This book, Dostoyevsky’s final and longest novel, has occupied me for a long time now. I had intended, since I was nineteen and first discovered “serious” books, to read it. But I’d always found the prospect intimidating. So, I approached Dostoyevsky by degrees. First, fairly early on, I read Notes from Underground. I picked for its brevity, and also because most people I knew seemed to have read it. Many years later, I read Crime and Punishment. It was only recently, after I’d discovered Chirp audiobooks that I found a version of The Brothers Karamazov from SNR Audio narrated by David Rintoul. I tried a sample and decided here’s a voice I could probably enjoy for 37 hours and 19 minutes. This audiobook is, sadly, no longer available for purchase in the US. I have no idea why. The shifting sands of licensing agreements, one suspects. Chirp has many others narrated by Rintoul, including many classics, if you’re interested.
At times, I followed along in the excellent, free, web-edition of Constance Garnett’s famous translation, published by Standard Ebooks, one of the true gems of the internet.
That’s all throat clearing. What to say about it? I suspect I’ll be thinking of it for a long while. It was both more and less than I had expected. I had heard of “the Grand Inquisitor” and, familiar with Dostoyevsky’s philosophical seriousness, thought this showdown on the existence and nature of God would be the real meat of the novel. But, while interesting, it wasn’t the main event at all. In fact, the main event, to my mine, is the trial sequence. That’s where the novel really becomes a page turner. And that sequence only works because Dostoyevsky is so good at creating memorable characters who drive his narratives in predictable and unpredictable ways, just like real human beings.
I haven’t checked, but I’m sure there are thousands of doctoral dissertations dissecting various parts of this massive novel. And I get it: there is plenty to chew on. And I also take that kind of devotion to explanation seriously. And this is not the part where I wax into some declaration of the “timeless truths” of the novel. For it is both the parts that still resonate with us, nearly 150 years after its publication, as well as the parts that send one running to Wikipedia because of their specificity to the time and place of the novel (e.g., samovar) that make it meaningful.
Once, when I expressed my guilt at not having read this novel to a a friend, their response was “What, that soap opera?” Thinking of it in those terms–for they do apply–brings it down a few pegs. For, while The Brothers Karamazov is a long and detailed novel, it is not a particularly difficult one. Once you get past the difficulty of the names–everyone in a Russian novel has multiple names, nick names, diminutive terms of affection, etc.–it becomes easy to understand what’s going on. Because Dostoyevsky cared a good deal about “the big questions,” but he cared even more about the human heart, that nearly incomprehensible thing that wants everthing and nothing, no matter how contradictory, foolish, ennobling, or self destructive.
Note
I used to write my reviews at Goodreads immediately after finishing a book. Recently, I’ve decided to write them at Wheatblog first, and then, for now at least, also publish a copy of that just-turned-the-final-page impression at Goodreads and at Hardcover, which has quickly become my favorite alternative. If I find I have more to say about a book, I’ll say it here. And those other posts are just ways for others to find their way to their true home.
Elsewhere
You can also find this review published at Hardcover and at Goodreads. Any future edits will be here, at Wheatblog.