You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by gemvan
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
5.0
For only fifteen dollars you can get a book this captivating. Talk about value for money.
The central plot of The Brothers Karamazov is only sometimes relevant to the book. In searching for broader themes and connected messages many readers will come up short. This is because Dostoevsky uses his characters to establish a moral backdrop from which to talk about all sorts of themes.
Yes, this is a book about religion, the legal system, love, and human nature. But it attempts to personify all of these and treat all of its subjects on an equal playing field.
The many invalids, married 'wailers' and inscrutable muzhiks of Russia are treated with reverence, as a powerful and mysterious collective in their own right. On the other end of the spectrum you have the devil, who is just another Dostoevsky character here, spouting off about metaphysics as if he was a regular drunk. And there are regular drunks here, there are seductresses, Poles that cheat at cards, children who violently attack one another, priests and legal experts who endlessly war with one another, and all the rest.
What makes this such a great read is that Dostoevsky plunges headlong into the lives of every last one of them. He isn't bound by literary convention (insofar as it existed in his time) and doesn't mind spending time on some obscure side-road. What emerges for the patient reader is a very thorough and even loving tableau of mankind, even if so much of mankind consists of deceivers and murderers.
The central conflict, which I finally return to Dostoevsky-style after a long tangent, is also wonderfully set up. By the end every possible scenario of Fyodor Pavlovich's death is outlined, and by the end you have no idea who to believe. I found myself almost willing to side with the jury of muzhiks (and four civil servants), whatever they judged, such was my confusion. Although I think I believe what Smerdyakov (possibly my favorite character here) told Ivan about his involvement at face value, the book shows us that it doesn't matter what the facts are.
In the central triad of the brothers I believe Dostoevsky split himself into three parts, and indeed they might have even served as inspiration for the Freudian trio, since old Sigmund was himself a fan of the novel. If that's true, in the end we can judge that he believed his base passions (Mitya) were subdued by society, his intellect (Ivan) was paralyzed by its own rumination, and that only his better angels (Alyosha, named for his own son) would pass through life unharmed. In its ambition to show a broad range of human passion and pain, The Brothers Karamazov seems almost like an attempt to create a sequel (or at least a companion piece) to the Bible itself, and to be fair the two works do share a few characters.
Dostoevsky isn't some kind of nihilist. I think this book ultimately does have an optimistic view of humanity - all of humanity. Whoever is saved is only saved by positivity and love, and whoever isn't saved might still make it in the end.
The central plot of The Brothers Karamazov is only sometimes relevant to the book. In searching for broader themes and connected messages many readers will come up short. This is because Dostoevsky uses his characters to establish a moral backdrop from which to talk about all sorts of themes.
Yes, this is a book about religion, the legal system, love, and human nature. But it attempts to personify all of these and treat all of its subjects on an equal playing field.
The many invalids, married 'wailers' and inscrutable muzhiks of Russia are treated with reverence, as a powerful and mysterious collective in their own right. On the other end of the spectrum you have the devil, who is just another Dostoevsky character here, spouting off about metaphysics as if he was a regular drunk. And there are regular drunks here, there are seductresses, Poles that cheat at cards, children who violently attack one another, priests and legal experts who endlessly war with one another, and all the rest.
What makes this such a great read is that Dostoevsky plunges headlong into the lives of every last one of them. He isn't bound by literary convention (insofar as it existed in his time) and doesn't mind spending time on some obscure side-road. What emerges for the patient reader is a very thorough and even loving tableau of mankind, even if so much of mankind consists of deceivers and murderers.
The central conflict, which I finally return to Dostoevsky-style after a long tangent, is also wonderfully set up. By the end every possible scenario of Fyodor Pavlovich's death is outlined, and by the end you have no idea who to believe. I found myself almost willing to side with the jury of muzhiks (and four civil servants), whatever they judged, such was my confusion. Although I think I believe what Smerdyakov (possibly my favorite character here) told Ivan about his involvement at face value, the book shows us that it doesn't matter what the facts are.
In the central triad of the brothers I believe Dostoevsky split himself into three parts, and indeed they might have even served as inspiration for the Freudian trio, since old Sigmund was himself a fan of the novel. If that's true, in the end we can judge that he believed his base passions (Mitya) were subdued by society, his intellect (Ivan) was paralyzed by its own rumination, and that only his better angels (Alyosha, named for his own son) would pass through life unharmed. In its ambition to show a broad range of human passion and pain, The Brothers Karamazov seems almost like an attempt to create a sequel (or at least a companion piece) to the Bible itself, and to be fair the two works do share a few characters.
Dostoevsky isn't some kind of nihilist. I think this book ultimately does have an optimistic view of humanity - all of humanity. Whoever is saved is only saved by positivity and love, and whoever isn't saved might still make it in the end.