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4.31 AVERAGE
4.31 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“My hosanna has passed through a vast furnace of doubt.” <3
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A long and pensive investigation of human nature and family relationships. The plot and characters are rich and lively, surely they will jump out of you from pages. For me it was a long read, yet looking forward for a re read sometime soon.
difficult to get through in an ebook format. i will be trying again in physical or audio form!
An utterly resplendent novel with immense scope across the philosophy of religion, the psychology of social classes, stark differences in human conduct while still having an interesting plot and deftly written characters. A family all representing different philosophies of how to live one's life, a potent murder mystery, a destructive love triangle are just some of the stories taking place within the book. There is a lot I feel I still don't know about and am looking forward to reading another translation.
Some guy named Kevin said reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov is comparable to pushing a beautiful grand piano up a very steep hill and I’ve never heard any truer words spoken. The first half was a bit of a nightmare to get through not gonna lie. The (mostly religious) monologues were a bit much at times but at the same time such interesting commentary on society, religion and morality. The second half had me completely hooked and I could barely put the masterpiece down.
The characters were well-written because their personalities stood out from each other distinctly. So many emotional tirades, though. And was it just that people acted SO dramatically in every day life or did Dostoevsky play up people’s dramas a LOT? Even then, people were narcissistic and thought the world revolved around them. It makes sense though, because the type of therapy and mindsets we have nowadays didn’t exist back then. It was likely harder for people to be self-aware and realize how their actions impacted others and how others impacted them and how to self-regulate. Instead, there is just a bunch of drama and “hysterics” going on with everyone, unless you were a monk. Khokhlakova was portrayed as a clueless nutcase who just spoke in stream of consciousness incoherence most of the time. And her daughter Lise/Liza was shown as a mentally ill but sexually budding girl who teased men and who wanted to see herself as vile and evil for thinking the way she did. Females were definitely not portrayed in a positive light at all. Likely due to patriarchy and other factors in Russian society.
Also, these were a bunch of traumatized human beings, with mothers dying when children were young, with abandonment and multiple caregivers like foster parents. And some poverty. No wonder why people were so dramatic and had stilted ways of thinking - they were all highly traumatized. We see Dmitry being very self-centered where he believes that people who are just living their lives for themselves should be serving HIS needs and HIS will, like they are players in HIS game and should do what HE wants them to do.
There were some editing errors where people’s names were spelled incorrectly in one sentence and correctly in another sentence, on the same page. Other editing errors occurred as well. One was where it says that when Aleksey’s mother died, he was 4 years old (pg. 19), but just a few pages later in the book (pg. 24), it mentioned that he was 3 years old when she died. Strange that this discrepancy remains in an edited version of this book.
I’m now going to look up other reviews of this book and see what I missed or overlooked. I already saw that the part about “The Grand Inquisitor” was important and I literally started skimming over that because it was so long and repetitive. I definitely missed the point of that part.
“This characteristic was his strange, wildly intense bashfulness and chastity. He couldn’t bear hearing certain words and certain conversations about women. These ‘certain’ words and conversations, unfortunately, are unavoidable in our schools. Boys who are pure of heart and soul. still almost children, very often like to whisper in class among themselves, and even talk aloud, about such things—pictures and images about which even soldiers would sometimes hesitate to speak; indeed, things that soldiers don’t even know or understand, such things are familiar to the young children of our intellectual and higher classes in society. This may be a question of moral depravity, though as yet there’s no real, depraved inner cynicism involved, but there is the appearance of it, and this is often considered among them as something refined, subtle, daring, and worthy of imitation.” pg. 26 [about Alyosha’s character]
“‘. . . The main thing is, stop telling lies to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lies reaches a point where he cannot recognize any truth in himself or in anyone surrounding him, and so he loses all respect for himself and for others. Once he respects no one, he stops loving; to occupy and distract himself, he yields to passions and coarse inclinations and ultimately sinks to bestiality in all his vices, and all this comes from incessant lying to himself and to others. A man who lies to himself can be more readily offended than anyone else. It’s sometimes very pleasant to be offended, isn’t it? Someone may know that no one’s offered him, and that he himself has invented the insult, lied for effect, exaggerated to create an impression, has seized upon a single word and made a mountain out of a molehill; he knows this himself, yet he’s the first to feel offended, he feels offended to the point of pleasure, where he experiences immense satisfaction, and from there he succeeds at arriving at genuine vindictiveness. . . .’” pg. 54 [Zosima to Fyodor Pavlovich]
“‘He spoke just as frankly as you have, although in jest, but it was a kind of bitter humor. “I love all humanity,” he declared, “but I’m surprised at myself: the more I love humanity in general, the less I love people in particular—that is, separately, as single individuals. In my dreams,” he said, “I frequently imagine the most passionate and far-reaching plans for serving humanity, and I think I might even be wiling to be crucified for the sake of humanity, should that suddenly be demanded of me; at the same time, it’s impossible for me to live in the same room with another person for even two days; I know this from experience. If anyone gets close to me, his personality undermines my self-esteem and restricts my freedom. In the space of a single day, I begin to hate even the best of men—one because he takes so long to eat his dinner, another because he has a cold and blows his nose constantly. I become an enemy of people,” he tells me, “as soon as they draw close to me. On the other hand, it invariably happens that the more I detest individual people, the more fervent is my love for humanity in general.”’” pg. 69 [Zosima’s story about a doctor who felt this way about humanity]
“Also avoid fear, though fear is no more than the consequence of any lie. Never be afraid of your own faintheartedness in attaining love; don’t even be too afraid of your own bad actions. I am sorry that I don’t have anything more comforting to say to you, because active love compared with imaginary love is a cruel and fearsome thing. Imaginary love craves immediate action; it is quickly satisfied by this and wants everyone to be sure to witness it. To achieve this, people are really even willing to give up their own lives, so long as it’s done quickly and doesn’t take too long—as if onstage, where everyone would see them and applaud them. Active love, in comparison, demands work and endurance; for some people, it is nothing less than a way of life, a discipline. “pg. 70 [Zosima to Madame Kholakhova]
“‘Ivan, put that in your pipe and smoke it; make a note of it: there you have the Russian character!’” pg. 158 [Fyodor Pavlovich to Ivan Fyodorovich - “put that in your pipe and smoke it” - I didn’t know it was such an old phrase that even Russians use - I laughed when I read it]
“‘Brother, let me ask one more thing: does any man really have the right, regarding other people, to decide which of them is worthy to live and which one is not worthy?’
‘Why introduce the question of worth into this matter? This question is decided most of all in men’s hearts, not on the basis of worth, but for different reasons, much more natural ones. And as far as the right is concerned, who lacks the right to desire?’
‘Not the death of another man?’
‘Yes, perhaps even that. Why lie to oneself, when all men live like that? . . .’” pg. 171 [Alyosha to Ivan]
“‘To love life more than its meaning?’
‘Absolutely; to love it before logic, as you say, absolutely before logic, and only then will I understand its meaning. That’s what I’ve been dreaming about for some time. Half your task is done, Ivan, and you’ve succeeded: you love life. Now you must try to complete the second half and you’ll be saved.’” pg. 274 [Alyosha and Ivan]
“How many mysteries are revealed and solved: God elevates Job once again, gives him new riches, many years pass again he has new children, different ones, and he loves them—oh, Lord: ‘How could he come to love these new children when his previous children were no more, when he was deprived of them? Remembering them, was it really possible to be as completely happy as he was before, with his new children, however dear they are to him?’ But it is possible: the old grief of the great mystery of human life passes gradually into quiet, tender joy; instead of youthful, seething blood, there is now mild, serene old age; I bless the sunrise every day and my heart sings to it as it did in days gone by; but now I love the sunset even more, the long, slanting rays of the sun, and, with them, quiet, gentle, tender memories, dear images from my long and blessed life—and above it all is the truth of God, tenderly touching, reconciling, all-forgiving! My life is ending, I know that and I hear that, but I feel on every day left to me how my earthly life is coming into contact with a new, infinite, unknown, but imminent life, a premonition of which makes my soul tremble with ecstasy, my mind blaze, and my heart weep from joy. . .’” pg. 345-346 [said by Zosima before he dies]
“‘Just look at the worldly men and all those who regard themselves as above God’s people; haven’t God’s image and the truth been distorted in them? They have science, but in that science they have only what is subject to the senses. The spiritual world, the loftier half of human nature, is rejected altogether, cast out with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. The world has proclaimed freedom, especially during the last few years, and what do we see in this freedom of theirs? Only servitude and suicide! Because the world says: ‘You have needs, so satisfy them, because you have the same rights as the exalted and wealthiest people. Don’t be afraid to satisfy them, even multiply them.’ That is the teaching of today’s world. That is where they see their freedom. And what is the result of this right to multiply one’s needs? The wealthy people feel isolation and spiritual suicide; and the poor experience envy and murder, because while they have been given rights, they have yet to be shown the means to satisfy their needs. They maintain that the world is getting more and more unified, that it’s united into brotherly community by shortening the distance, and that it transmits its thoughts through the air. Alas, don’t believe in such a union of people. By understanding freedom as the multiplication and the rapid satisfaction of needs, men distort their own nature, because it produces many senseless and foolish desires, habits, and absurd notions. They live merely to envy each other, for gluttony and conceit. To hold dinners, take excursions, buy carriages, to achieve high ranks and keep slaves as servants—all are considered such necessities, for which they’re willing to sacrifice even their lives, their honor, and their humanity to quench this need; they will even resort to killing themselves, if they can’t satisfy it.” pg. 368-369 [Zosima monologue]
“It’s not surprising that instead of freedom, they’ve fallen into slavery, and instead of serving brotherly love and the union of humanity, on the contrary, they have fallen into separation and isolation, as my mysterious visitor and teacher told me in my youth. Therefore the idea of serving humanity, of brotherhood, and the harmony of mankind continues to die out more and more, and is even met with mockery. How is it possible for man to desist from these habits, where can this slave go, if he is so accustomed to quenching his innumerable needs, which he himself has conceived? He’s isolated; what does he care about the rest of humanity? And such men have succeeded in acquiring more material things, but the amount of joy is less.” pg. 369 [Zosima monologue]
“The main thing that was so intolerably offensive was that he, Mitya, was standing over him with his urgent business, having sacrificed so much, given up so much, completely exhausted, while this scrounger, ‘on whom my whole fate depends, snores as if nothing’s wrong, as if he came from another planet.’ ‘Oh, the irony of fate!’ Mitya cried and suddenly, as if he’d lost his head completely, threw himself on the drunken peasant to try to rouse him. He tried with such ferocity, pulled him, pushed him, even beat him, but after five minutes of futile attempts, he return to his bench and sat down in helpless despair.” pg. 441 [It’s so self-centered and narcissistic to think this way, that others are there living their lives the way they want to, but should be serving you and your purposes instead.]
“‘Forgive me, Grusha, for my love, and for ruining you, too, with my love.’” pg. 592 [Dmitry to Grusha after he’s arrested]
The character Kolya was so interesting - such a young kid (13 years old) able to philosophize the way he did. His interactions with Alyosha were endearing and mature. Was that realistic for a kid that age during those timesthen to have such mannerisms or was Dostoevsky projecting?
“‘Have you fallen in love with disorder?’
‘Yes, I want disorder. I keep wanting to set the house on fire. I imagine that I’ll come and set the house on fire secretly, definitely secretly. They’ll try to put it out, but it’ll burn. And I’ll know, but I’ll keep silent. Ah, what foolishness! And how boring!’
She waved her arm contemptuously.
‘You live too comfortably,’ Alyosha said softly.
‘Is it better to be poor?’
‘It is.’
‘Your late monk told you that. It’s not true. Let me be rich, and everyone else poor; I’ll eat candy, drink cream, and I won’t share it with anyone. Ah, don’t say anything, nothing,’ she said, waving her arm again, although Alyosha hadn’t even opened his mouth to speak.” pg. 675 [Lise/Liza and Alyosha]
This story took place in November (pg. 681) and I’m reading it in late October, so it was a nice alignment of time. Also, the book mentions Swedes and I started reading this book because of a guy who has Swedish heritage. Later, a Chinese lantern is mentioned (pg. 694), which relates to MY heritage.
“‘Oh, you’re still thinking about our current earth! Our current earth, perhaps, has been repeated a billion times: it’s had its day, become extinct, it froze over, shook, broke apart, and fragmented into its component elements, then once again, the “waters above the firmament,” another comet, the sun, and then from it, the earth again—the whole event perhaps repeating, and always in the same form, in every detail. It’s unbearably boring. . . .’” pg. 745 [The “devil” speaking to Ivan; I didn’t know that over 150 years ago, this was already a theory about the earth and its civilizations and the cataclysms that occurred.]
“All of Mr. Rakitin’s previous words, all his nobility, his outbursts about serfdom, political disorder in Russia—all of this was conclusively canceled and destroyed in the eyes of the public.” pg. 793 [The use of the term “canceled” even here! Because it was revealed that he’s related (cousins) to Grushenka]
“‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ began the prosecutor, ‘the present case has reverberated throughout all Russia. What’s so astonishing about that? What’s so horrifying? For us, for us especially? After all, we’re very accustomed to such things! That’s just what’s so horrendous—that such grim affairs have almost stopped worrying us! That’s what should really horrify us: the fact that we’re used to such things, and not just an isolated crime of this or that individual. What are the reasons for our indifference, our almost lukewarm attitude to such events, to such signs of the times, prophesying an unenviable future? Is it because of our cynicism, or the premature exhaustion of the intellect and imagination of still such a youthful society, that we’ve become so decrepit before our time? Have our moral principles been shaken to the core, or is it the fact that perhaps we even lack moral principles altogether? I won’t resolve these questions, even though they’re tormenting; every citizen not only should, but must suffer through them.’” pg. 804-805 [The prosecutor, Ippolit’s opening remarks of his speech]
“‘Just now I asked what the word “father” meant, and I exclaimed that it’s a great word, a precious designation. But, gentlemen of the jury, we must treat that word honestly, and I will allow myself to call things by their right name, their proper designation: such a father as the murdered old man Karamazov cannot be and is unworthy of the name “father.” Love for one’s father that isn’t justified by the father is an absurdity, an impossibility. It’s impossible to create love out of nothing; only God can create out of nothing.’” pg. 859 [The defense counsel, Fetyukovich]
Fetyukovich tells another story about a servant girl in Finland who wasn’t a “mother” of her babies because she got pregnant and killed her babies upon their births and hid their bodies. This is a very patriarchal way of looking at this story and not considering WHY she did that. Maybe she was raped by her owner and needed to keep working and not able to pay for another mouth to feed. Maybe it wasn’t her fault that she got pregnant, but apparently, in some men’s eyes, if a woman is pregnant, it’s her own doing. (pg. 860)
“‘No, let’s prove, on the contrary, that progress during the last few years has affected our own development; and let’s state this outright: a father is not merely the one who begets the child; a father is someone who begets the child and proves himself worthy of it.’” pg. 860 [Fetyukovich]
Book: borrowed from NB Branch.
Also, these were a bunch of traumatized human beings, with mothers dying when children were young, with abandonment and multiple caregivers like foster parents. And some poverty. No wonder why people were so dramatic and had stilted ways of thinking - they were all highly traumatized. We see Dmitry being very self-centered where he believes that people who are just living their lives for themselves should be serving HIS needs and HIS will, like they are players in HIS game and should do what HE wants them to do.
There were some editing errors where people’s names were spelled incorrectly in one sentence and correctly in another sentence, on the same page. Other editing errors occurred as well. One was where it says that when Aleksey’s mother died, he was 4 years old (pg. 19), but just a few pages later in the book (pg. 24), it mentioned that he was 3 years old when she died. Strange that this discrepancy remains in an edited version of this book.
I’m now going to look up other reviews of this book and see what I missed or overlooked. I already saw that the part about “The Grand Inquisitor” was important and I literally started skimming over that because it was so long and repetitive. I definitely missed the point of that part.
“This characteristic was his strange, wildly intense bashfulness and chastity. He couldn’t bear hearing certain words and certain conversations about women. These ‘certain’ words and conversations, unfortunately, are unavoidable in our schools. Boys who are pure of heart and soul. still almost children, very often like to whisper in class among themselves, and even talk aloud, about such things—pictures and images about which even soldiers would sometimes hesitate to speak; indeed, things that soldiers don’t even know or understand, such things are familiar to the young children of our intellectual and higher classes in society. This may be a question of moral depravity, though as yet there’s no real, depraved inner cynicism involved, but there is the appearance of it, and this is often considered among them as something refined, subtle, daring, and worthy of imitation.” pg. 26 [about Alyosha’s character]
“‘. . . The main thing is, stop telling lies to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lies reaches a point where he cannot recognize any truth in himself or in anyone surrounding him, and so he loses all respect for himself and for others. Once he respects no one, he stops loving; to occupy and distract himself, he yields to passions and coarse inclinations and ultimately sinks to bestiality in all his vices, and all this comes from incessant lying to himself and to others. A man who lies to himself can be more readily offended than anyone else. It’s sometimes very pleasant to be offended, isn’t it? Someone may know that no one’s offered him, and that he himself has invented the insult, lied for effect, exaggerated to create an impression, has seized upon a single word and made a mountain out of a molehill; he knows this himself, yet he’s the first to feel offended, he feels offended to the point of pleasure, where he experiences immense satisfaction, and from there he succeeds at arriving at genuine vindictiveness. . . .’” pg. 54 [Zosima to Fyodor Pavlovich]
“‘He spoke just as frankly as you have, although in jest, but it was a kind of bitter humor. “I love all humanity,” he declared, “but I’m surprised at myself: the more I love humanity in general, the less I love people in particular—that is, separately, as single individuals. In my dreams,” he said, “I frequently imagine the most passionate and far-reaching plans for serving humanity, and I think I might even be wiling to be crucified for the sake of humanity, should that suddenly be demanded of me; at the same time, it’s impossible for me to live in the same room with another person for even two days; I know this from experience. If anyone gets close to me, his personality undermines my self-esteem and restricts my freedom. In the space of a single day, I begin to hate even the best of men—one because he takes so long to eat his dinner, another because he has a cold and blows his nose constantly. I become an enemy of people,” he tells me, “as soon as they draw close to me. On the other hand, it invariably happens that the more I detest individual people, the more fervent is my love for humanity in general.”’” pg. 69 [Zosima’s story about a doctor who felt this way about humanity]
“Also avoid fear, though fear is no more than the consequence of any lie. Never be afraid of your own faintheartedness in attaining love; don’t even be too afraid of your own bad actions. I am sorry that I don’t have anything more comforting to say to you, because active love compared with imaginary love is a cruel and fearsome thing. Imaginary love craves immediate action; it is quickly satisfied by this and wants everyone to be sure to witness it. To achieve this, people are really even willing to give up their own lives, so long as it’s done quickly and doesn’t take too long—as if onstage, where everyone would see them and applaud them. Active love, in comparison, demands work and endurance; for some people, it is nothing less than a way of life, a discipline. “pg. 70 [Zosima to Madame Kholakhova]
“‘Ivan, put that in your pipe and smoke it; make a note of it: there you have the Russian character!’” pg. 158 [Fyodor Pavlovich to Ivan Fyodorovich - “put that in your pipe and smoke it” - I didn’t know it was such an old phrase that even Russians use - I laughed when I read it]
“‘Brother, let me ask one more thing: does any man really have the right, regarding other people, to decide which of them is worthy to live and which one is not worthy?’
‘Why introduce the question of worth into this matter? This question is decided most of all in men’s hearts, not on the basis of worth, but for different reasons, much more natural ones. And as far as the right is concerned, who lacks the right to desire?’
‘Not the death of another man?’
‘Yes, perhaps even that. Why lie to oneself, when all men live like that? . . .’” pg. 171 [Alyosha to Ivan]
“‘To love life more than its meaning?’
‘Absolutely; to love it before logic, as you say, absolutely before logic, and only then will I understand its meaning. That’s what I’ve been dreaming about for some time. Half your task is done, Ivan, and you’ve succeeded: you love life. Now you must try to complete the second half and you’ll be saved.’” pg. 274 [Alyosha and Ivan]
“How many mysteries are revealed and solved: God elevates Job once again, gives him new riches, many years pass again he has new children, different ones, and he loves them—oh, Lord: ‘How could he come to love these new children when his previous children were no more, when he was deprived of them? Remembering them, was it really possible to be as completely happy as he was before, with his new children, however dear they are to him?’ But it is possible: the old grief of the great mystery of human life passes gradually into quiet, tender joy; instead of youthful, seething blood, there is now mild, serene old age; I bless the sunrise every day and my heart sings to it as it did in days gone by; but now I love the sunset even more, the long, slanting rays of the sun, and, with them, quiet, gentle, tender memories, dear images from my long and blessed life—and above it all is the truth of God, tenderly touching, reconciling, all-forgiving! My life is ending, I know that and I hear that, but I feel on every day left to me how my earthly life is coming into contact with a new, infinite, unknown, but imminent life, a premonition of which makes my soul tremble with ecstasy, my mind blaze, and my heart weep from joy. . .’” pg. 345-346 [said by Zosima before he dies]
“‘Just look at the worldly men and all those who regard themselves as above God’s people; haven’t God’s image and the truth been distorted in them? They have science, but in that science they have only what is subject to the senses. The spiritual world, the loftier half of human nature, is rejected altogether, cast out with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. The world has proclaimed freedom, especially during the last few years, and what do we see in this freedom of theirs? Only servitude and suicide! Because the world says: ‘You have needs, so satisfy them, because you have the same rights as the exalted and wealthiest people. Don’t be afraid to satisfy them, even multiply them.’ That is the teaching of today’s world. That is where they see their freedom. And what is the result of this right to multiply one’s needs? The wealthy people feel isolation and spiritual suicide; and the poor experience envy and murder, because while they have been given rights, they have yet to be shown the means to satisfy their needs. They maintain that the world is getting more and more unified, that it’s united into brotherly community by shortening the distance, and that it transmits its thoughts through the air. Alas, don’t believe in such a union of people. By understanding freedom as the multiplication and the rapid satisfaction of needs, men distort their own nature, because it produces many senseless and foolish desires, habits, and absurd notions. They live merely to envy each other, for gluttony and conceit. To hold dinners, take excursions, buy carriages, to achieve high ranks and keep slaves as servants—all are considered such necessities, for which they’re willing to sacrifice even their lives, their honor, and their humanity to quench this need; they will even resort to killing themselves, if they can’t satisfy it.” pg. 368-369 [Zosima monologue]
“It’s not surprising that instead of freedom, they’ve fallen into slavery, and instead of serving brotherly love and the union of humanity, on the contrary, they have fallen into separation and isolation, as my mysterious visitor and teacher told me in my youth. Therefore the idea of serving humanity, of brotherhood, and the harmony of mankind continues to die out more and more, and is even met with mockery. How is it possible for man to desist from these habits, where can this slave go, if he is so accustomed to quenching his innumerable needs, which he himself has conceived? He’s isolated; what does he care about the rest of humanity? And such men have succeeded in acquiring more material things, but the amount of joy is less.” pg. 369 [Zosima monologue]
“The main thing that was so intolerably offensive was that he, Mitya, was standing over him with his urgent business, having sacrificed so much, given up so much, completely exhausted, while this scrounger, ‘on whom my whole fate depends, snores as if nothing’s wrong, as if he came from another planet.’ ‘Oh, the irony of fate!’ Mitya cried and suddenly, as if he’d lost his head completely, threw himself on the drunken peasant to try to rouse him. He tried with such ferocity, pulled him, pushed him, even beat him, but after five minutes of futile attempts, he return to his bench and sat down in helpless despair.” pg. 441 [It’s so self-centered and narcissistic to think this way, that others are there living their lives the way they want to, but should be serving you and your purposes instead.]
“‘Forgive me, Grusha, for my love, and for ruining you, too, with my love.’” pg. 592 [Dmitry to Grusha after he’s arrested]
The character Kolya was so interesting - such a young kid (13 years old) able to philosophize the way he did. His interactions with Alyosha were endearing and mature. Was that realistic for a kid that age during those timesthen to have such mannerisms or was Dostoevsky projecting?
“‘Have you fallen in love with disorder?’
‘Yes, I want disorder. I keep wanting to set the house on fire. I imagine that I’ll come and set the house on fire secretly, definitely secretly. They’ll try to put it out, but it’ll burn. And I’ll know, but I’ll keep silent. Ah, what foolishness! And how boring!’
She waved her arm contemptuously.
‘You live too comfortably,’ Alyosha said softly.
‘Is it better to be poor?’
‘It is.’
‘Your late monk told you that. It’s not true. Let me be rich, and everyone else poor; I’ll eat candy, drink cream, and I won’t share it with anyone. Ah, don’t say anything, nothing,’ she said, waving her arm again, although Alyosha hadn’t even opened his mouth to speak.” pg. 675 [Lise/Liza and Alyosha]
This story took place in November (pg. 681) and I’m reading it in late October, so it was a nice alignment of time. Also, the book mentions Swedes and I started reading this book because of a guy who has Swedish heritage. Later, a Chinese lantern is mentioned (pg. 694), which relates to MY heritage.
“‘Oh, you’re still thinking about our current earth! Our current earth, perhaps, has been repeated a billion times: it’s had its day, become extinct, it froze over, shook, broke apart, and fragmented into its component elements, then once again, the “waters above the firmament,” another comet, the sun, and then from it, the earth again—the whole event perhaps repeating, and always in the same form, in every detail. It’s unbearably boring. . . .’” pg. 745 [The “devil” speaking to Ivan; I didn’t know that over 150 years ago, this was already a theory about the earth and its civilizations and the cataclysms that occurred.]
“All of Mr. Rakitin’s previous words, all his nobility, his outbursts about serfdom, political disorder in Russia—all of this was conclusively canceled and destroyed in the eyes of the public.” pg. 793 [The use of the term “canceled” even here! Because it was revealed that he’s related (cousins) to Grushenka]
“‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ began the prosecutor, ‘the present case has reverberated throughout all Russia. What’s so astonishing about that? What’s so horrifying? For us, for us especially? After all, we’re very accustomed to such things! That’s just what’s so horrendous—that such grim affairs have almost stopped worrying us! That’s what should really horrify us: the fact that we’re used to such things, and not just an isolated crime of this or that individual. What are the reasons for our indifference, our almost lukewarm attitude to such events, to such signs of the times, prophesying an unenviable future? Is it because of our cynicism, or the premature exhaustion of the intellect and imagination of still such a youthful society, that we’ve become so decrepit before our time? Have our moral principles been shaken to the core, or is it the fact that perhaps we even lack moral principles altogether? I won’t resolve these questions, even though they’re tormenting; every citizen not only should, but must suffer through them.’” pg. 804-805 [The prosecutor, Ippolit’s opening remarks of his speech]
“‘Just now I asked what the word “father” meant, and I exclaimed that it’s a great word, a precious designation. But, gentlemen of the jury, we must treat that word honestly, and I will allow myself to call things by their right name, their proper designation: such a father as the murdered old man Karamazov cannot be and is unworthy of the name “father.” Love for one’s father that isn’t justified by the father is an absurdity, an impossibility. It’s impossible to create love out of nothing; only God can create out of nothing.’” pg. 859 [The defense counsel, Fetyukovich]
Fetyukovich tells another story about a servant girl in Finland who wasn’t a “mother” of her babies because she got pregnant and killed her babies upon their births and hid their bodies. This is a very patriarchal way of looking at this story and not considering WHY she did that. Maybe she was raped by her owner and needed to keep working and not able to pay for another mouth to feed. Maybe it wasn’t her fault that she got pregnant, but apparently, in some men’s eyes, if a woman is pregnant, it’s her own doing. (pg. 860)
“‘No, let’s prove, on the contrary, that progress during the last few years has affected our own development; and let’s state this outright: a father is not merely the one who begets the child; a father is someone who begets the child and proves himself worthy of it.’” pg. 860 [Fetyukovich]
Book: borrowed from NB Branch.
