Reviews - The Originals: The Brothers Karamazov

A great classic... I'd recommend to anyone seeking a good drama. Very long. Dostoevsky has a great way of making you feel present in a scene. This is probably partially due to his very specific nature of writing. He gives so many details; his writing brinks on long-winded, and can be tiresome at times. The story itself is a great story that could have been told a little faster, but worth reading nonetheless.

jimenagb's review against another edition

4.0

I have mixed feelings on this book. After reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace (two books that I love) I was not very impressed with this book. Partly because the story was not very interesting to me and partly because the style of writing was very similar to Tolstoy's but without any of Tolstoy's romantic flair. I want to read some of Dostoyevsky's other works before I truly set my opinion on his writing.

As for the story itself, like in Tolstoy's novels most of the characters are neither 100% good or 100% bad (except for the angelic characters like Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov and Kitty and Konstantin in Anna Karenina) which I find very realistic and much more interesting to read. Although I liked most of Tolstoy's characters and wanted to see them succeed, I did not feel the same for the characters in the Brothers Karamazov. I found Fyodor Karamazov and Dimitri Karamazov to be very unlikable characters. Dimitri's two love interests, Katerina Ivanova and Grushenka, kept changing their opinions and loyalty's every chapter which I found to be both confusing to the story and generally annoying. As for Alyosha, I felt as though his character was very one dimensional. He was portrayed as the "good son" and, along with very spiritual proceedings, I found his character to be quite shallow.

I really enjoyed the first half of the book where the lives of the characters were told (especially the backstory of the brothers) and when the murder took place. I especially like Ivan's backstory as it has an interesting twist compared to Alyosha's and Dimitri's. Ivan was able to make something of himself through academia which was not a theme explored in Tolstoy's books.

Over all I enjoyed this book but I did not love it. I look forward to reading some of Dostoyevsky's other books!