, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner"? I bear the pain of my broken origin, and though I strive from my heart to be honorable, I am broken. I gravitate towards other broken people (Grushenka). I am judged by the prejudices of the people around me, though they are no better than I am (these same people even judge the holy when they get the chance – remember Zossima). I am wrongfully accused at times, though my rightful charges loom just as large. I am the broken Mitya, and my salvation is living in my Brother's world.

There's so much else to think about, but this one last thing I hope not to forget – Grushenka's onion. All our good deeds are onions. show less