The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers Karamazov

Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

As I have mentioned a few times in my notes on books, I have been trying to read more of the classics lately. Some of them are great, some of them I don’t love *cough The Republic. I don’t think I knew what I was doing when I decided to read this book. I’ve been drafting this write up for a few weeks now since I finished reading and I can’t seem to finish it, because there is just too much that could be said.

After finishing a series of chapters or a specific book within the book, I would visit this site to help me with some of the themes and to solidify what happened in the chapter.

Often during the first half I would read a couple chapters and start dozing off which is not like me. But I think the book just required so much concentration to keep up with what was happening and all the subtle nuances that it was tiring to read. That isn’t to say it is not a good read. The opposite. But it also wasn’t a page turner. Similar to Demons (Another Dostoyevsky novel) it is very slow to get going. It took a huge amount of determination at times to keep reading.

The other reason this feels so difficult is because this novel is vast. It grapples with what seems like every major question in life from faith vs doubt, morality, love, redemption, suffering and many more.

But I am glad that I read this book. It’s complex, and the arc of the main characters is really well thought out, and feels very real.

I really like this review of the book on Goodreads as a general overview of what you are getting yourself into in reading this book. (Or maybe I just like it because it bashes Marx a bit)

Rosewater said an interesting thing to Billy one time about a book that wasn’t science fiction. He said that everything there was to know about life was in The Brothers Karamazov, by Feodor Dostoevsky. ‘But that isn’t enough anymore,’ said Rosewater.
—Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

I’m not sure I’m aware of any quote about a book that sums it up more perfectly than that one.
This book is vast. Not in terms of plot (the actions takes place over a few days), but in terms of ambition. When I put it down, and give it thought, I am hard pressed to think of a single aspect of human life that Dostoyevsky does not incorporate into this grand work. Religion, sensuality, money, politics, love, education, crime, morality, history, science—all are touched on and woven into one whole fabric. And behind all of this is one fundamental question of the novel: what gives life meaning?

To explore this question, Dostoyevsky creates personifications of certain philosophies, and pits them against one another. We have Rakitin’s socialism, Ivan’s rationalism, Fyodor’s sensualism, Dmitri’s romanticism, Katerina’s pride, Smerdyakov’s nihilism, and Alyosha’s piety. Each derive meaning from something fundamentally incompatible, but each are forced into each other’s lives by one single momentous, mysterious event. This event puts each of these characters through a singular ordeal, and the outcome is the moral of the story.

I must say at this point that, if there was one aspect of the human soul that was completely alien to Dostoyevsky’s mind, it was apathy. For him, the question “what gives life meaning?” was so fundamental and so urgent that he required an answer at all costs, even if that answer was suicide. But the answer most people give to that question, I suspect, is simply to stop asking it. This gives his novels that characteristic Dostoyevskian insistence. Every character is animated by some idea, and the voyage of their lives is the development, examination, or possible refutation of that idea.

This is why I agree so strongly with that quote by Vonnegut, because our current intellectual climate is characterized by the disappearance of the question, rather than any definite answer. We did not respond the mystery of the meaning of life by substituting a social utopia or heaven-on-earth for God—now the very question “what is the meaning of life?” seems almost silly. Perhaps this is why we need people like Vonnegut.

Let me get back to the novel. If we are to regard Nietzsche (and justly so) as an intellectual prophet, who foresaw the great, defining struggle of Western thought, and inspired some of the 20th century’s greatest works—if we, I repeat, are to give Nietzsche his due, then how should we regard Dostoyevsky? However great Freud’s debt may have been to Nietzsche, Nietzsche’s debt to Dostoyevsky is surely greater. Here, in this book, are the exact same conflicts portrayed by the German thinker, with the same predictions of an imminent crisis of faith.

Both responded to and rejected Marx (at least indirectly). Marx attempted to replace the second coming with the proletariat revolution, and to offer a future communist paradise as a substitute for heaven. But both Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche believed that this is merely to sidestep the issue, that transforming humanity’s external surroundings would leave the most pressing question entirely untouched—why live in the first place? The great difference between the two men was that Dostoyevsky believed that the only salvation laid in a return to Christ, whereas Nietzsche saw that morals were to change, and new values had to be posited.

I’m afraid that I’m rambling now. Anyone that attempts to encompass Dostoyevsky’s vast mind is sure to fail. It is like throwing pebbles down the Grand Canyon. The Brothers Karamazov, whatever philosophical themes it contains, is a story, and a damned good story. And perhaps that’s the most impressive thing about it: that all of human life is turned into a page-turner.

Overview:

The Karamazov family is made up of the dad (Fyodor), and his three sons (Alyosha, Ivan, and Dmitri). Fyodor is an awful person all around and his kids were raised in a less than ideal environment. Circumstances work out that all three brothers end up visiting their dad around the same time. Dmitri has a dispute with his dad over an inheritance, and oddly, a woman.

Early on, we meet another character named Smerdyakov. He was adopted by a couple who work for Fyodor as servants. Smerdyakov was the son of a lady named Lizaveta who lived off of charity and was possibly mentally disabled, or at least was called the village idiot. It is strongly implied that Fyodor was the one to impregnate this helpless woman (rape implied?), which further reinforces how terrible of a person he is. This leads us to the conclusion that the Brothers Karamazov, is actually a story about four brothers, not three as we are led to believe.

Ivan is in love with a woman who is engaged to Dmitri (Katerina). Dmitri borrowed money from Katerina and squandered it, but wants to get his inheritance from his dad so he can pay her back and run off with another woman named Grushenka. (Grushenka is the woman that is also involved with Fyodor).

Throughout the earlier parts of the book, concerns are raised that Dmitri is going to kill his father over his dispute with the money and Grushenka. Dmitri starts spiralling a bit and starts desperately trying to get money from others so he can pay back Katerina and run off with Grushenka. In his search, he thinks he hears that Grushenka is at his fathers and heads over there in a rage. He does not find Grushenka at the place, but he bumps into one of his fathers servants, who assumes Dmitri is there to murder Fyodor. Dmitri ends up striking the servant in the head with a brass pestle. It was dark out, so Dmitri was not aware who he hit.

Dmitri is despondent both at the fact that he struck someone, and at the thought that he will probably never get to be in love with Grushenka. He decides that he is going to kill himself, but spends one night crashing a party that Grushenka is at as a last hurrah before he kills himself. The two of them end up talking and confessing their love to each other, but towards the end of that scene, police arrive to arrest Dmitri on the charge that he killed his father.

Dmitri looks very suspect as he publicly stated he wanted to kill his father, and his disputes with him were known by many.

Ivan however, is talking with Smerdyakov, who explains to Ivan that he thinks that Ivan is an accomplice to the murder because he knew that Dmitri wanted to kill him, and left that night to run away from the responsibility of protecting his father. Ivan talks over several days with Smerdyakov and as things progress, Smerdyakov admits to being the one to have killed Fyodor, but again, states that Ivan was an accomlice.

The conversation with Smerdyakov and the rationalization that Ivan was complicit affects Ivan very negatively. He returns home and hallucinates conversations with the devil pointing out how evil Ivan is. He remains very sick throughout the end of the book, and we don’t learn if he recovers or not.

The last part of the book is Dmitri’s trial. His defence attorney is actually pretty good, but he is ultimately found guilty, despite the fact that we as readers know he was actually innocent. Dmitri has accepted that he is going to jail despite being innocent and sees it as an opportunity to become a new man, and in a way pay for his mistakes.

The one part of the story I haven’t mentioned is a sort of side story about a young child named Ilyusha. Ilyusha is from a very poor family. He also acts out at Alyosha when he firsts meets him as revenge because he witnessed Dmitri pulling his father out of a bar by his beard and greatly insulting him, so he does not like Alyosha’s family. He is also bullied by other children. The kid gets sick and ends up dying. The last scene of the book takes place with Alyosha, and some of Ilyusha’s young friends at his funeral.

Though the story of Ilyusha isn’t central to the main plot involving the murder of Fyodor, it is central to the overall theme and arc of the story. I didn’t pick up all the nuances while reading, but it is clear there is a reason Dostoevsky seemed to include this detour throughout his book. Instead of trying to explain it myself, here is one interpretation of the ending that helped me understand it a bit.

Given the sensational events of the novel – murder! theft! scandal! – the ending seems a bit anti-climactic, even sappy, right? For the closing scene, Dostoevsky sends us to Ilyusha’s funeral. By this point in the novel, you’re like, who? Ilyusha is the young son of Captain Snegiryov, who was humiliated by Dmitri at a local tavern. Roughly two hundred pages and three books earlier, we learned that Ilyusha, after having gotten into a few fights at school over his father, had fallen very ill. This illness prompted a reconciliation with the other boys, who were encouraged to visit him after Alyosha took an interest in his case. There is much tear-jerking here at the ending, as Dostoevsky offers image after pathetic image of the Snegiryovs and the children mourning poor waifish Ilyusha’s death.

Meanwhile, the novel has left a lot of plot strings unresolved. Will Dmitri escape exile and emigrate to America with Grushenka? Will Ivan recover from his illness and marry Katerina? Will Alyosha return to the monastery, or will he marry Lise?
The answers to these questions are embedded precisely in this seemingly unrelated scene at Ilyusha’s funeral.

The funeral echoes back to the epigraph, which cites a passage from the New Testament about how a grain of wheat may “die,” but once planted in the soil, “bringeth forth much fruit” (see “What’s Up With the Epigraph?”). Ilyusha’s death is the “seed” that will bear the fruit of goodness in those who survive him. In his earnest and loving defense of his father, Ilyusha is the model son that none of the Karamazovs ever were. Even in death, he reminds all those around him of the essential goodness of life. As Alyosha reminds his young friends, “even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve one day for our salvation” (Epilogue.3.49).