The Brothers Karamazov

I hadn't been in the mood to tackle a long classic for quite some time, but early in August I decided to read Dostoevsky's last novel, The Brothers Karamazov. I've actually owned it for some time, but it has sat on the shelf as I waited for an opportune time to read it. I'm generally a very fast reader, and the book isn't that long (700 some pages), but it took me the better part of a month to get through it. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it however....

The book explores the lives of four brothers and their somewhat repulsive father, Fyodor Pavlovitch. Dmitri, the oldest, is a sensual being who is betrothed to one woman but in love with another. Unfortunately, his father is also smitten with this woman and is actively hoping to steal her away. Ivan is the intellectual, a deep thinker, and remote emotionally. Alexy is a spiritual young man who holds in highest esteem not his own father, but his spiritual father, a monk at the local monastery. Finally there is the servant and cook Smerdyakov, who is probably Fyodor's bastard. While the main plot of the novel centers around the murder of Fyodor Pavlovitch and the investigation into which son killed him, Dostoevsky's epic aims much higher than being a basic crime novel.

Dostoevsky was shooting for nothing less than a dissection of the modern (at the time) Russian man and his uneasy place at the intersection of politics, law, and religion. His use of psychology predates Freud and anticipates many of the Austrian's basic tenets in regards to the relationship between fathers and sons. There are long discourses on duty, responsibility, honor, religion, justice and everything in between interwoven into the main action. And while this causes the book to drag in places, there is no denying Dostoevsky's grand ambition. He clearly meant The Brothers Karamazov to be his crowing glory, and while I didn't enjoy it as much as Crime and Punishment, his reach did not exceed his grasp.