People ultimately want to be good, but few stray from sin

books:

	• The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002 - 824 pages average customer review:based on 112 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

People ultimately want to be good, but few stray from sin

If your going to delve into this book, keep in mind that it is heavy and may take a while. It took me a month. Ivan's High Inquisitor speech took me at least two days. You'll want to have a Bible right beside you at all times, as well, especially if you have never had any Biblical education (like me).
The Brothers Karamazov is, as everyone knows, the story of four brothers: Dmitri the passionate, Ivan the rational, Alyosha the compassionate, and Smerdyakov the bitterly illegitimate. The main event of the story is the murder of these four brothers father, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov. Fyodor Pavlovich is a base man who was a terrible father and husband in his time. All of his children save Smerdyakov (who really isn't officially recognized as his son) grew up far away from home because Fyodor failed to take care of them while he had them. He's had two wives and both are long dead.
The story starts when the entire family (save poor Smerdyakov) is to meet at the monastary in order to try to solve a strong rift that has grown between Dmitri and Fyodor. Dmitri is angered because his father will not give him money that he feels is his due and is also trying to seduce the woman he loves, Grushenka, with this money. Never mind that Dmitri is also engaged to Katerina Ivanova, a woman of high prestige and dowry who is angered by his betrayal and loved by Ivan.
As you can see we have a rather complex tale on our hands. But it is complex in so many more ways than just the plot. There is a contrast between those of great faith in God and those who are of the enlightened Europe who look upon the Church with disdain. Ivan's ideas in The High Inquisitor are scathing at the kindest. Alyosha is deemed the hero of the novel by the narrator and he is perhaps one of the only people who has a good, unselfish soul. The idea that is so terribly hard to love man when you really get to know him is certainly relevant because almost every character in this novel is a horrible person, looking out only for themselves. Dmitri constantly says "I am a scoundral, but not a thief" when reffering to how he stole 3,000 roubles from Katerina Ivanova but has every intention of returning them.
There are existential, naturalistic, and christian ideas in this book. The overall idea that I took from this book was that ultimately, people want to be good. As Ivan says, criminals are more worried about being excommunicated than being jailed. Humans still will always be able to redeem themselves if they want to. Dmitri wishes only to be an honerable man, Ivan is pained by all the suffering in the world, and Alyosha is the only one who is truly good. While humans DO want to be good and to feel good about all of their actions, few can stay on that path and really follow every conviction that they believe in.

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Not Necessarily For the First-Time Reader

This is my third reading of The Brothers Karamazov, and I'm half-way through this Pevear and Volokhonsky version. Previosuly, I read the Ignat Avsey (Oxford Classics) and Andrew MacAndrew (Bantam Classics) translations.

Both the Avsey and MacAndrew versions are smoother to read than this one. Perhaps one or both translators consciously smoothed-over Dostoevsky's rough prose in ways that P&V refused to do.

I don't read/speak Russian. And so, given the almost-universal acclaim for their exacting "faithfulness," I assume P&V "come closer to the original" than their competitors. At the same time, however, I don't believe Avsey and MacAndrew rewrote Dostoevsky wholesale, but only somewhat compromised exacting faithfulness to the text, with a word or phrase here and there, to make the reading easier.

So what's your preference: readability, somewhat at the expense of faithfulness? or faithfulness, somewhat at the expense of readability? If you aren't a student of Dostoevsky's or if you intend to read The Brothers Karamazov only once, you should seriously consider the Avsey and MacAndrew translations.

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The Brothers Karamazov

Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel, all-encompassing and transformative. Can be reread many times. Especially if it is read when you are young, I believe, it will have a discernable (and also possibly not so discernable!) effect on your view of life and of the world. For example, I read it when I was fourteen, seventeen and twenty, and forty years later I continue to hold up the ideal of Alyosha Karamazov as my definition of a "successful" human being. And I've encountered others who feel the same way.

Make us, Russians, your slaves but feed us.

124 years later Dostoyevsky's view of Russia and the "Russian Soul" in this book is still proving to be terribly valid. Through his characters Ivan and The Grand Inquisitor he expresses a profoundly Russian view of the world, that man prefers security abd even death to freedom of choice.
This book is a fascinating story about murder, but to me what Dostoyevsky reveals about Russia, in telling that story, is even more fascinating. And, yes, chilling (they are the only people who, in a matter of hours, could devastate us). If as you read this book you keep in mind what is going on in Russia today, you will see that Dostoyevsky's Russia is still intact, but now with nukes. Current events are proving the truth of what experts on Feyodor Dostoyevsky have said in the past: if you want to understand Russia you must go to him as a source, "He is Russia".
Russia after trying freedom is turning away from it step by step just like Ivan, The Grand Inquisitor, that is, Feyodor predicted. In Russia freedom is being traded for bread and a sense of security.
Dostoyevesky is dead but his spirit still rules in the Kremlin.
Russia does not even want freedom nearby. Just recently the Kremlin opposed the spread of freedom to the Ukraine and rebuked America for encouraging freedom in Belorussia.
President Bush says everyone wants freedom but polls indicate he is wrong about Russia and Dostoyevsky is correct. A poll of Russian people showed that nearly a half of them want another leader like Joseph Stalin. President Putin sounds like the Grand Inquisitor when he says the break-up of the Soviet Union was a great catastrophe! But another poll indicated that 70% of Russians want Putin to be even more authoritarian. We may not like the fact that Putin is moving away from freedom but he is looking over his shoulder at Dostoyevsky/Russia and is afraid that he is not moving fast enough. Other groups are in the wings ready to take over and they would make Putin look like a good guy.
What a genius Dostoyevsky was in understanding and describing nature so basic to his people and instincts so deep that they are even immune to revolution and exposure to freedom. And he weaves this revelation all into a complex multi-dimensional novel about patricide. Or it could be vica versa.

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Absolutely Perfect

This is the sum of Dostoevsky's creation, the height of his poetic(and prophetic)literary power. All the great themes of Dostoevsky are presented and perfected here, and all with absolute mastery. . I've read this book a number of times, and each time I walk away with something new. It is flawless.

Now to the translation. I have read another translation, that of David McDuff, and the difference is amazing. This translation conveys the sense of energy and tension that the other translation seems to miss. It has an amazing level of excitement and passion that I did not perceive in the other translation. This translation of a masterpiece is, in itself, a masterpiece.

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reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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