The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

View from study window.

You may have seen by my Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook that the snow here is very heavy now. By a miracle, we managed to get to our local shop yesterday (twelve miles away) and the roads were near enough empty. It's cold, very very cold: so far, the coldest, minus 8, but it's creeped up a tad (still in the minuses though, as far as I know!). But the house is warm, and despite my fears there has only been one very short power cut. The coal fire is burning, and the budgies are singing.

That's my news, anyway! That, and I've finished The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was the last of the "big four" that I've read (the others being The Idiot, The Devils, and Crime and Punishment). I think it was the best, though The Idiot came close. Put it this way: the next budgie (if we get another budge), will be called Alyosha.

Dostoevsky's notes [from Wikipedia]

I did love reading it, although... Do you ever get the sense, when you're reading a classic, that you're in the presence of absolute greatness, so in effect it doesn't matter if you like it or not? They say true beauty is alarming, even intimidating, and can render one speechless, and that's how I feel with Brothers Karamazov, and for me this is quite rare. I like to form a relationship with a classic, and am happy to announce I love my Zola, that Anne Brontë was a true gift, and old Uncle Dickens is more often than not a pleasure. I'm sounding as though Brothers Karamazov left me cold, and I really don't mean to sound like that. It is a masterpiece, and I am privileged to have read it. I suppose my relationship with it is summed up by absolute wonder - I read this book in absolute awe, but didn't dare to question it. I was reading true greatness in all it's terrifying glory. They say it's the best Dostoevsky, and I do believe it is.

Paragraph in Russian [from Wikipedia]

To give a brief summary: The Brothers Karamazov (or The Karamazov Brothers as my Constance Garnett translation is called) is about three brothers: Ivan, Dmitri, and Alyosha (Alyosha was named after Dostoevsky's son who died when he was three years old, and Dostoevsky's grief is explored in the second book where a monk is consoling a woman who has lost her three year old son). Their father, the "buffoon" Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, and the question is which brother killed him. All brothers feel guilt, and that they all had a part to play in Fyodor Karamazov's death, though of course I won't spoil it for you by revealing who actually killed him.

The themes? Family, death, religion, morality, free will, and reason. Dostoevsky is both ambitious and successful in these explorations. The idea of inheriting characteristics, or rather "the sins of the father" is explored (as Ibsen is notable for, writing around the same period as Brothers Karamazov), and so too the question of just how much free will the individual has. Rakitin says of Alyosha,

You are pure, but you've been down into the depths... I've been watching you a long time. You're a Karamazov yourself; you're a thorough Karamazov - no doubt about birth and selection have something to answer for. You're a sensualist from your father, a crazy saint from your mother.

Relationships, or the break down of the "family" is a major theme, and there are obvious references to the Decalogue: "Honour your father and mother", and "You shall not commit murder".

There is a wonderful, no, absolutely perfect dialogue between Ivan, the intellectual, and Ayosha the religious (a novice in a Russian Orthodox monastery) in the fifth book. Ivan says,

You know, dear boy, there was an old sinner in the eighteenth century who declared that, if there were no God, he would have to be invented. S'il n'existait pas Dieu, il faudrait l'inventer. And man actually invented God. And what's strange, what would be marvellous, is not that God should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man. So holy it is, so touching, so wide and so great a credit it does to man.

The entire dialogue alone is a fascinating read, especially for a Religious Studies student such as myself, and it's a snapshot of the times: the discontent, the thought that religion may be in decline, and the conflict between reason and spirituality, or faith and doubt. Dostoevsky writes about crisis so well, particularly an individual's crisis. The ugly, broken side of human nature, seen in the likes of Notes from Underground, thought to be one of if not the first existential novel (novella, really, it's quite short). Because of this, I'm interested to read more about the life of Dostoevsky.

Finally, crime and justice, readers of Crime and Punishment and other of his novels will be well familiar, but I wouldn't like to write too much because it would spoil the book. But yes, another major theme.

It is a breath-taking work, so incredibly dense, complex, and beautiful in it's ugliness, somehow. It's hard work, as well, one of the hardest books I've come across. But well worth it. Well worth it.

And, I should say, this is my second book for Adam's TBR Challenge, my first book for the Turn of the Century Salon, and finally, my 73rd book for The Classics Club.