The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Book Reviews of The Brothers Karamazov
Book Review: Not the best book I've read
Summary: 3 Stars
Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov is regarded as one of the world's greatest works of literature. Originally written in Russian in the late 1800's, it is still significant in our modern time and culture. The novel is long, with several subplots, some of which seem unrelated to the main theme.
The story revolves around the Karamazov family, consisting of the father, Fyodor, his three sons, Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha, and a fourth alleged illegitimate son, Smerdyakov, who works as Fyodor's servant. The eldest son, Dmitri, is fighting with his father over an inheritance he claims is owed to him. Their dispute grows worse when they both fall for the same woman. When Fyodor is murdered, Dmitri is the most likely suspect. The reader knows from the time of the murder that Dmitri is innocent, but he still must go to trial, where the evidence is not in his favor. Another main theme of the story is the topic of religion, which is brought up by Alyosha (a monk) and many others and disputed by Ivan.
I expected to love this book, based on recommendations from friends and other online reviews. It was well written but seemed to go on forever at times. I enjoyed much of the novel, especially parts thick in action, and the author (and translators) often used vivid descriptions which kept me interested. At times, however, the dialogue or seemingly pointless subplots stretched on for several chapters and literally put me to sleep (although this could also be attributed to my hectic, practically sleepless senior year). Overall, I enjoyed the plot of the story, and the narration varied from fascinating to tedious. If you are very patient and don't mind a long, complex story, then you'll most likely love The Brothers Karamazov.
Book Review: No Question About it...This is the Greatest Realist Novel,
Summary: 5 Stars
Freud shared two great insights on Dostovesky and Brothers Karamazov. He considered BK the world's greatest novel. It's not by any stretch of imagination to say that Dostovesky anticipated psychoanalysis. If it is in any way a testament to BK's greatness, I have read it three times in the past 8 years or so, and I will probably read it three more times. On the other hand, I read Crime and Punishment only once. I wll reread it. I feel no desire to reread the Idiot.
Freud also said that Dostovesky had chosen to be humanity's jailor rather than its liberator. As an atheist at heart, Freud was obviously refering to Dostovesky's tortured Christianity, and his uncanny way of proposing Christianity as the one and only true way to salvation and subverting other ideologies (i. e Communism, atheism, capitalism, rationalism and etc). Dostovesky's "positive" characters or saints find inner peace in Christianity (Alexey and Zossima). "Negative" characters or sinners find ruin and disasters; they go to prison (Dmitry), go insane (Ivan) or commit suicide (Smerdyakov). Dostovesky is biased. His views are flawed and old-fashioned. Then again, who isn't?!?
However, we continue reading BK because the characters in it touch us in a way that no others ever come close. They are made of flesh and blood, as opposed to the highly idealized fictional characters or one-dimensional caricatures from novels of his contemporaries. Dostovesky explored their emotional turmoils and psychological conflicts in the same way that we experience them in our daily lives.
One more reason to read BK--it has three of the greatest female characters in the canon of Western literature. They are beautiful...and crazy!
Book Review: Dense, Dark, Difficult and Divine
Summary: 5 Stars
"Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love."
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky
This monumental work is a challenge to read. It's complex, meaty, dense, gritty, and long (my edition was 1000 pages). But it's a rewarding journey, filled with wonderful, and not so wonderful characters, situations, and outcomes. It's epic in its scope and aspirations, and it delivers more than one can sometimes absorb or comprehend. It takes some chewing before it can be easily digested and absorbed. It's full of themes, of philosophy, of symbols, of threads which intersect and intertwine, like a spider web.
It presents some wonderfully complex characters, resplendent in their humanity. It sets these characters in situations which present themselves to humanity, and it asks these characters the ultimate question: "Will you resist this temptation?" And then if they cannot resist, it then asks: "Will you now seek redemption?" These characters are some of the richest characters in literature, and they are so fully developed that they slowly but surely embed themselves into the psyche and are impossible to shake loose.
When reading Russian literature it is good to remember how they articulate the characters' names, and to remember that there are several versions of these names. There are various long and shortened variations of each name and nickname, and this can be a major impediment to understanding just who is who, unless one unlocks the keys of the Russian system.
Book Review: It wasn't the other guy either
Summary: 5 Stars
Smerdyakov didn't do it. He confessed to Ivan, it's true, but why should we take his word for it? Perhaps it was Ivan and only Ivan who was the true object of his hate, and everything that Smerdyakov did in his life up to and including his taking it was meticulously calculated to push Ivan over the edge.
Like Smerdyakov, the anonymous narrator and biographer of Alexei Karamazov shams a falling sickness - in this case a fall from omniscience - precisely at the terrible instant of Fyodor Karamazov's murder. He shows us Mitya pulling the brass pestle from his pocket while crouching under his father's bedroom window, then all of a sudden a dotted line gets in the way, blocking our view, and the next time we see Dmitri, he is dashing for the garden wall with the servant Grigory hot on his heels. This blatant crevice in the narrative shouts to us in no unclear terms, "You do not, cannot, and will not ever know what happened here!" And we, miserable gossips and frustrated peeping toms that we are, believe the first person that claims responsibility.
What, are you saying that it was Mitya all along? That Alyosha was not the discerning judge of character that his biographer makes him out to be? That Smerdyakov's confession was a self-deluded tale of imagined resoluteness by a timid coward whose one true act of courage was suicide? That Dmitri was in fact a liar through and through?
This to me illustrates only one (and a minor one at that) of the numerous tantalizing complexities of this brilliant novel, which on my shelf now sits between Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and John Updike's "Rabbit Angstrom" tetralogy.
Book Review: A prophecy and a moving story.
Summary: 5 Stars
The Brothers Karamazov is first, a coming of age story of Alyosha Karamazov from a naive novice in the monastery to a leader whose rousing sermon at the rock is the culmination of the story.
Second, it is a complex allegory of the Russian nation and prophesy o Russia's future. The atheistic, rationalism and socialism of Ivan; the passionate nobility of the erratic Dimitri; and the Orthodox mysticism and humanism of Alyosha present three paths before the Russians at the end of the 19th century. Though Dostoevsky wishes his people to follow the model of Alyosha, history shows that Russia followed the model of Dimitri until the Revolution turned them down the road of Ivan.
Third, the novel is a critique of secular criminal justice. The punishment of the state is impotent, especially when compared to the reforming power of one's own conscience and contrition of heart.
At times the novel seems to have strayed off on a tangent, but by the end Dostoevsky threads them all together into a majestic tapestry. The book is made even more beautiful when read in light of Dostoevsky's life. His youth of socialism, his near execution, his years in the Tsar's work camps, his return to freedom, his renewed spirituality, and the death of his son just prior to his writing this novel, all appear as ghostly shades influencing and tormenting the author's work.
The chapters run from entertaining storytelling, to parables, and to depths of philosophizing comparable to the works of Plato. The broad expanse of the work displays Dostoevsky's virtuosity. This book is indeed Dostoevsky's crowning achievement and by all standards a world masterpiece.