I’m happy to report that I have finally finished
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s (1821-1881)
The Brothers Karamazov (1880,
David Magarshack translation).
The Brothers Karamazov was the last of Dostoyevsky’s novels.
Sigmund Freud,
Franz Kafka,
James Joyce and
Kurt Vonnegut, among others, have all praised it. Freud and Kafka, in particular, have cited it as an influence for their own works. Recently
The Art of Manliness listed it on their compilation of “manly books”:
100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library .
The Brothers Karamazov is about Fyodor Karamazov, 55, and his three sons Dmitry (Mita), 28, Ivan ,24, and Alexy, 20, by two legitimate wives. The oldest son, Dmitry, is impetuous, wild and violent. He is engaged to Katerina but is in love with Grushenka as well. His father is also in love with Grushenka. Dmitry is abusive towards his father and feels that he has been cheated out of his inheritance of 3000 rubles. Dmitry is accused of parricide and stealing the money from his father. Although “overwhelming” evidence point to Dmitry’s guilt, he maintains that he is a “blackguard” [n. (dated) a person, particularly a man, who behaves in a dishonorable or contemptible way] but not a murder and a thief.
Some suspect that Smerdyakov, Fyodor Karamazov’s lackey, servant, cook, and perhaps also his illegitimate son with “Stinking Lizaveta”, could have been the murderer. I won’t give away any spoilers here as to who actually committed the murder.
Although Mita’s ordeal is the main focus of this novel, Dostoyevsky gives equal time to all three brothers. The youngest, Alexy, is a Russian Orthodox novice who befriends many children and holds the respect of all. His friendship with many of the schoolboys as well as his relationship with the monk, Zossima, the elder, provides for many other threads to this novel.
The centerpiece and perhaps also the masterpiece of The Brothers Karamazov is the poem-story Ivan tells to Alexy: “The Grand Inquisitor”. It is the story of Christ returning in visible bodily form to Seville, Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. People recognize his for who he is but do not want him to “meddle” with them. They arrest Christ and he remains silent throughout their interrogations. Dostoyevsky through “The Grand Inquisitor” provides a great piece for spiritual reflection.
Any worthy novel should provide both recognition of us and many departure points for a fuller contact with a range of realities. A good story may always have much more effect that rhetoric. Dostoyevsky uses The Brothers Karamazov to express ideals in his art of narrative that are much more effective than today’s television pundits, for example.
Through the Elder Zossima, Dostoyevsky gives great spiritual direction in the Christian tradition.
Above all, don’t lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and who listens to his own lies gets to a point where he can’t distinguish and truth in himself or in those around him, and so looses all respect for himself and for others. Having no respect for anyone, he ceases to love, and to occupy and distract himself without love he becomes a prey to his passions and gives himself up to coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, and all this from continual lying to people and to himself. A man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. For it is sometimes vary pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? And yet he knows that no one has offended him and that he has lied just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated to make himself look big and important, that he has fastened on a phrase and made a mountain of a molehill — he knows it all and yet is the first to take offence, he finds pleasure in it and feels mightily satisfied with himself, and so reaches the point of enmity…
In Dmitry’s trial, Dostoyevsky, through his defense counsel, has much to say on mercy, justice and the Spirit of the Law.
There are men who in their narrow-mindedness blame the whole world. But crush them with mercy, show them love, and they will curse their past deeds, for there are a great many potentialities for good in them. Their hearts will swell and they will see that God is merciful and that men are just and fair. Such a man will be horror-stricken, crushed by remorse and the great debt that he has to repay henceforth. And he will not say then, “I’m quits,” but will say, “I am guilty in the sight of all men and I am more unworthy than all.” With tears of penitence and poignant, tender emotion, he will cry: “Other people are better than I, for they wished to save me an not to ruin me!”
…
Let other nations adhere to the letter of the law and exact punishment, we will adhere to its spirit and meaning — the salvation and regeneration of the lost.
Dostoyevsky presents, burden, guilt, mercy, justice, passion, ideals, love, truth masterfully in
The Brothers Karamazov.
Photo: Russian village ©Maxym Boner
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