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The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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29,30632492 (4.38)4 / 1071
Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML:

What is free will? Is redemption possible? Can logic help us answer moral questions? Renowned Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky tackles all of these topics and many more in this remarkable novel, widely regarded as one of the classic masterpieces of literature. Follow the Karamazov family through the travails that transpire after the murder of their father, and expand your intellectual horizons with a work that celebrated thinkers such as Einstein, Freud, and Pope Benedict XVI cite as one of their favorites.

.… (more)
  1. 222
    The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (PrincessPaulina, melies)
    PrincessPaulina: "The Idiot" is overlooked compared to Dostoevsky's other work, but in my opinion it's the most engaging. Deals with upper crust society in pre-revolutionary Russia
  2. 30
    The Master of Petersburg by J. M. Coetzee (xtien)
    xtien: Brilliand novel by Coetzee about a fictional Dostoevsky
  3. 44
    Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (igor.chubin)
AP Lit (336)
Romans (21)
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» See also 1071 mentions

English (293)  Dutch (5)  Italian (5)  German (4)  French (4)  Spanish (3)  Catalan (2)  Greek (1)  Portuguese (Portugal) (1)  Portuguese (1)  Hebrew (1)  Russian (1)  Swedish (1)  Danish (1)  All languages (323)
Showing 1-5 of 293 (next | show all)
This book is too long and too involved to even attempt to write a comprehensive review. Dostoyevsky is brilliant and insightful, but I am unclear as to what, exactly, he was trying to accomplish with this novel. The worst father (really, he is just an ejaculator, because that was the last moment at which he participated in the birth and rearing of his three [or, maybe 4] sons) in the world abuses and debases his children at his whim. They suffer accordingly in their relationships with him and others - especially females. I found that the overall emotion of the book was just too, too (if you know what I mean) - the three sons all seem to be afflicted with the emotional maturity of 14 year old boys - their perceptions of and treatment of women is both childish and annoying - Ivan and Dmitry are given to making fervid declarations about most everything but especially about Grushenka and Katerina Ivanova - like, give it a rest boys, grow up - you fucked up - you trusted women - big mistake mes amis - I did not feel bad about Dmitry's conviction - the guy had it coming - you cannot spend your entire life abusing others at will, and without reason, and then expect consideration from your peers - the worst parts of the book occur when particular characters (Zosima and Ivan come to mind) go on for dozens of pages giving lectures about their individual perceptions of this-or-that dogma or principle - if you want enjoyment, I recommend that you read Tolstoy whose books are much less preachy and much more compelling. I think Dostoyevsky gets credit for the same reason that Thomas Pynchon ("Gravity's Rainbow") and James Joyce ("Ulysses") do - they are all so abstruse that only really cool and highly intelligent people dig their maundering books - or, so it is assumed - nonetheless - I am glad that I read through the 822 pages and I feel enriched in terms of knowing a little bit more about the Russian people and their society - who are so aggressively and endlessly defamed in the America of 2024. ( )
2 vote BayanX | Mar 5, 2024 |
Well, that didn't take long. In one of my favorite lines of his, writing about one of my favorite films, Roger Ebert writes, "'The Fall' is so audacious that when Variety calls it a 'vanity project', you can only admire the man vain enough to make it." This is essentially that: an astonishing 800 page novel about a murder that's not really about a murder but about what Dostoyevsky quotes as the "accursed" questions, per the P-V notes: "God versus reason, human destiny, the future of Russia, and so forth." It swings from the melodramatic actions and speeches of a Bette Davis film to the exacting dissection of an ecclesiastic court. Sometimes this latter proves terribly readable (The Grand Inquisitor); sometimes it just proves terrible (From the Talks and Homilies of the Elder Zosima).

Turgenev said of Dostoyevsky: "He is the nastiest Christian I've ever met." At the moment, I bear sympathy for both accuser and accused. I feel a bit put out at what Dostoyevsky has subjected me to, yet admiring of the marvelous pre-evangelical vanity.

( )
  lelandleslie | Feb 24, 2024 |
1er tomo: cómo era de esperar, increíblemente escrito y pesado. El final hizo que haya valido la pena leerlo. Los cambios de animo de Grushenka..
2do tomo: mejor que el 1ero, personajes que cambian de opinión en un mismo diálogo, mientras van cambiando sus sentimientos ( )
  Alvaritogn | Feb 8, 2024 |
One of those great books that reaches across the intervening decades and centuries and speaks to life lived wherever and whenever. Every page is thick with the internal quarrel of intellect, and there are so many ideas packed into the stories of the brothers and their town. Dostoyevsky is clearly trying to teach us something, but what it is defies summary. He’s cast as a conservative, and I understand why, but I think what is central here is a skepticism that human nature can be changed, and especially not by the deeply flawed reformers of the era. You might come away feeling like this is a polemic for Christianity, but I think this book is more about the nostalgia for God (which may just be faith by another name) in a time when all progress seemed set against tradition and belief in a higher power. I think doubt plays as great a role here as belief, and that’s why Dostoyevsky is a philosopher, not a polemicist. And yet, this kind of doubt is holy too, contrasted as it is by the majority of the characters who are either driven mad by freedom from god, or waste time blathering platitudes while never committing themselves to any kind of moral code.

I’m amazed by Dostoyevsky’s ear for dialogue, which even in translation, leaps off the page. With so many different characters, you can still identify who is speaking by their style and words. In the modern era where we put so much emphasis on personal expression and navel gazing, this skill for writing different voices is a testament to an artist who was deeply interested in other people, and had amazing ability to step outside his own perspective and convincingly write as others might speak. I think this quality can tell us a lot about the grand goal of this book, to teach us that there is no worse enemy than ourselves, and to blindly destroy and denigrate tradition is to cut loose all the moorings that keep us from spiraling into the void. In order to live on this earth in peace, a man must submit to something. Whether that be religion, love for family, or work and duty, to live without submission is to become a crude and wild demigod, a fallen angel with no rudder but your own fickle desires. ( )
  hdeanfreemanjr | Jan 29, 2024 |
It's a big, rich book, and it's taken me nearly a year to read it, in between others and only a page or two some nights. It feels like a great book, and there are some outstanding passages in it, but the slowness of my own reading rather diminished the experience - my own fault for forgetting who was who and what had happened two hundred or three hundred pages earlier. Having now read some of the reviews, I'm also aware that perhaps this translation isn't one of the best ones, and so in my next lifetime, I will read one of the others. ( )
  breathslow | Jan 27, 2024 |
Showing 1-5 of 293 (next | show all)
I dislike intensely The Brothers Karamazov and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigmarole.

added by vibesandall | editLiterary Hub, Vladimir Nabokov (Nov 11, 2020)
 
Garnett's translation is so smooth and fluent the reader is net conscious that it is a translation.
added by vibesandall | editThe Pittsburgh Post (Jul 14, 1912)
 
"The Brothers Karamazov" is here for the first time published in England. Unlike the French and American versions, this is a complete translation; unaltered and unabridged." It is a great event, because " The Brothers Karamazov " happens to be one of the world's masterpieces.
added by vibesandall | editThe Observer (May 19, 1912)
 
This book is like a huge and almost incoherent drama of the suffering of mankind.
added by vibesandall | editThe Guardian (UK) (May 8, 1912)
 

» Add other authors (96 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Dostoevsky, Fyodorprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Anhava, MarttiTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Avsey, IgnatTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Bazzarelli, EridanoForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Brockway, HarryIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Davidson, FrederickNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Eichenberg, FritzIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Eng, Jan van derTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Fondse, MarkoTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Garnett, ConstanceTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Geier, SwetlanaÜbersetzersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kosloff, A.Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Langeveld, ArthurTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
MacAndrew, Andrew H.Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Magarshack, DavidTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Maugham, W. SomersetEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
McDuff, DavidIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mochulsky, KonstantinIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mongault, HenriTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Nötzel, KarlTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pevear, RichardTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Polledro, AlfredoTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Portugués, José MaríaForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Prina, SerenaEditor and Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pyykkö, LeaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Rogers, T. N. R.Introductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Rudzik, O.H.Introductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Sales, JoanTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Trast, V. K.Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Vance, SimonNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Volokhonsky, LarissaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Yarmolinsky, AvrahmIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Zambrano Barragán, J.Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Epigraph
Verily, verily, I say unto, you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringth forth much fruit.
— John 12:24
Dedication
Tillägnas Anna Grigorjevna Dostojevskaja
Dedicated to

Anna Grigorievna Dostoevsky
First words
Alexey Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his tragic and obscure death, which happened just thirteen years ago, and of which I shall speak in its proper place. (Garnett, 1912)
Aleksei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, a landowner of our district, extremely well known in his time (and to this day still remembered in these parts) on account of his violent and mysterious death exactly thirteen years ago, the circumstances of which I shall relate in due course. (Avsey 1994)
Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. (Garnett, Great Books, 1952)
Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of a landowner from our district, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, well known in his own day (and still remembered among us) because of his dark and tragic death, which happened exactly thirteen years ago and which I shall speak of in its proper place. (Pevear/Volokhonsky, 1990)
[Introduction] The Brothers Karamazov is a joyful book. (Peavear/Volokhonsky, 1990)
Quotations
Very well then - tell me the truth, squash me like a cockroach.
(McDuff,1993)
In schools children are a tribe without mercy.
(McDuff, 1993)
I have, as it were, torn my soul in half before you, and you have taken advantage of it and are rummaging with your fingers in both halves along the torn place...O God!
(McDuff, 1993)
I'm a Karamazov - when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up . . . 
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Disambiguation notice
Individual volumes should not be combined with the complete set/work or different volumes of the same set/work.
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML:

What is free will? Is redemption possible? Can logic help us answer moral questions? Renowned Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky tackles all of these topics and many more in this remarkable novel, widely regarded as one of the classic masterpieces of literature. Follow the Karamazov family through the travails that transpire after the murder of their father, and expand your intellectual horizons with a work that celebrated thinkers such as Einstein, Freud, and Pope Benedict XVI cite as one of their favorites.

.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Tre fratelli con caratteri molto diversi: uno orgoglioso e sensuale, uno razionale fino all'eccesso e uno sinceramente religioso; un figlio illegittimo malato ed emarginato ed un padre avaro e crudele, odiato e disprezzato da tutti.
(piopas)
Haiku summary
Sad Russian people
griping about God and stuff.
Wish Dad was still here.
(LeBoeuf)

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Penguin Australia

An edition of this book was published by Penguin Australia.

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