Fyodor Dostoevsky said he would die happy if he could finish "The Brothers Karamazov" because he would have expressed himself completely.
Having accomplished that goal, he must have died satisfied, leaving behind a book that has left a profound mark on the literary world, but also on people’s lives. I personally know of two people whose spiritual journey towards God has been launched largely due to this book.
I must admit that it didn’t have the profound spiritual impact on me that is has had on others, but that didn’t keep me from enjoying most of it – at 1,045 pages in paperback, I found it at times to be cumbersome both physically and mentally. But through the vast majority of the novel I was fascinated and challenged.
The Brothers Karamazov is the story of three brothers, their relations with each other and with their father Fyodor Karamazov, who is murdered in an apparent parricide.
The youngest son, Alyosha, is portrayed as the saintly or angelic figure. The second brother, Dmitry, is a sensualist driven largely by his passions and emotions while the oldest, Ivan, is a critical-thinking, but bitter, intellectual.
After being separated for various reasons for years, the three brothers find themselves living in their hometown in close proximity to their landowner father who is portrayed as devious businessman, buffoon, nefarious womanizer and cruel glutton who rarely takes the feelings of his three sons into account. This tendency of his is the driving force of the book, leading to his romantic pursuit of Grushenka, a woman whom his son Dmitry is also passionately in love with, his underhanded dealing with Dmitry in regards to the estate of his dead mother, and ultimately to his own murder.
Factor into the equation the presence of Smerdyakov, Fyodor’s apparent illegitimate son who has grown up in his household, raised by a servant couple that have become the boy’s adopted parents.
His strange upbringing his turned him into a nasty, scheming young man who plays a key role in the family affair that eventually ends with Fyodor’s death.
Like all of Dostoevsky’s works the book is a fascinating exploration of the human mind. Typical of his work, descriptions of countrysides and architecture are almost entirely absent, while the writer spends his time describing the geography of the minds of the characters by painstakingly documenting their thoughts and conversations.
I have to say though, despite all of its literary and religious importance, this book simply didn’t grip my heart like "Crime and Punishment" or "The Idiot" – two of my favourite books of all time.
I think that may be because those books had one central figure that the story revolved around, and shortly after picking up those books I felt well acquainted with them to the point where I could almost predict their thoughts and actions.
I felt this to a lesser degree with Alyosha, and later Dmitry, but I certainly didn’t feel the same level of intimacy or understanding of their character that I did in the previous two.
It may be because the cast of characters was simply too long -- like "Ocean’s Eleven" and "Ocean's Twelve" – the story was entertaining and interesting but there were just too many people floating around and not enough development of the ones I really wanted to get to know better.
That being said, it did take me a long time to read this book, and I got through it mostly in small chunks late at night before falling asleep. If I had read large sections over a week or so I may have a greater appreciation for the project as a whole.
But also, there are sections that I found pretty tedious – including about 75 seemingly out of place pages in the middle of the book in two chapters titled “The Elder Zosima” and “The Teachings of the Elder Zosima.” In the first, the life of the revered elder of a local monastery is set down, in the second, his – or likely Dostoevsky’s – religious views are hashed out in a long, long sidebar to the story.
There is also a long but rewarding chapter called “The Grand Inquisitor” which has been published on its own and is considered an important literary text by many Christians, atheists and intellectuals.
The chapter – a “poem” written by Ivan, an atheist, and shared with Alyosha, a Christian, portrays an interrogation by the “grand inquisitor” of Jesus Christ after he has returned to earth during the Spanish Inquisition, and has been arrested.
The inquisitor, a Catholic cardinal, argues that Jesus can’t return now because his presence would interfere with the goals and mission of the church.
While this chapter, like the others, is not directly tied to the plot, it is a beautiful piece of writing on its own and warrants more attention than I gave it.
All in all though, it’s filled with intriguing insights into the Russian mindset and into man’s seach for God, and the way our passions – both love and hatred – drive our decisions and actions and cause us both happiness and pain, and how the line between the two is often indistinguishable.
Without a doubt, TBK is recommended reading for anyone with an interest in literature – but it’s a pretty big commitment and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it as an entry point to Dostoevsky’s work. But it is typical of his style, and definitely won’t disappoint anyone who has enjoyed his other works.
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