The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

You might notice the gap between the last book posted here and this one. I’ve been reading a big book.

The Brothers Karamazov is one more of those books I’ve had on my “to be read someday” list for quite a long time, probably since I first heard about the book and how important it is. I’m not sure “important” is the right word: powerful, meaningful, deep, insightful; it’s all of that. The book flap calls it both “towering” and “a zenith of Western art.” I concur, but don’t let that intimidate you. It is also, very, very good: entertaining, thrilling, funny, and moving.

I’ve probably been meaning to read this book for thirty years. And I’ve owned a copy and had it on my bookshelf for just as long. I must have bought it cheap at a yard sale or used book store: a yellowing, musty, “great books” edition. Moved with it from apartment to apartment. And finally, two weeks ago, pulled it off the shelf with the intention to finally read it. But the first thing I did was throw it away and buy another copy.

When reading a book in translation, the first decision is which translation to read. The copy I owned was translated by a Victorian Englishwoman named Constance Garnett. Her translation is criticized as too much her own prose, rather than the author’s, imprecise (she’s accused of skipping words she was unsure of in the Russian) and fussy. Some online searching steered me to a translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, a husband and wife team. She’s a native speaker. He’s a poet who knows a little Russian, too. They preserve the quirks of Dostoevsky’s style. They have a self-rule never to use an English word that wasn’t in use at the time Dostoevsky wrote his Russian. So there’s no disconcerting slang, yet the language still reads contemporary, not Victorian. They also include a lot of helpful notes explaining Dostoevsky’s references, mostly to other Russian authors and the Bible. They completed their translation supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and won the PEN translation award when it was published in 1990.

Fortunately my local bookstore had a used copy of the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation. I paid $8. What a bargain. Happily, it’s also a better-sized book than the one I had before, in easier to read type, on bright, white, acid-free paper, which makes a difference, like seeing a movie in a good theater with a freshly struck print.

So I settled down to read… and was enchanted.

The Karamazov father, Fyodor, has three sons: Dmitri, Ivan, and Alexei: 28, 24, and 20 years old at the time of the story. Dmitri is the son of Fyodor’s first wife, and the fact that she brought money to the marriage that Dmitri now feels is an inheritance owed to him, is a major driver of the plot. Ivan and Alexei are the sons of Fyodor’s second marriage. That wife is also out of the picture. All three of the sons were raised outside Fyodor’s care by various servants and relatives. Fyodor is a louse, a “sponger” and a self-conscious buffoon. There’s also possibly, probably, a fourth Karamazov brother, Smerdyakov, who was born to a mentally ill village girl named “Stinking Lizaveta”. The novel implies, though never confirms, that Fyodor raped the woman and Smerdyakov is his son. Lizaveta died giving birth. The child was raised by Fyodor’s servant Grigory and his wife and works as an additional servant in the house.

The plot involves two, tangled, love triangles. Dmitri and his father are both in love with a woman named Grushenka. She toys with them both (and is, meanwhile, kept by a third, older man). Dmitri believes if he could get the last of the inheritance he feels is owed to him by his father he could take Grushenka away. But he worries that she will say yes to his father’s proposal, first. Meanwhile a woman named Katerina cannot make up her mind between Dmitri and Ivan, both of whom are attached to her for various reasons. Ivan might actually love her.

In one reading of the novel Dmitri is supposed to symbolize the sensual aspect of life. He’s passionate. He’s emotional. He’s the “body.” Ivan is the “mind.” He’s an intellectual. He argues and philosophizes, without ever seeming to commit to any particular idea. Alexei is the “spirit,” guided by morality: the religious aspect of life. But one of the great achievements of the novel, and one of its pleasures, is that while the tripartite split is evident and useful thematically, none of the characters can be reduced to such simple types. All three brothers, and many, many secondary characters are all psychologically rich, contradictory in their natures, the way people actually are, and seem very real.

Alexei is a novice at the local monastery, the disciple of an elder Monk named Zosima. Early in the story Zosima attempts to counsel the family through their conflict, unsuccessfully. About halfway through the novel, Zosima dies and instructs Alexei to leave the monastery and follow a secular life. In a note from “the author” that begins the novel we are told that Alexei is the hero of the story. As in Proust, Dostoevsky tells the story through an invented narrator. (Unlike Proust, Doestoevsky’s narrator is not also a character involved in the story.) At times this narrator recedes from our attention. Much of the story is told through dialogue with characters conversing in drawing rooms. We begin to think we’re reading a conventional third-person omniscient narrator. Then “the author” suddenly reveals himself in the most charming way. He describes the setting as “our” village and the people as “we.”

Alexei may be the hero, but he’s an unlikely one. He actually does very little. Where the other Karamazovs follow motives of money, love, and revenge, and spin a complicated story around them, Alexei is passive. He has no romance. He has no goal. He appears in nearly every scene, but always at the service of others. He carries messages, runs errands. Characters thrust notes in his hand to deliver to other characters. He’s always welcomed in homes by characters desperate to share a secret with him or learn his impression of what he saw somewhere or what he knows from someone else. He’s loved and trusted. But he’s a peacemaker, looking to resolve the drama that troubles everyone else, not further it.

There’s only one story strand of the novel that completely belongs to Alexei. He comes across a group of boys throwing stones at another boy. Alexei intervenes, but the boy being victimized learns Alexei is a Karamazov and attacks him. The boy’s father had been insulted by Alexei’s father, Fyodor. The other boys are now abusing this boy, Ilyusha, because of his humiliated father. Alexei responds with compassion. He apologizes to the boy’s father and befriends him. There is poverty and sickness at the home. Alexei gets money to help the family. He reconciles the other boys to Ilyusha. At the end of the novel, Ilyusha dies and Alexei gathers the boys for a prayer and a speech about love and how a single moment of goodness can redeem an entire life. This equating of children with spiritual innocence and the fallen nature that comes with adulthood is similar to Salinger. Alexei is the rare holy innocent adult. Seymour Glass is another.

It is in this story, Alexei’s only story, that he becomes the hero of the novel. Because, although the plot of the novel is exciting, Doestoevsky is interested in more than just writing a good thriller. He invites the reader to confront the perennial questions of theology. Why do we suffer? Why be good? What do we owe to others, like neighbors or parents? Does our free will liberate or doom us? What should we do? Why does it matter? That the hero Alexei is a novice at a monastery, and with the character of the elder, Zosima, Dostoevsky is able to naturally include spiritually-themed speeches and discussions. One chapter is supposedly Alexei’s transcriptions of sermons preached by Zosima. The famous parable, “The Grand Inquisitor” which imagines Christ appearing in Seville during the Spanish Inquisition (where he is promptly arrested and then criticized by the church for leading his followers astray) is Ivan’s invention that he tells to Alexei over drinks at a tavern. That the novel is both a great story and a provocation to wrestle with life’s deepest questions makes this, well, “a zenith of Western art.”

And what a story! About halfway through the novel, Fyodor, the father, is murdered. All signs point to Dimitri. We’re told he was at the house that night. We know while he was there he struck and injured Grigory, the servant. But whether Dimitri is responsible for his father’s death we aren’t sure. Dmitri flees with Grushenka to a nearby town for a night of partying. He plans to kill himself in the morning, but is arrested before he can do it. Ivan gradually succumbs to a brain fever. He has a midnight visit and long conversation with a demon that may be a hallucination, or the voice of his unconscious, or something more. Eventually, we learn the truth of the murder, which I won’t give away because the twists are so delicious and because the manner in which Dostoevsky shares the crucial information is so delightful.

The book is divided in four parts, with twelve “books”, three books to each part. The twelfth book is Dmitri’s trial. The prosecutor and defense attorney go through all of the evidence we’ve already been through. We know the truth but are held in suspense wondering which way the trial will go. Every detail is interpreted in multiple ways, pointing to Dmitri’s guilt or maybe his innocence. The jury makes their decision.

Dostoevsky’s “author” tells us in his prefatory note that he planned to write a second volume. This novel is merely prelude to the story of Alexei’s later life, his “hero.” But there is no second book. Dostoevsky began writing this, his final novel, in 1877. It was published serially, completed in 1880. He died in February, 1881.

It’s a long book, but not terribly long. It’s about one quarter the length of In Search of Lost Time. It’s filled with ideas, but not obscure ideas. I found the theology fascinating. It’s not difficult to read. Although the story is dark the tone is comic. It ends with Alexei’s speech beside Ilyusha’s grave, but for that, a note of hope, even beauty.