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Title: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Konstanfin Mochulski ISBN: 0-553-21216-8 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 April, 1984 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.65 (181 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: words fail to describe this enduring classic
Comment: Dostoevsky's final work, The Brothers Karamazov constitutes the culmination of his life's work, drawing from all of his previous writings. It is the tale of the three Karamazov brothers--Alyosha, the pious spiritualist; Ivan, the tormented, calculating atheist and author of that famed passage, The Grand Inquisitor; and Mitya, the sensualist involved in a twisted sort of love triangle in which the participants maliciously chicane one another--and their illegitimate half-brother Smerdyakov, sickly and conniving. The central plot focuses on the murder of the brothers' father, Fyodor, and the trial of the suspected murderer (whom I will not name, lest I spoil the book for any would-be readers). Of course, the novel transcends mere murder mystery and courtroom drama; indeed, these elements serve merely as a background for what truly concerns Dostoevsky, the battle for the soul, in which the forces of modern ideologies (e.g. socialism) struggle against the forces of religion, specifically orthodox Christianity. This war for the spirit wreaks havoc on the individual, disorients and incapacitates him; in fact, the most interesting character in the book is not Dostoevsky's declared hero, Alyosha, but rather his brother Ivan, the atheist, whose contemplation of the lack of moral restraint effected by God's absence places him in the most fragile of mental states, which collapses when he must make a moral judgment. It was Dostoevsky's genius to recognize that socialism is more than a form of labor organization, that it is "above all an atheistic phenomenon, the modern manifestation of atheism, one more tower of Babel built without God, not in order to reach out toward heaven from earth, but to bring heaven down to earth." And there lies his enduring relevance to modern times, over one hundred years after his death. Communism and socialism, indeed, have been virtually routed as viable political and economic systems. But the fight of the West versus Communism was not simply a political-economic one; it was, as Dostoevsky would have recognized--and, indeed, as his modern heirs such as Whitaker Chambers and Alexander Solzhenytsin understood--merely a continuation of that great war for the human soul. And that struggle was not, and has not been, won. For those who wish to understand that fight and to take it up with the foe, Dostoevsky is the essential starting point.
Rating: 5
Summary: Transformative
Comment: This is hands-down my favorite novel of all time. Not just because of the intriguing philosophical issues raised, although that certainly adds to the book. The thing about this book is that somehow through reading it, you become transformed. I have read it two times through, and each time I can say that I am not quite the same person I was when I began it. There is a real power in Dostoevsky's words, and he does well to involve the reader as a whole person: mind, flesh, spirit, and emotion.
A central issue and question of the novel involves one of the 3 brothers, Alyosha. When the novel begins at the present, Alyosha is in the monastery as a monk. You learn much about his life in the monastery, his theology, and the spiritual ideals he clings to. Then Alyosha leaves the monastery and is called to become "a monk in the world." This is a running theme of Dostoevsky, and is especially strong in the Brothers Karamazov. How can one live with such high and lofty spiritual ideals in this world where people murder, steal, mock, and other evils? Watching Alyosha be a monk in the world, and seeing how those spiritual ideals can be applied to a corrupt world is fascinating.
This is a wonderful book, and worth investing your time and self into. The measure you put in will be the measure you get back, and still more will be given to you. I cannot emphasize enough how wonderful and powerful I have found this book to be.
Rating: 5
Summary: One thousand pages of raw literary whoopass.
Comment: There are some achievements so staggering that it is difficult to believe their conception by an unaltered human brain. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky showcases the end result of a life of writing: the outcome is a psychological (although I'm sure the author would despise such a word) portrayal of nearly every citizen of a small town in Russia. Dostoevsky might seem dated to some, but over the course of reading this book it may become evident that many of the characters "are people you know". In my opinion the author's greatest skill was in articulating the irksome tendencies of people of every variety: clearly he didn't much like people as individuals, although he may have liked them as a whole. Certain characters will annoy you by their very existence, and these are the ones that make the book worth reading. You know these characters because they represent parts of who you are or were at one time, and reading this book will make you aware of what you want to be and do with your life (or more likely NOT be) and provide a revealing (and fun!) insight into the people around you. The book is spectacularly beautiful in all of its aspects. This is one I will have to read again, when I'm less of a Kolya Krasotkin...
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Title: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constance Garnett ISBN: 0553211757 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 June, 1984 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Idiot (Oxford World's Classics) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Alan Myers, Fyodor M. Dostoevsky ISBN: 0192834118 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Rosemary Edmonds ISBN: 0140444173 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: October, 1982 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Anna Karenina by Mona Simpson, Leo Tolstoy ISBN: 067978330X Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 10 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky ISBN: 067973452X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 30 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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