The Brothers Karamazov

[candide]

Moving this over to its own thread. Started with:

What are you people seeing in Brothers Karamazov that I’m not? Other than The Idiot, I’ve read all of Dostoevsky (because I thought it would make me look smart and impress all of the dudes, but it did not) and Brothers is by far my least favorite. It’s his best snapshot of the Russian world at that time, with its eye roll-inducing aristocracy, I’ll give it that, but there are better Dostoevsky books, and better books period. The Possessed was my favorite. I think about Kirillov nearly every day. The more modern day books I read however the less I’m inclined to put old books on a pedestal and they become simply sources of historical knowledge and less real food for thought.

Already a great response:

There are two layers to every Dostoyevsky work - the psychology of characters (written with amazing insight in time where psychology wasn't yet a thing) and his meditations on the consequences of abandoning God by (previously) Christian societes. Many readers only notice the former, as it's way more in your face, but the latter is more interesting IMO. I've read BK twenty years ago so don't remember much from it, but AFAIR this was his most overtly philosophical novel of them all.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

Haha, great, please educate me.

[Jean]

I really enjoyrd the story, I also think it's a great exploration of the different aspiration a young man could follow, which makes it a good read for someone in his early twenties.
Authors today are on the shoulders of giants, so of course they can probably sometines write better books than classical authors.
The advantage of reading classic, is that it's a form of curation, which greatly reduce your chance of losing time reading bad books.

[candide]

The only other Dostoevsky work I have read is Notes from the Underground, and while that work made me see the truth of the observation of both Ayn Rand and Jordan Peterson that Dostoevsky was the master of expressing the psychology of evil, Brothers explores a wide universe of people making moral decisions. Yes, there are characters who have abandoned God, and they are explored, but there is also more respect for faith in Alyosha. He's not a fool. He's not corrupted (which would be the only idea our contemporary authors from respectable circles would come up with). He's not tempted. Instead, he is challenged. Again, I haven't read The Idiot, so I don't know how well the theme plays out in that. Also, haven't read Crime and Punishment, but I would imagine that work stays too narrow on one man's evil and its consequences-- at least for my taste.

Back to this book. I found the prose readable, even beautiful, sprinkled with bits of wit throughout. Though it was philosophical and on a wide range of themes, it was almost at no points preachy or dry. It is an exploration through literature, using its medium well.

So, I find the book good. And since I did read the first time at one of the low points in my life, I can speak to its ability to shake at least one person out of a rough patch.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

it's a great exploration of the different aspiration a young man could follow, which makes it a good read for someone in his early twenties.

I agree it’s a good exploration of the different aspirations of young men at the time. Probably most young men these days aren’t considering whether to serve the emperor, or whether to sit around in drawing rooms squandering their family fortune, or whether to join a monastery.

The advantage of reading a classic, is that it's a form of curation, which greatly reduces your chance of losing time reading bad books.

Agreed it’s a form of curation, but curation has downsides. It sets up an expectation of greatness, discourages a skeptical reading, and narrows a person’s exposure to literature (and maybe even the world’s, considering how many of you have read this IMO rather mediocre book). I don’t think BK belongs on a “greatest books of all time” list, but I do think it belongs on a “greatest books of 19th century Russia” list.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

There are two layers to every Dostoyevsky work - the psychology of characters (written with amazing insight in time where psychology wasn't yet a thing) and his meditations on the consequences of abandoning God by (previously) Christian societes. Many readers only notice the former, as it's way more in your face, but the latter is more interesting IMO. I've read BK twenty years ago so don't remember much from it, but AFAIR this was his most overtly philosophical novel of them all.

I’m at an unfair advantage here because I finished BK last month, but I think the playing field is leveled because I’m not that bright. That said, I found the second layer you noted—the consequences of abandoning God—utterly uninteresting. I wish I had counted how many times “without a belief in God, then everything must be permitted!” appears in the novel, often despairingly choked out by the second brother, Ivan, in his numerous anguished outbursts. For me, an atheist, the answer to that question is simple: no. OBVIOUSLY “everything” is not permitted if a person or a society lack faith in God (and in the novel, I’ll note, it was the Christian god, not one of the other myriad deities that humans have fought and died over).

This is actually my biggest beef with the book. Clearly Dostoevsky was brilliant and we are fortunate his writings are preserved and widely read. But it’s disappointing to me that such a keen mind was stuck in that place and that time. I kept wondering, if he hadn’t been so consumed by Christianity, then what might he have written?

[Biscuits and Gravy]

Also, haven't read Crime and Punishment, but I would imagine that work stays too narrow on one man's evil and its consequences-- at least for my taste.

Aw, no, you should read it! I’ve read that one a number of times. Almost gave my son the middle name Raskolnikov, unbeknownst to his father. It is a far more readable (whatever that means) book than BK.

Back to this book. I found the prose readable, even beautiful, sprinkled with bits of wit throughout. Though it was philosophical and on a wide range of themes, it was almost at no points preachy or dry. It is an exploration through literature, using its medium well.

The translation I have is by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I also found the prose readable and the book quite funny in some parts. I don’t remember laughing at any of his other novels, but I read them all when I was a kid (ages 15-25), so I may have just been too inexperienced and dense to pick up on nuances.

To your “at no points preachy or dry”, two parts:

1. Part II, Book Five, Chapter 5: The Grand Inquisitor nearly caused me to stop reading altogether, it was duller than a soccer mom’s mind half way through her 7 year old son’s game. I persevered solely because my husband was poking fun at me for taking so long to read this book.

2. The entire trial of Mitya, which is Book Twelve, and in my translation nearly 100 pages. I GET that at the time the psychology used was cutting edge and upsetting stuff, but as a modern day human, it was a brutal read.

[suomalainen]

I (have only) read The Idiot and based on that read, had no desire to read any more Russian literature at all. My reading notes in their entirety:

The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Prince Myshkin is sick with “idiocy”, goes to Switzerland for treatment, falls in with the schoolchildren, comes back to Russia, falls into an inheritance and into the intrigue of high society. Falls in love or something with Nastassya Filippovna and chases her around while he also falls in love with Aglaya Yepanchin. Finally, when put to the test, he can’t bear Nastassya’s pain and can’t see Aglaya’s pain, so he “chooses” Nastassya. Meanwhile, a separate guy Rogozhin is in love with Nastassya and chases her around but she keeps refusing him. Finally Nastassya and Myshkin are to be wed, but she flees with Rogozhin on her way to the chapel and then he kills her. Rogozhin and the Prince sleep next to the dead body together and the Prince cries and pets Rogozhin’s hair like a child. Prince goes crazy again; Nastassya’s dead; Rogozhin’s in jail; and Aglaya runs off with a fraud. Some interesting diversions/monologues about the vapidity/sincerity of high society, about Christ/religion. January 2014.

[candide]

@Biscuits and Gravy
Well, backing this up, you just asked what we saw in the book... and I think we've at least given reasonable responses.

But I'm not saying you have to like it, and I don't think anyone else is either. I'd say you've done a good enough job expressing yourself on the matter that I have now moved the book away from the mental category of "books I'd suggest everyone give a try."

Still, though, I'm puzzled that you can even jokingly call the prospect of rereading the book torture when you write:

I also found the prose readable and the book quite funny in some parts. I don’t remember laughing at any of his other novels, but I read them all when I was a kid (ages 15-25), so I may have just been too inexperienced and dense to pick up on nuances.

Even more puzzling that you admit D's other books are good, with characters that stick with you in deep ways. I think it might be possible you wouldn't like his other books either if you read them for the first time at this point in your life.

Leaving that aside, the Grand Inquisitor scene... I dunno, seems to me that it written the way people talk when they are trying to make someone twist -- or, failing that, over-intellectualize. And if we give Dostoevsky the respect he is due from his prose in the rest of the book, if not his other books as well, that we can see that the prose is different on purpose, not out of carelessness. It is prose of detachment and pseudo objectivity masking a love of power. And there are plenty of people like that, in all sorts of places. And though you might find them tedious when they get around to explaining themselves, I think it is still revealing.

As to the trail. I don't remember being bored at that point. If I was, I was probably invested enough in the characters to see it through...

To each their own, though. I really mean that. Sorry you didn't impress the dudes you knew in real life by reading it, but I think us dudes here are impressed and think you are smart.

[zbigi]

Also, haven't read Crime and Punishment, but I would imagine that work stays too narrow on one man's evil and its consequences-- at least for my taste.

C&P is again the same theme - if God is dead, then we can do anything, including setting up our own morality. Why not set up a morality where it's ok (noble, even) to murder an old miser and steal her money to pursue one's lofty goals? Raskolnikov, having read the most progressive works of his time, talks himself into believing it.

Also, the "Devils" are a great read. It's his most political work (it's about a group of wannabe revolutionists) and seem very pertinent to what is currently happening in countries like USA or Canada.

[zbigi]

I (have only) read The Idiot and based on that read, had no desire to read any more Russian literature at all. My reading notes in their entirety:

That's just the plot though, which as the theories of understanding work of literature (one such thing was created by Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden in early XX century (*)) teach us, is just one of layers of literary work. In Ingarden's theory, plot and characters are layer four out of five (lower level layers, as far as I understand, are stuff like choice of language etc.). His idea is that all the layers interplay and harmonize with each other, creating the final impression on the reader, similarly to how various instrument groups in orchestra work together during a symphony. And, just as how it does not make sense to summarize a symphony (this would be a lossy compression, as every note is important and there for a reason), it's impossible to give novel any justice by summarizing it.

Anyway, the novel itself IMO is mainly about exploring consequences of good and evil. Prince Myshkin is basically a Christ-like figure who predictably gets clobbered by less than perfect society, but can think of himself as a moral victor (which of course he won't, being basically a saint). Rogozin, on the other hand, is perfectly earthly and has no qualms with embracing his vices, which leads to a spiral of self-destruction.

(*) R. Ingarden "Das literarische Kunstwerk" 1931.

[ertyu]

might amuse the religious western readers to know that Raskolnikov's name comes from the russian word for schism.

[zbigi]

I’m at an unfair advantage here because I finished BK last month, but I think the playing field is leveled because I’m not that bright. That said, I found the second layer you noted—the consequences of abandoning God—utterly uninteresting. I wish I had counted how many times “without a belief in God, then everything must be permitted!” appears in the novel, often despairingly choked out by the second brother, Ivan, in his numerous anguished outbursts. For me, an atheist, the answer to that question is simple: no. OBVIOUSLY “everything” is not permitted if a person or a society lack faith in God (and in the novel, I’ll note, it was the Christian god, not one of the other myriad deities that humans have fought and died over).

The historical context is important here. Russia was, through the ages, a culturally backward country, at least when it comes to following the cultural trends of Europe. While Europe was slowly moving away from Middle Ages through Renaissance, working it's way till Englightenment when mockery of God and religion was basically already openly permitted and in good taste in high society (see Voltaire et al.) and then coming to revolutionary movements of XIX century, explosive ideas of Marks, Nietzche etc. - Russia was still mentally in the Middle Ages, with Tzars and the elite believing in faith healers (Rasputin was a thing even in XX century), following various kinds of murky, homegrown Christian mysticisms etc. The country was "spiritual" wheras Europe was already rational. Then, sometime in the XIX century, the cumulated centuries of ideas from the West started flowing into Russia, in rapid pace. The thesis of some authors here is that Russians didn't know that these ideas shouldn't be treated entirely seriously, that they're in part an intellectual game - they didn't have centuries of training with toying with potentially dangerous ideas.
The result was, they adopted whatever they read with dead seriousness. They created a movement of Nihilists for example (complete with literary works, followers etc.). They started debating and plotting violent revolutions, where the ends justify the means. For example, take the Catechism of a Revolutionary by Sergey Nechayev. I don't think such work could ever be created in GB or USA, or most other western countries of the time. Some great chilling snippets:

The revolutionist despises all doctrines and refuses to accept the mundane sciences, leaving them for future generations. He knows only one science: the science of destruction. For this reason, but only for this reason, he will study mechanics, physics, chemistry, and perhaps medicine.

The revolutionist despises public opinion. He despises and hates the existing social morality in all its manifestations. For him, morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution.
Anything that stands in its way is immoral and criminal.

Tyrannical toward himself, he must be tyrannical toward others. All the gentle and enervating sentiments of kinship, love, friendship, gratitude, and even honor, must be suppressed in him and give place to the cold and single-minded passion for revolution.

This and similar currents were strong in Russian society at the time of Dostoyevsky's writing. It created a generation of cold, ruthless revolutionists, who saw themselves as arbiters of morality, but who were in reality awful human beings - the Lenins and Stallins, who later caused hundreds of millions of people to die or suffer. Dostoyevsky was warning against all that, as he was smart enough to see where such radical ideas about morality will lead.

[Jean]

When Dostoievski talks about the consequences of abandoning god, to me, he sounds like he is trying to convince himself that he believes in god, to avoid the social consequence of being an atheist.
To make a paralel with today, it's like if someone was trying to convince himself that he believes in the use of gaz chamber during second world war.

[ertyu]

few people realize that dostoyevsky's was a reactionary work. he was a great psychologist, but also very scared of what he saw as the abandonment of proper "traditional" values. iirc there was a bit that bashed the catholics, too, something along the lines of, "they think, people are all going to hell anyway, so why make them worry, we can just have them confess and have them feel everything's gonna be fine, they have an eternity to suffer in hell anyway"

[chenda]

Sergey Nechayev.

He once met Hristo Botev. Not our one though.

When Dostoievski talks about the consequences of abandoning god, to me, he sounds like he is trying to convince himself that he believes in god, to avoid the social consequence of being an atheist.

Some people believe in believing, but struggle to believe.

[suomalainen]

Yeah, I get it. The point isn't that I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to read a book. The point is that while I have pages and pages and pages of notes on other works, this one just didn't do it for me, so when I got to the end of the book, the only thing "worth" noting was that one simple plot paragraph and a one-liner that there were some interesting monologues ... but not interesting enough to even summarize, let alone quote. As I recall, my reaction probably stemmed from the idea that I didn't relate to any of the characters. I don't believe that Christ (whether as a "person" or as an idea) was a simpleton/idiot, so the characters and corresponding dichotomies which you seemed to have enjoyed were ... too fake? for me.

It created a generation of cold, ruthless revolutionists, who saw themselves as arbiters of morality

This reminds me of a certain group here in the US currently. Funny thing about morality it that everyone has their own view of it and its primary use (both the view and the underlying supposed morality itself) seems to be as a cudgel against "the others" (also self-defined). Cudgels all the way down.

[delay]

When Dostoievski talks about the consequences of abandoning god, to me, he sounds like he is trying to convince himself that he believes in god, to avoid the social consequence of being an atheist.
To make a paralel with today, it's like if someone was trying to convince himself that he believes in the use of gaz chamber during second world war.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Dostoevsky's life story reads as wild by today's standards. He was educated as an engineer. After graduating he became a writer. He was then arrested for reading publicly from Belinsky's letter, which called for the end of serfdom. A court sentenced him to death. His execution turned out to be staged: before the execution began, he was read a decree changing the punishment. He was to serve years of hard labour in Siberia. For four years he read the only book - the Gospel. This became the reason for the spiritual rebirth of the writer, a change in convictions. Dostoevsky became a deeply religious person. The accession of Alexander II to the throne brought him a pardon in 1857. He was allowed to publish his works. He traveled abroad in search of new topics, but it all ended with him losing huge sums at roulette in Wiesbaden. Trying to get out of financial problems, he concluded an extremely unfavourable contract to publish all of his works.

Social consequences were pretty harsh in 19th century Russia! Dostoevsky's religious conversion strikes me as real. I've heard many people make the same claim, of being rescued from despondency by religion. A rebellious youth leaves society's path, learns the hard way what his limits are, and returns to society's embrace. That Dostoevsky had to publish to maintain his wife and children was a constant reminder of the need to conform.

Today atheism is no longer unfashionable. But there are other things you are not allowed to doubt. People who cross the line are still exiled, and people call for harsh measures against the transgressors. Perhaps it's not so much that Dostoevsky was trying to convince himself, but rather that his income depended on walking within the lines. A human struggles between acceptance and rejection of the constraints of society. Dostoevsky's books read like he is speaking from experience.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

The historical context is important here.

I entirely agree. To remind people, this discussion stemmed from a 22 year old American’s request in his journal for reading recommendations. Brothers was recommended. Forumites can imagine what an average American’s knowledge of the 19th century and specifically 19th century Russia is. Layer on top of that the intimacy with the Bible that reading Dostoevsky requires. So when a kid says, hey, what’s a great book I should read? I just don’t think Brothers should be the go to. It’s Russian pearls before American swine.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

Sorry you didn't impress the dudes you knew in real life by reading it, but I think us dudes here are impressed and think you are smart.

You’ll have to forgive me, but I was joking when I wrote that. I joke a lot. So much so that Dear Husband Suomalainen has suggested I try stand up comedy. And your comment kind of proves a point: merely reading a book isn’t impressive and doesn’t make you smart. As the forumites have demonstrated in this thread, to appreciate and understand this particular novel requires a knowledge of what I’ll call the novel’s penumbra.