The Brothers Karamazov (Fingerprint Classics!)

This was my choice for the Russian Classic category of the 2017 Back to the Classics Challenge. I was most intimidated by this category, since I assumed Russian classics are probably mostly thick-as-brick epics filled with tragic events in ice and snow, with political uprisings, tsars and serfs in the background. This book sounded interesting because the blurb said it could well be one of the greatest novels of all time, and that's a very bold claim. I was sceptical about that, but then I started, and WOW! Now I'll have to call it one of my all time favourites. As well as being quite an intense family saga, it's all about faith versus doubt, and reason versus passion. It is pretty thick, but I wanted to keep reading every chance I could.It all takes place in a little village called 'Skotprigonyevsk.' Luckily for us, most of the time it's simply referred to as 'our little town.'Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov is a lecherous, unpleasant old man who has three sons in their twenties from two different wives, both of whom he treated horribly. On the surface, each of the boys could be said to represent one of the three aspects of man. There's physical Dmitri, who can't master his earthly passions; intellectual Ivan, whose brain keeps torturing him; and spiritual Alexey, who feels called to enter a monastery as a novice, aged twenty. If you think this makes them sound like cardboard, one-sided characters, no way! They are all deep and complex enough to make us love them.Oh, and there's also Smerdyakov, Fyodor's young servant. Although it's never been openly acknowledged, everyone is 99.9% certain that he is actually his illegitimate son, since Fyodor was rumoured to have raped 'Stinking Lizaveta' the mute village vagrant who gave birth in his garden. Although Smerdyakov knows better than to ever acknowledge his half brothers as such, there's a major chip on his shoulder as he hangs creepily in the background. Dmitri calls him, 'the epitome of all the cowards in the world on two legs, with no character to speak of.'One night, old Fyodor gets what many believe was probably coming to him. Someone smashes the back of his skull and kills him, and it was most likely one of his sons, who have a swarm of motives between them.It's easy for everyone to pin the blame on Dmitri, whose name is shortened quite often to Mitya. An impulsive guy who'll wear his heart on his sleeve, he always speaks (or punches) before he thinks. He made no secret that he wanted to kill the old man, who has not only withheld Dmitri's inheritance from his mother, but is also trying to use it to seduce Grushenka, the girl Dmitri loves. But undercurrents are bubbling away elsewhere too, so is it really that clear cut?The brilliant Ivan, the middle brother, is a scholar with a major existential crisis. He can't dismiss the idea that man invented God to suit himself, rather than vice versa. I came to really appreciate the raw and honest young atheist whose huge intellect and photographic memory become burdens rather than gifts. His flippant approach conceals his desperation, giving me the impression that he's so open with his youngest brother because he'd love to be convinced out of cynicism into faith. And Ivan's madly in love with Katerina, the fiance Dmitri dumped so he could pursue Grushenka. So their eldest brother is not Ivan's favourite person.The youngest is also known as Alyosha, which seems to be a derivative of Alexey. He's the mortar that pulls the whole story together. He loves unconditionally, never finds fault, and often becomes our lens. I doubt I would have loved Dmitri and Ivan so much if I didn't see them through Alyosha's eyes. Perhaps most importantly, he makes me think of Jesus' commission for his friends to be his hands and feet. Ivan spends so much time griping about the lack of proof of God's existence, but I think his smartness just caused him to search in the wrong places. He need look no further than his kid brother to see concrete proof that the spirit of God exists, through the lives of his followers. Even the omniscient narrator refers to Alyosha at one point as, 'the young hero I love so much.'So there's the scenario. Even though we get to love each of the brothers heaps, at the same time, we can't help wondering which of them may be tied up with the murder, and how. Or was it a combination crime? And the solution is all tied with blackmail, psychological twists that do your head in, and arguably justice. Before I get too carried away, I'll give some quotes from the story. Needless to say, a book this thick is full of them, but the following are a few of my favourites.4937Father Zossima, the old man who was Alexey's mentor and hero, has some good things to say for a start. He also predicts that his young follower will, 'bless life, and make others bless it.'1) Men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, "I am doing the will of God."2) Precious memories may remain even of a bad home, if only the heart knows how to find what is precious.3) If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.4) Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.Ivan Karamozov's thoughts are possibly poles apart from Father Zossima's, but maybe equally worthy of thought.1) I don't understand how anyone can love one's neighbour. For anyone to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone. One can love one's neighbour in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters, it's almost impossible. (Yeah, he's a cynical dude.)2) People sometimes speak of bestial cruelty, but that's a great insult and injustice to beasts. A beast can never be so artistically cruel as a man.(At one point, Ivan has a conversation with the devil, who's sitting on his couch during a time when he's sick. The doctors warned Ivan that he may be subject to hallucinations, but he wouldn't listen. It's a very interesting chapter, with some fascinating dialogue.)Ivan (trying to disprove the hallucination): You're just an incarnation of myself, but only one side of my thoughts and feelings. Only the nastiest and stupidest of them.Satan: If I'm like you in my way of thinking, it's all to my credit.Satan: From the vehemence with which you deny my existence, I'm convinced that you believe in me.Ivan: Not in the slightest. I haven't a hundredth part of a grain of faith in you.Satan: But you have the thousandth of a grain. Homeopathic doses perhaps are strongest.But one of the book's best quotes was by Dmitri. He's a guy who normally drops lines such as, 'On the way here it seemed alright, and now it's nothing but nonsense.' The narrator says that at one point, 'an absurd, chaotic confusion followed, but Mitya was in his natural element and the more foolish it became, the more his spirits rose.' So this heartfelt quote by him is a great place to wrap up this review.Dmitri: It's God that's worrying me. What if he doesn't exist? Then man is the chief of all the earth, the universe. Magnificent. Only how is he going to be good without God? I always come back to that. For whom is man going to love then? To whom will he be thankful? To whom will he sing the hymn?Sometimes I wondered just what the women in Fyodor Dostoevsky's life must have been like, because I doubt there's one female character who didn't have a hysterical fit at some point in the story. They grew on me though, just like the guys. I really liked Grushenka by the end, and Katerina made me grin when she called Alyosha a 'religious little idiot' just because he hit a bit too close to home at one time. Feisty ladies indeed.Altogether, this has to be one of the books of the year for me. And since there's probably no way I'd ever have read it if I hadn't been doing this reading challenge, you can consider this blog post a great shout out for reading challenges too.

The Kindle edition I've just read is pretty badly formatted, with frequent missing or misplaced quotation marks, some typos, and a lot of bad paragraphing. Dostoyevsky transcends it all, of course.What can anyone say that's new about it? Even for a 19th century novel, it's a curious book: full of long speeches and dialogues, and full of hysterical women: Grushenka is perhaps the least hysterical, but she has her moments; her rival Katya swings wildly back and forth between sanity and rage; Madame Hohlakov never stops talking, never listens to anyone else; and her daughter Lise, supposedly disabled, is quite frenetically strange in her passions: when we last hear of her it’s as if she’s heading downhill into some evil.There are times when I felt I missed some vital point, or when what one character says appears to contradict what another says. In fact it’s full of contradictions between people, so that the truth is hard to gauge. But this is part of Dostoyevsky's cunningly-crafted mystery. Nothing's quite as you expect.There are some violent scenes, particularly as the book progresses ˗ more in terms of character than physical violence ˗ and there’s an underlying sense of horror when Mitya goes racing about trying to borrow money. The last hundred pages or more, leading up to the murder, and during the trial, are terrific. And all the history of the elder, Zossima, while it seems unrelated to the book as a whole, is fascinating stuff. I'm certainly glad I persevered with it this time round (I last tried to read it about forty years ago.)

I read this book in my early 20s at the insistence of a friend (who I later married) and was quite impressed. By age 60, my son was raving about the book, so a second person begged me to read it (again). I couldn’t remember anything about the book except that I was impressed (and one snippet from a speech by the atheist character Ivan). I am an atheist. So I read the book, which is part murder mystery, and everything was a surprise to me. The book gets off to a slow start but gets rolling about 10% of the way through. The characters are compelling, the plot twists surprising, and most of the book consists of different pairs of main characters having long deep discussions with each other. It actually reminds me most of the movie Tar or masterpieces by Kim Stanley Robinson, which also feature long deep conversations between characters, and not one viewpoint directly imposed. If there is one main philosophical point being made, I can not tell you for sure what it was because the arguments between characters are so strong on both sides, and the plot so nuanced. But you are left with many strong conflicting arguments and impressions to ponder. Two of the strongest impressions being Ivan’s devastating critique of the Catholic Church and Alyosha’s example of loving and helping others in the here and now, whoever they may be. There is some difficulty reading the book relating to the fact that the book is from a completely different time period and place I otherwise know nothing about, but that can also be treated as a positive feature if you take that learning attitude. The four stars instead of five acknowledges this difficulty. But if you have the time and patience this is a book that could very well impact your life.

Ótimo livro, para se ler minuciosamente.

No praise is high enough for this literary gem. One of Dostoyevsky’s best novels, The Brothers Karmazov is a great novel and has some memorable characters. Lovers of good literature should not miss this classic.

My favorite author

Lots to think about and digest regarding human nature. Is a deserved classic that is well worth a read no doubt

For such a long book I wanted to order a copy that was not too condensed in size and where the type face was a good size and not too small. Luckily this fits the bill. I was hoping that because it was a bit more expensive than other versions it would be this way. This runs around 650 pages and fits well in my hands and it is not a struggle to read as the print size is not too small. The story is fantastic but I am sure you already know this.