Reviews

Fraţii Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Albert Kovacs, Isabella Dumbravă, Ovidiu Constantinescu

corvuscorax's review against another edition

5.0

E greu să descrii o carte care te-a făcut să regândești atât de multe lucruri. Îmi vin în minte mai degrabă punctele slabe, cum am putut prezice cu ușurință finalul (dar nu asta era însăși dorința lui Dostoievski?), cum unele acțiuni au părut aproape mecanice, deconectate de personajele care le înfăptuiau - vezi cum Alioșa se plimba dintr-o parte în alta, de la un frate la altul, fără să pară că el însuși și-ar dori să o facă - dar bineînțeles că astea nu sunt decât aspecte pe care ochiul meu critic vrea să le caute în orice lectură ca să o poată evalua „corect”. O carte pe care o simți cu toată inima ta depășește astfel de categorii.

Câteva bucăți m-au marcat în mod special - discuția doamnei Hohlakova cu starețul Zosima despre iubirea activă și iubirea contemplativă, Marele Inchizitor, discuția lui Dmitri cu Alioșa, în care afirmă că pentru unii oameni frumosul e însăși Sodoma și îl citează pe Schiller care spune că „Îngerii de cer au parte/Viermele de desfătări”, pledoaria lui Fetiukovici. Cel mai mult m-a marcat prima dintre ele, poate că pentru că e o distincție despre care aveam nevoie să îmi amintesc, pe care să o țin aproape de mine.

vigilo's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

christianholub's review against another edition

3.0

Reviewing this book is a bit of a paradox. It changed my life, but it's not one of my favorite books. It's fun to discuss the questions this book raises, but it's not fun to read it. For being a 'realist' novel, characters spend most of their time standing up suddenly and declaring their spiritual conversion. There's a lot of good philosophy in here (atheists, Christians, and Agnostics will all find some convincing evidence for their side of the argument) but I feel there's too much showing and not enough of the 'telling' I expect from great novels. I also don't have a favorite character, probably because it's hard to differentiate between them; they each speak the same way, and react to things in pretty much the same way. It's not a good book. But it is good for the soul.

mi__ela's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I think that if the devil didn’t exist and if man has created him, then he has created him in his own image and likeness.

Took me forever but we've made it chat!!

The Karamazov Brothers is one of Dostoevsky's most known novels. In this book, he passionately talks about his beliefs and ideas, such as, the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the freedom of man, the collective nature of guilt, etc.
I found interesting Ivan's idea about how disastrous it would be if the world operated without God, only based on rational principles (to which he say that 'everything is permissible'). Obviously, nowadays such topic is hardly one that is outrageous, but for that time, it must have been quite the discussion.

I also loved how The Karamazov Brothers ranges over a wide spectrum of human concerns, like family ties, the upbringing of children, the relationship between Church and State, and above all everyone's responsibility to others.

Alyosha (the third son) is described as the main hero of the story, but as I kept reading, it didn't really feel like it, until I learned that Dostoevsky planned a sequel with him as the main character, but he died 3 months after completing this novel. WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL 😭 

Dmitry and Ivan might be everyone's favorites, but you, Alyosha, shall be mine ☺️

I wanted initially to give this novel a 4.5, maybe a 5 star, because I was willing to overlook the yapping he sometimes went on. However, I took a whole star off because of those last few chapters in the last book, with the closing statements of the prosecutor and the defense lawyer. That shit was a pain to get through, I skimmed through all of those chapters, truthfully speaking. 

aplb's review against another edition

dark inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes

5.0

andoriachan's review against another edition

To religious 

annacrowley's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

ele_ares's review against another edition

inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

jordi's review against another edition

2.0

This novel is full of:

- Repetition. For some reason everyone in that village thinks that others are deaf. And they should repeat any important sentences twice. It would be cool if only one character did it, but it seems it does not matter how well or bad educated you are. Repeating sentences is cool.

- Sick people. Main reason of sickness is being worried. No less than three characters would get fever and bed rest for weeks after worrying too much. There are also other source of sickness to the point of wondering if the water around there is drinkable at all.

- Unrealistic dialogues. Monologue is the main way of conversing, it seems. Always about God, ethics or any other abstract topic, of course.

- More repetition. I hope not to reveal much saying there will be a trial in the novel. Witnesses will repeat everything which had happened in the novel till that point. Then the public prosecutor will summarize it again and then the defense lawyer will repeat it for the fourth time. Each with a slight different angle and explaining about the Russian soul. This part is so dry that even people giving 5 stars to the novel complains about it.

- Exaggeration. This is the pattern used by half of the characters around 40 or 50 times in the novel:
I will unless . Serious guys, you are way too dramatic.

- Lack of speech. Often, way too often something happens and some character is speechless. Which is cool because some other will start its 10pages monologue so someone has to give room.

- Lack of resolution. Sure Dostoyevsky wanted to make a second and third part of this, but could have rounded up this one a little bit more. Like, what happened with Liza, she disappears 300pages before the end and there is no hint of what's going on with that.



I could continue. I've seen the rest of the reviews. Lots of 5 stars. I've read them, I can't buy the arguments.
For instance: "It has friendship, family, doubt, self-sacrifice. Everything what's being human"
Sure, but so does other many many books. Damn, Hyperion, a sci-fy book, read it, the consul story only got all that. And that's one of 7 pilgrims.

Other argument "Very realistic" . Come on, the conversations there were ridiculous as well as most of the characters. They are extreme characters to represent ideas "the passion" "the rationale" "the faith" etc. It was everything but realistic.

I've also seen reviews of people saying things like "slow, boring, took me forever" and give it 5 stars...


If anything I can buy it made you think. Nice. I like that, extra star for it.

But Dostoyevsky totally blew up this one. He needed more sun there and going out for a walk instead of so many hours writing, would he have finish this book at a 200 pages mark, it would have been good. Delete monologues and repetitions, that's 400pages off at least.

hannahgruber's review against another edition

slow-paced

2.5

this one really just wasn’t for me, glad i gave it a chance but also glad to be done, russian lit ain’t for me. especially the philosophy parts like i really dgaf 

i’m ivan fr fr though, like over intellectualizing everything and getting so into the weeds of theory you just forget to be happy