The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Book Summary Information
Author: Fyodor DostoevskyTranslator: Richard Pevear
Translator: Larissa Volokhonsky
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-06-14
ISBN: 0374528373
Number of pages: 796
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Book Reviews of The Brothers Karamazov
Book Review: A Glittering Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
Much has been written about The Brothers Karamazov, one of the world's greatest novels, and over the years this seminal work has earned glowing endorsements from literati, physicists and psychologists alike. So rather than jump into the fray with a critique of Dostoevsky's craft, I'd rather offer observations: reasons why this novel, and Dostoevsky's work more generally, is relevant to readers today.
A far cry from the dark, brooding slog through existentialist muck that some have labelled it, this book simmers with life force and humor. In the tradition of Don Quixote and Pushkin's Tales of Belkin, Dostoevsky fires his first salvo in the author's note, where he skewers the radical intelligentsia of his day with a delightful parody of himself. This subtle artistic technique ridicules the author, but in doing so, cunningly suggests the author's targets are, even more so, quite dim. Dostoevsky proceeds to suggest they may not get the point, but perhaps should make the effort. And so on. As the action progresses, Dostoevsky presents us with a venal father, a love rival who is also his son, a tortured intellect, bullies galore, a glum half-brother, women on the make, and a swirling tale of lust and murder; as if that's not enough, we get the grim death of a beloved priest. These characters are archetypes, yes, but as I read this novel I have the distinct impression they live and breathe, too. This, in turn, made Dostoevsky's ideas even more powerful. In aggregate, we are presented with Russia of the 1870s: a nation heading, full force, toward violent revolution, and as Dostoevsky instinctively knew, only spiritual enlightenment -- a focus beyond the human self and into the absurd -- will save it.
As a brilliant examination of the human condition, the novel is also universal and timeless. Dostoevsky influenced Freud, as the latter admitted, as well as generations of existentialists. What strikes me about Dostoevsky's art, as much as anything else, is the way he depicts people amidst sudden doubts and reversals, or better yet, as agents of forces beyond their control who act against their own self-interest. Examples of such depictions include Grushenka's sudden amity toward Alyosha after vowing to corrupt him, and Mitenka's impulsive confession. In Dostoevsky's daring vision, the unconscious mind drives us in ways we can scarely imagine.
Suffering plays a key role in the novel, too, but unlike tenets of post-modernist thinking, Dostoevsky's notion of suffering requires salvation through powers that transcends the human spirit. Humankind cannot save itself from its own condition, he says, but all is not lost. That is, the human soul is not doomed, but limited, and the soul, trapped in a flawed shell on an elusive quest for bliss, seeks out likeness of itself, rather than triumph over it. Humanity seeks community with mankind, but ultimately, with God. Perhaps this struggle can be over, therefore, before it begins. In the novel, the readers sees what happens when humans set out on their own missions of self-salvation: the villain Fyodor Pavolvich subconsciously does everything in his power to rip his family asunder, seeking the extraordinary life, yet on another level, he's clawing for love he can never achieve through action alone. Such is the folly of reason when employed to obtain something that exists beyond the material world. In Alyosha, Dostoevsky presents a counterweight to Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov's self-destruction, and this culminates in the most optimistic vision of the entire book: that after death's suffering we can be together again. This message is both personal and political. Atheism, combined with human emotion and corruption, Dostoevsky suggests, often leads to violence, and in such a world, rationality can quickly turn to rationalization. Russia, in its attempt to find the perfect formula of happiness, was in fact sowing the seeds of its own destruction, and Dostoevsky's remedy for this was grace, not reason.
I'm struck by the relevance of Dostoevsky's work in the context of contemporary political economy, which is so often evaluated in terms of quantitative, rather than subjective, concerns. Such is the legacy of positivism, which Dostoevsky railed against, at least insofar as science is twisted and distorted by human desires. In the wrong hands, technology is as dangerous as mankind's wildest imagination, and ideas, per se, lead only to dead ends. As in Russia of the 1870s, many people today measure happiness with numbers and formulas. If GDP is going up, we must all be happier; if we redistribute things "just so," even at the cost of human suffering, overall the world will be a better place. These simplistic arguments have been the subsoil of globalism and, ironically, were equally important to fascist and communist utopians of the 20th century.
A similar thread of Dostoevsky's novel is found in today's multiculturalism, which is, as practiced today, a two-sided argument. On one side, there is the idea that all peoples and nations should merge into one, whereby all bases for future conflict will be swept away. Dostoevsky might ask us, if he were alive today, how we plan to get there. By consensus? Or by force? And in either case, at what cost? On the flip side of the multicultural coin, there sits the idea of all cultures and peoples living together without a definable nation, yet maintaining separate identities. All are not merged into one at all. The two sides of multiculturalism are reminiscent of the intellectual labyrinth that tormented Vanechka; they don't add up, because they are incompatible at the nth degree. As a utopian model, then, multiculturalism, as it's practiced today, should collapse upon itself, not least because the implementation of this ideal is despoiled by human corruption.
Dostoevsky was writing about this realm beyond human ideas and understanding, and he was speaking to Russians, in the living and breathing sense, rather than to Russia -- emphatically a nation of people, not a nation of ideas. The latter definition would be dangerous, for if Russia were an idea, then literally anything, no matter how despotic, could be done to serve it. But if a nation is, in a most basic element, a community of people, not an abstraction of them, then one must constantly ask how a given policy will affect the welfare of the body politic. This problem of nationhood, so central to Dostoevsky's Slavophilic sentiments, is arguably the most burning issue in the United States today.
This is a superlative novel and the translation is excellent. Highly recommended.
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Summary of The Brothers Karamazov
The award-winning translation of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel.
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