A review by kn0tp0rk
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.5

🔸I'm amused by Dostoevsky's author's note telling readers that they can stop reading if they don't like it. It's not self-pitying, but an understanding "yeah, i feel u." 
🔸There are some sus comments about Jewish people in regards to money and media creation. 🙄 Also some slurs against Romani people. Lise repeats an anti-semitic tale about a Jewish person crucifying a toddler. 
🔸Disabled people are called idiots 🙄 I fail to see how epilepsy makes a person stupid. 
🔸The Liberals are atheists. Dimitri and Ivan are atheists (initially?????). Alyosha is Christian. Their father? Religion: tomfoolery. 
🔸Socialism is inherently atheistic, meant "to set up Heaven on earth." / I can't say I agree with that? This statement makes it seem like equity/equality is a fantasy unachievable by human effort. It makes it seem as though theists have no place within Socialism, which I would certainly fight against as an atheist. I don't see what Socialism by itself has to do with the god question. I understand historically that oppression has happened. Certainly, Socialism can be bundled with other beliefs, but by itself the statement presented doesn't hold for me. 
🔸Fyodor Pavlovich goes buckwild Diderot style in front of Father Zossima. Pyotr Alexandrovitch is pissed. Alyosha has a silent panic attack because everyone is kinda embarrassing. 
🔸Father Zossima emotionally manipulates some distraught peasant women. He calms them, though I find his theistic doctrine illogical and unintentionally cruel. A discussion is made about "possessed" people that I feel is worth having. Zossima calms down one such woman, though it's noted that she'll have a fit again. Why wouldn't God immediately heal these people? How and why would the next woman's baby be an angel--using facts, how would you convince another Christian sect that this is what happens? Why would he feel sorrow in Heaven, a perfect place? Why should the other woman repent for wishing her abusive husband dead? Why should she forgive him? 
🔸A lady™ asks Father Zossima how she can know there's life after death and he tells her that if she follows love, God will reveal all. This is how you get theists throwing around the word "love" until it loses all meaning, saying it even when you can see their disgust of you in their eyes--hear it in their voices. 
🔸Ivan argues for basically a theocracy and Father Zossima and Father Païssy agree that this would be great because only God makes people feel regret for crimes. Poytr says he met a Frenchman who said, "The socialist who is a Christian is more to be dreaded than a socialist who is an atheist." Zossima tells Pyotr that no torture or cruelty would happen to criminals under this structure because the Church is all about love and redemption, man. / Press X to doubt. 
🔸Dostoevsky has either read the Marquis de Sade, or is, at least, familiar with that author's colorful material. Ivan believes that if there's no immortal soul then any cruel action must be permitted. / This is the "no objective absolute standard" argument I've heard ten thousand times that makes no sense. What does immortality have to do with understanding that suffering hurts and is detrimental to human survival (given that we want to survive)? Why must we believe what God says is right or wrong? Because he's strong?? That's a dictatorship and also opens up more plot holes. The Marquis de Sade believed it was the atheist's duty to behave as ill as possible. Dmitri asks for clarification and simply responds, "I'll remember it." 😭
🔸Fyodor Pavlovich calls the monks out for BS, saying that they're preying upon the vulnerable peasant people and not struggling as much as they pretend. / Honestly, yeah. 
🔸Fyodor Pavlovich may or may not have sexually assaulted a disabled woman who dies in his garden while giving birth. He takes the child, Smerdyakov, in as a servant. 😬
🔸Dmitri confesses to Alyosha that he's a bit of a vice-lover. Alyosha blushes and says, "Bro...me too." 🤯
🔸Uh, Smerdyakov likes to torture cats to death and criticizes the Bible's scientific accuracy. He hates people and has epilepsy. 🥴 Fyodor Pavlovich is fond of him. 
🔸Smerdyakov makes an argument against a story Grigory has told. He says there's no great sin in renouncing Christianity to heathen tormentors because God knows it before you declare it and you won't be tried as a Christian. He says further that if your faith was really there, you should be able to move mountains to crush your assailants, but because the mountains won't move, surely God won't punish you so severely, and surely you'll start to really doubt your beliefs. Grigory is exasperated. / I think many Christians today would take the Bible verse in question (Matt 17:20) as figurative, but let's not assume there aren't extremists. Smerdyakov has a point with this argument. Grigory represents a type of aggressive extremist, unable to handle criticism. I can't say Smerdyakov is supposed to be looked upon favorably here, though, given his other...traits.
🔸Despite Ivan's article about theocracy, he says that God and immortality aren't real. So he believes the Church should be the state if these were true, but because they are false, he doesn't believe so. 
🔸Alyosha and Ivan shortly discuss thought crime. Ivan doesn't see what it matters if you wish death upon someone. / Personally, I wouldn't let those thoughts consume you, but yeah, I also don't see an issue with wishing someone dead. Telling someone to kill themselves is another matter that I do take issue with. But keeping it in your head as a short passing thought isn't outright bad. I think it's worth examining why you want that person to die. If it's a petty reason (they get more attention than me) vs something significant (they're my abuser). I think dwelling on this may be a sign that a person needs therapy/help. 
🔸Bruh, Katerina Ivanovna tries to defend Grushenka, but the latter says, "You thought I wasn't that bitch, but I am that bitch. 💅" 
🔸Uh, Father Ferapont might be on hallucinogenic mushrooms. 😭 He's fasting, battling demons, meditating. Inquires a visiting monk about MUSHROOM CONSUMPTION. 
🔸Ivan explains to Alyosha that he believes in God's existence, but disagrees with how he's made the world. He says man can only conceptualize in three dimensions, so why attempt to disprove God? / I would say if we can only think in three dimensions, why claim to know all these attributes of God? Why not be agnostic? Of course, I'm an atheist myself and accept the burden of proof. I don't think one has to know all there is to say there is no god as conceptualized by humanity's many existent and deceased religions. 
🔸Ivan says he takes particular issue with children's suffering "to enrich the soil for the harmony of the future" and lists several real-world examples of war crimes and violence against infants and children. He says he cares slightly less about adult suffering because "they've already bitten the 'apple' of knowledge of good and evil." He says if he believes in God, he must disagree with the state he's created. Alyosha doesn't have much defense against this argument. / This is the "question of evil." Personally, I don't find suffering congruent with an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good being (necessarily all three of those traits) despite what arguments believers have tossed at me. 
🔸Ivan tells Alyosha about a poem he'd been thinking up. It's about a 90-year-old Inquisitor taking a figure meant to be Jesus captive and accusing him. The Inquisitor represents a twisted sentiment trying to bring order to people while concealing the absence of a God he initially gave everything for. Ivan suggests many people are like his fictional Inquisitor, but Alyosha is once again dumbfounded. 
🔸Father Zossima had an older brother. He liked philosophy and was a vulgar atheist, but he fell ill with consumption. In his dying days, he was convinced to convert to Christianity. His irritable nature faded, and he suddenly had a profound appreciation for God. / This story is the familiar horror tale. Don't be an atheist because God will strike you. As someone with multiple illnesses, I don't appreciate it. YHWH doesn't exist just because atheists get sick and die. Christians get sick and die, too. 
🔸Father Zossima expresses his love of the Bible. He especially appreciates Job. He counters some common arguments against the story. "The greatness of it lies just in the fact that it is a mystery" and "old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy." / I think these counters are weak when looking at the implications of Job more closely. They don't dissipate the immorality of the story. 
🔸Heaven is in all of us, waiting to be unlocked once we abandon individuality and private property and begin serving and loving each other. Mankind must undergo a psychological transformation. This wisdom comes from an unconvicted murderer who can't decide whether to confess his crime 14 years later. / WELL, I don't think heaven has anything to do with it, but we've seen prosperous indigenous societies with this structure. Problem is, there are so many of us now. I agree that some kind of transformation has to take place in us, but I don't know what that looks like. Do we need to be conquered and ruled by an outside higher intelligence? Does a disaster have to wipe out the majority of us? Do homo sapiens have to evolve into another species? I dunno, this better society is probably just not going to happen during my lifespan, unfortunately. Each and every one of us are capable of kindness as well as cruelty, though some of us are more heinous than others, and this is possibly what holds us back. 
🔸Science is trying to destroy God. / There are Christian scientists, so this makes no sense. A paranoid argument made by people who see their totalitarian authority fading. 
🔸Serve your servants. / I don't think anyone needs a "servant" unless they're disabled, in which case, how much they can give back to the "servant" will depend on their disabilities. Be kind, at least. 
🔸Russian peasants are quick to sin but know God in their hearts. / Sounds like a way to keep Russian commoners under religious tyranny. 
🔸"The people will meet the atheist and overcome him." / We're not barbarous crazy people by definition, please calm down.
🔸We all share sin and should be humble. / Sin isn't real. I'm not responsible for the actions of others unless I coerced them (especially while they were vulnerable). Humility is a decent virtue. 
🔸Treat animals right. Treat children right. 👍
🔸I internally cackled when Dmitri went to Madame Hohlakov for money. 
🔸Dmitri and Grushenka's wild ravings remind me of when my sister stopped taking her bipolar medication and had a manic-depression fit. These people are not healthy. 
🔸Dmitri getting himself into more and more of a pickle as he talks to the popo is the prime example of why you always ask for a lawyer and remain silent whether guilty or innocent LMFAO 
🔸Kolya Krassotkin is a nasty boy who talks like an adult 🙄 He thinks the medical field is fraudulent and he believes himself a Socialist. He mocks peasants to their faces but assents if they say something he thinks is clever. He calls his servant "FEMALE." He's not all bad though as he shows he has some heart for the sick boy Ilusha.
🔸For any of this book's faults, Dostoevsky is great at writing troubled, mentally ill characters. 
🔸Really tired of all the atheist or undecided characters having the most repugnant traits until they start repenting. Okay, I get it, Alyosha is the holy God-fearing beacon of hope and everyone else fails to compare. Atheism bad hurr durr
🔸So Smerdyakov can't just say anything plainly and always talks in clicks and whistles, and thought Ivan was telling him to kill Fyodor Pavlovich and use Dmitri as a scapegoat. Ivan is like, "What in the sweet fuck????" and Smerdyakov is like, "Oh, damn, I thought you were subliminally telling me something cuz of the theocracy article and the no god no virtue stuff lol my bad." / This seems like it's meant to show how atheist philosophers come up with evil ideas and even baser atheists will act on their bad ideas. 🥴 So after all we need God to dictate morality and the Church to keep us to that standard!!1
🔸While Ivan is having a dysphoric dream, his devil apparition again repeats some anti-science, anti-medical field, pro-homeopathy nonsense. / Yes, the medical field is overwhelming, no your special tea didn't just cure you of disease lmfao
🔸Ivan's sickly raving to Alyosha is an example of why religious extremists aren't equipped to get the mentally ill the help they need. Obviously during this time, help was scarce, but still, Ivan's rant shouldn't be attributed to supernatural forces. His ideas of religion and morality are tormenting him. 
🔸Dmitri says that men can't just apologize to women because it shows a weakness that women will pounce on. 🥴 No. Stop that. None of this is healthy. Learn how to behave, for fuck's sake. You have the power to reason with each other so fucking do so. If anyone is pouncing on you for apologizing, you may need to reflect on the situation you're apologizing about (Celebrity YouTuber apologies come to mind lol), or reflect on that person's position in your life. 
🔸Dmitri's lawyer tells the jury to appeal to their Christianity in judging the facts because Christianity is necessarily humane, rational, and philanthropic. I disagree. Christianity is interpreted in any manner by Christians, you won't necessarily get the same answers about a subject if you ask two different sects of Christians. It's not based on rationality, but emotion and superstition. Some Christians are humane and philanthropic, others are violent and greedy, some are a mix. 
🔸As if reading my mind, the prosecutor accuses Dmitri's lawyer of heresy LOL
🔸So I guess the moral of the story is that even the most troubled people can't help but admit that God might exist. Russia knows God, dammit!!! / The troubled characters were vulnerable and fed the religion present in their society so that they couldn't help circling back to Christianity in their distress. I don't see a god proven or even maybe proven. I don't see YHWH proven.