The Karamazov Brothers

A century and a half after its first publication, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) could hardly receive more praise. Deemed ‘the greatest novel of all time’ by many, first-time readers are bound to have high expectations. It was no different for me, and despite a slump halfway through, I was not disappointed. Dostoevsky pulls out all the stops in his search for the human soul, culminating in one of the most spectacular court cases in literary history.

Set in Russia between August and November 1866, father Fyodor Karamazov and his sons Dmitri (Mitya), Ivan, and Alexei (Alyosha) form a fractured and deeply dysfunctional family. (It is said that their surname originates from ‘karamaz’, a term associated with corruption and sin.) Fyodor is a particularly compelling character; his complaints, curses, and lies are only surpassed by his relentless habit of seeking forgiveness. Mitya mirrors him in his alcoholism and lustfulness; their shared love for the same woman, Grushenka, creates fertile ground for a lasting feud.

Er is een kracht die alles volhoudt! zei Ivan, nu met een koud lachje. Wat voor een kracht? De Karamazov-kracht… de kracht van de Karamazov-laagheid. Dat betekent wegzinken in ontucht, het hart in verrotting smoren, bedoel je dat?

Although Fyodor and Mitya drive the plot, the most intriguing characters are Ivan and Alyosha. Their discussions on faith, morality, and reason are the novel’s highlight. Dostoevsky sought to address the rising popularity of atheism and liberalism. By contrasting the voices of Ivan (reason) and Alyosha (faith), he creates an engaging debate on doubt and the burden of free will. From a 21st-century agnostic point of view, I found some parts overly dogmatic, outdated, or simply dull, particularly the chapter on father Zosima, which felt a tad too blissful for my taste, but I generally appreciated Dostoevsky’s attempt to bring the subject to the forefront. The question of whether mankind can still be virtuous without God – après moi le déluge – has been relevant ever since. Overall, I was captivated by this intriguing story, which reveals both the best and worst of humanity.

De mensen nemen die hele komedie nog serieus ook, hoe slim ze ook zijn. Dat is hun tragedie. Ja, natuurlijk, ze lijden, maar… ze leven ook, ze leven echt en niet in de fantasie; want lijden is hetzelfde als leven. Zonder lijden zou er geen lol aan zijn, alles zou één eindeloze bidstonde zijn: heilig, maar stomvervelend.

Uncertain where to start with this one. I could copy paste a synopsis of the Book of Job and then claim the bible would have been better if written by Dostoevsky, but perhaps I shall instead attempt a review (except really it is an informal microessay on his reused themes…..)

This is one of the few books left in the ‘vesky corpus as first reads… I do not enjoy this fact and have been rereading each chapter of this for months and have morphed into the Pepe Silvia image.

In a way, this book was a quilt of the major themes of most of Dostoevsky’s preceding works—amplified. Childhood feels more potent a theme here than in ‘A Raw Youth/The Adolescent,’ which itself continued on from Dostoevsky’s experimentation with this in demons and Stavrogin’s upbringing—i.e., the Q of what shapes a man’s morals before he can even be considered a man? The Demons parallels extend to Kolya’s relationship with God, a relationship which only reads as a better developed version of Shatov’s relationship with God…

My favourite parallel, however, is the reappearance of idolatrous relationships like the one seen between Kolya and Alyosha, which mirrors Verkhovensky and Stavrogin to the extent I had to double check I was reading the right book.

“Hurrah! You are a prophet. Oh, we shall get on together, Karamazov!  What delights me most is that you treat me quite like an equal. We aren’t equals, you are better! But we shall get on. All this last month, I’ve been saying to myself, ‘Either we shall be friends at once, forever, or we shall part enemies to the grave!” (TBK)

“…They just don’t love idols, but I love an idol! You are my idol! You insult no one, yet everyone hates you; you have the air of being everyone’s equal, yet everyone is afraid of you—this is good…You are precisely what’s needed. I, I need precisely such a man as you. I know no one but you. You are a leader, you are a sun, and I am your worm…” (Demons)

He has this tendency (and unmatched execution) to embody ideologies into characters who are worshipped by his weaker, more meek archetypes that appear in almost every major piece of his. In the end, meek or assertive everyone loses themselves for an idea (Adolescent, Demons, TBK…).

Oh and not to mention the reemergence of brain fevers (Stavrogin - Demoms / Ivan - TBK).

I wanted to finish the book, I wanted to like it. I've never read Dostoevsky before and have had this book on my shelf for years. Well, I tried it...but when the hell was it going to get anywhere?

Now the characters, as far as i could tell, were very distinct and had a lot to them. He spends a lot of time setting up his characters and their backstories so we can understand where they are coming from and all...

And then he jumps into some theological discussion between them that slows things down. I hoped this would be a great book to give me some insight into Russian Orthodoxy and life under it before the revolution, but nope. It practically tried to cram some things down my throat that had very little context.

If I hadn't read the introduction thoroughly before tackling this book, there's no way I would've gotten as far as I did.

So there's a character setup, and then it's "okay, let's take most of a chapter to discuss this bit of theology or injustice." The common rule of writing most of us grew up with and got knocked into our heads was "show, don't tell." This feels more like a case of "gotcha" and back to characters discussing things instead of doing them.

I bet if I went a bit longer, the book would've gotten better...but I've lost my patience with it. I get that Dostoevsky, as a novelist, was probably writing his heart out about all the things he hoped for and his beliefs and philosophies (and using his characters as foils so as to get past any censorship or trouble with the church), but it was just too much. I could only wait so long for the plot to pick up, and I was confused with what little I'd already received (and the fact that some characters are referred to by different names, so watch out--print a cheat sheet of characters if you need to).

I'll give him another shot in the future with "Crime and Punishment," but I'm donating this one.

I cannot express how much I love the first half of this book. We meet the Karamazovs, in all their absurb, silly glory. They interact with many others who believe themselves to be less absurd and silly, but we, as readers removed from the peculiar town that gossips about them, know better. The second half is, unfortunately, not as charming. Its repetitive and almost dull. However, i should say, that repetitiveness serves a purpose. We are walked through events of a tragic night several times. First by the accused murderer himself, unable to separate himself from his absurd silliness even to save himself. Then we hear from everyone around him. Those who, it could be argued, he deserves love and understanding from. Finally we hear from the authorities. As the town, and we, contemplate these testimonies, reeling from two other less absurd tragedies the town experiencea in this time, the question of what truly motivates us - emotionally, morally, economically - is shown to be far more complex than we often let ourselves believe. We are all capable of being just as absurd, silly, and tragic, as any Karamazov.

Written in the final years of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s life (he died four months after it was published), The Brothers Karamazov is probably his most philosophical novel. It tells the story of four very different brothers who all got involved in the murder of their own father. While similarities can be made between this novel and Crime and Punishment as they share similar themes, they are still vastly different. Rather this book deals more with life, death and the meaning of life.

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”

At the start of the novel we meet Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, who fathers three sons during his two marriages and is rumoured for have fathered a fourth illegitimate son. He often makes the list when people talk about ‘the most disgusting characters’ in literature, or similar topics. This forms the basis of the plot and the brothers grow up with very different lives, separated from their father and each other. As a result these four brothers are very different; Dmitri is a sensualist, Ivan a rationalist (an atheist), Alexei is a novice in the Russian Orthodox Church and Pavel, well let’s just say, silent and sly.

The very different personalities of these brothers is what allows Fyodor Dostoevsky to explore all his philosophical ideas. One of the major themes in this novel is that of religion and while questioning faith is a common theme in modem literature at the time, in Russia it was considered big deal. In 987 Vladimir the Great sent out envoys to study the various religions of neighbouring nations in order to pick the right religion for Russia. Seems a little unorthodox (no pun intended) but eventually the nation adopted Orthodoxy. What became Russian Orthodoxy was embraced by all of Russia and had its own vision of creating a country of love and humility.

This is important because The Brothers Karamazov is not about questioning the existence of God but rather the role of the church when it comes to morality. It should be noted this was at a time where the Russian Socialism movement was gaining some traction and their goal was to create heaven on earth. With characters of vastly different ideals, Dostoevsky was able to explore the ideas he had floating in his head from different angles. Was Christianity simply a mask for the authority? In one of the most famous chapters Ivan talks about “The Great Inquisitor” which is a powerful argument of scepticism and against religious faith.

Other major themes found in the novel are that of fate and free will. This is closely connected with the ideas around religion. For Alexei, he has the freedom to commit to the order of the church, something that seems like a paradox to someone like Dmitri. Fyodor Dostoevsky explores the psychological makeup of control by society and authority. This plays into the Socialist debate at the time; do we have free will, when we are being controlled by the church or the Tsar. Or maybe we have the freewill but blindly follow the laws put in place by the church and the authority without question.

For Ivan, he lives by the philosophy that “everything is permitted”, which leads to another major theme, that of justice and morality. The murder of Fyodor Karamazov is at the centre of this theme, as well as the trail the follows. The Brothers Karamazov essentially wants the reader to question life, question their beliefs, and the roles of earthly or divine justice. The justice system found in the novel appears to be weird and problematic. The innocent are found guilty, the jury are manipulated by lawyers and the book even questions harsh punishments; like exile to Siberia. It is here we wonder about the different between morality and the laws imposed upon us.

There is so much more you can get out of The Brothers Karamazov (for example family) but for me, this reading through was about questioning life in the lead up to death. I really liked how Fyodor Dostoevsky used the different brothers to explore the different angles and question his own beliefs. Dostoevsky often wrote about society, religion, politics and ethics, however in his final years while writing The Brothers Karamazov, we get the sense that he was thinking more about his own life and his legacy. In fact his tombstone is inscribed with the verse from John 12:24; “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Most people know that I’m a fan of Fyodor Dostoevsky and I am so glad to have read The Brothers Karamazov however next time I plan to read it in the David McDuff translation, rather than this one translated by Constance Garnett.

This review originally appeared on my blog; www.knowledgelost.org/book-reviews/genre/classic/brothers-karamazov-fyodor-dostoevsky/

Voilà bien 3 semaines que je traîne les Frères Karamazov. Emploi du temps, épaisseur du pavé, autant de facteurs qui ne font que ralentir mon rythme. Mais qu’en est-il de ma motivation ? Cette traduction parues aux éditions Babel nous est présentée d’emblée comme LA traduction, l’ultime et l’idéale, la plus fidèle au texte de Dostoïevski. Soit, je veux bien le croire, le traducteur a du suer sang et eau pour pondre sa version. Malgré tout, on dirait que globalement il en a oublié son français, à force de vouloir coller au texte original. À moins que le russe ne soit pas traduisible. Je ne sais pas. Toujours est-il que des phrases d’un autre monde telles que “brusquement, il se leva, soudain“, ou bien “des regards tendres mais chaleureux“, moi, au bout de 800 pages (sur 1300 environ) je ne peux plus !

Un peu ça va, mais ce style complètement farfelu me sort par les yeux, c’est lourd, artificiel, pénible et désagréable à lire sur la longueur. Alors je me fais violence et je passe à autre chose, à mon grand regret, car au bout de ces 800 pages l’action vient juste de commencer….Dommage, car l’histoire et les personnages sont attachants, intéressants et complexes, mais les longueurs, les répétitions, les dialogues qui sont loin d’être naturels, et le style biscornu ont eu raison de ma curiosité et de ma patience. Je le terminerai peut-être un jour, qui sait ?!