The Brothers Karamazov in Reading the Chunksters

Jun 20, 2022 Cindy Newton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-books, classic-lit-russian, b-n-classic

I don't know where to even start with this review. This book has been reviewed by so many and so much more eloquently than I could ever hope to achieve. This is my second Dostoevsky and I found it compelling. The fraught family relationships, the tangled love relationships, the philosophical religious debates, the mysterious patriarchal murder, and the tense jury trial--all provide a spellbinding read. Other than the jury's verdict, we never get a definitive answer on who actually committed the ...more

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Feb 09, 2019 Ashley Jacobson rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: to-read-fiction

Very well written. Alyosha is a great spiritual character from whom we can learn a lot. I enjoyed his lectures and those of people around him. But the main story was strange. By the end I was thinking, “what did I just read???” The murder mystery doesn’t kick in until like the last quarter of the book. The rest is Alyoshas spiritual life and the other brothers fighting with their dad and each other over women and owed inheritances and whatnot.

Then the murder mystery was so strange. People went ...more

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Oct 08, 2016 Jack rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016

My first impression of this book is awe. What a great book. Maybe the best one I've ever read.

I don't know much about Russian history. But I remember that George Kennan once said that he had come up with the policy of containment from his insight into the psychology of the Russian military by reading Russian literature. That line was in my mind when I read this book, and the interpretation of it really colored my reading. From the lens of 135 years of hindsight, Dostoyevsky’s perspective on Rus My first impression of this book is awe. What a great book. Maybe the best one I've ever read.

I don't know much about Russian history. But I remember that George Kennan once said that he had come up with the policy of containment from his insight into the psychology of the Russian military by reading Russian literature. That line was in my mind when I read this book, and the interpretation of it really colored my reading. From the lens of 135 years of hindsight, Dostoyevsky’s perspective on Russia is uncanny. I was left imagining the 4 brothers as different aspects of Russia vying for the soul of old 19th century Russia, embodied by the father. After what has happened in that country, the mix of elements in the brothers: piety (Alexei), passion (Dimitri), intellectual (Ivan), and of course envy (Smerdyakov) is evident in a foreshadowing that would be hard to be surpassed by any writer since. We have in Alexei and Ivan the struggle between the church and the later communism. We have in Smerdyakov, the Bolsheviks. We have in Dimitri, the Battle of Stalingrad and the oligarchic society of today. But what you realize reading this is that Alexei is mixed in there too.

But apart from that unique lens into Russia--which I suppose a Russian might be a better person to really assess, I found the honesty of the characters into their own souls a unique window into my own. I've always felt that the real importance in fiction is to learn about how we would behave, what our emotions mean, and what we understand about ourselves, so to me, the Brothers Karamazov is one of the greatest books every written, at least that I have read.

Another aspect of this book was my gradual realization that it is the source of so much of today’s zeitgeist. Just look at the influence on popular culture that is inspired (albeit indirectly) by the Brothers Karamazov. Although Mick Jagger claims inspiration from French Literature, Mick Jagger’s Sympathy for the Devil has lines lifted almost directly from the Brothers Karamazov. Stumbling onto that chapter, suddenly the lyrics were playing out in front of me. And then television shows like Law & Order, the plot itself is directly lifted from the Brothers Karamazov. How many ideas that I thought were my own really have their origins in this man’s mind?

I have since read a few reviews of others—and they bring up that Ivan represents doubt…a whole different interpretation. I am sure I will be reading these reviews for years. What a great book.
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Aug 16, 2017 J_BlueFlower rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001, 1001-read, norwegian-100, catching-up-read

Some very interesting characters and a some deep discussion about religion, faith, atheism and lots of other things. I could have like a more clear story line with less noise. I liked Crime and Punishment better.

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Sep 22, 2012 Kaycie rated it liked it

Shelves: 1001_read

I can see the appeal of this book, but it was too much to take in in one reading. Unfortunately, it also didn't grab me enough to want to pick it up again and make that second pass at it. ...more

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