The Brothers Karamazov

When Dostoyevsky wrote Crime and Punishment he had a nice mix of rants, opinions, interesting characters and plot, sure the rants and opinions were out of date but with how it was woven into the plot it worked well. In The Brothers Karamazov he has his rants and opinions, he even has a good plot, unfortunately the characters are rather dull, the books biggest failure is that the plot and opinions have been separated.

Up until the "Big Incident" I was really struggling, so much waffle and background info that added very little the story, Why did we need to know so much about the Fathers? And the little boy who was poorly? At this point I was ready to give this one a 1 star rating.

Then the crime happens, and Dostoyevsky's writing starts to shine, the detail about the investigation, the day in court and the lengthy closing statements from the prosecution and defence make for a gripping read. This must be one of the earliest books to go into this much detail on what happens from the crime to the sentencing. Throughout the proceedings you hear the opinions of those watching, and Dostoyeksky manages to weave his thoughts in perfectly.

I have to admit I don't get why this one gets such rave reviews, I did enjoy it once I had battled my way through to the good parts.