Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12684 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-27
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 960 pages

Synopsis
When brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, the lives of his sons are changed irrevocably: Mitya, the sensualist, whose bitter rivalry with his father immediately places him under suspicion for parricide; Ivan, the intellectual, whose mental tortures drive him to breakdown; the spiritual Alyosha, who tries to heal the family's rifts; and the shadowy figure of their bastard half-brother Smerdyakov. As the ensuing investigation and trial reveal the true identity of the murderer, Dostoyevsky's dark masterpiece evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur and everyone's faith in humanity is tested.

Customer Reviews

Massive in every sense, especially the literal.
Dostoeyvsky's last novel is a huge doorstopper of a tome and probably his most ambitious work. The theme of religion looms large here with Dostoyevsky confronting the chaos and despair that comes from the absence of God. Ivan karamazov says: "without God, all is permitted" and this becomes one of the key preoccupations of the book.

Dostoevsky goes into typically tortuous detail on the motivations of his characters, nothing is as simple as it seems, and all actions are subjected to the most intense scrutiny. Dmitry Karamazov in particular is a hugely contradictory character in the classic Dostoyevskian mode, capable of great tenderness and utter selfishness, conscience-ridden but often utterly amoral, passion-crazed and self-destructive. Alyosha Karamazov, on the other hand, is another embodiment of the "holy fool" type character beloved of Dostoyevsky.

Alyosha aside, however, Dostoyevsky goes out of his way to depict the duality of his characters natures, showing their enormous capacity for good alongside a similar disposition towards evil and, while this may be in keeping with human nature, it does lead to much unfathomable erraticism in their behaviour. The mood changes many of the characters undergo are little short of psychotic. "Frenziedly" and "hysterically" are two much overused adverbs in this novel. I found this occasionally trying, especially towards the beginning, but as the novel progresses it gains a momentum of its own and interest centres on the themes of redemption, guilt, suffering, to name but a few.

In general, this novel is of a more optimistic tone than Dostoyevsky's earlier work such as "Crime and Punishment". This is especially evident in the scenes involving little Illyusha and his classmates, as they fall under the influence of Alyosha. This subplot provides the most moving scenes in the book.

"The Brothers Karamazov" is a huge, meandering study of human psychology and what has become known as Existentialism. It is sometimes moving, sometimes provocative and sometimes, in my view, unfocused. It may well be, as has been said, one of the great novels of world literature but it is probably most likely to be appreciated by those who enjoyed Dostoyevsky's other works. It is less accessible than "Crime and Punishment", but more rounded in its view of humanity.
I have not read any other translations than this one, by David McDuff, so I can't compare but the language here often struck me as odd. To give the only example I can recall offhand, the phrase "like a blow of a knife" is used somewhere near the end. This, and other phrases used in this translation, I found somewhat jarring.

A paragon of literature
Dostoevsky is a writer that can dig deep into the human mind and write down on paper what we all think inside our heads. The Brothers Karamazov is possibly his best work and just another example of how deeply he understands the human condition.

The characters will touch your soul and the scenes will bring both tears and smiles on the face of every reader. This book has it all.

Hard labour
The fact I owned this book for over ten years before reading it indicates how I was intimidated by it. I knew that the 900 pages would demand time and patience as well as sheer graft. But the novel is regularly cited as a true classic and so I gave up more accessible and appealing literature for the six weeks it took me to finish it.

If it's already sounding like a laborious exercise that's deliberate on my part. The characters and storyline are certainly strong enough to sustain the reader through much of the painstaking detail with which Dostoyevsky layers his story and there are many memorable passages. The story is, however, frequently interrupted by religious, political and social discourses much of which tended to be lengthy and turgid. That is ironic because serious critics rate the book so highly precisely because of the very passages which I found hard going!

Overall, I do feel the better for having read it, but, if you only have time for one monster classic, you would be far better off with Hugo's masterpiece, "Les Miserables".