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The Brothers Karamazov (Vintage Classics)

The Brothers Karamazov (Vintage Classics)

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Dostoyevsky's Best
Review: The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel Dostoyevsky completed, and, as you might think, it is the culmination of a lifetime of religious and philosophical ponderings. Dostoyevsky was primarily a moralist and his prose and plotlines are often more contrived to provide a skeleton for his abstract musings then they are to create a compelling story in their own right. Still, his works are compelling and, in many instances, truly enlightening. The best way to approach Dostoyevsky is to read all of his books in the order that they were written. It is really only by doing this that you can fully get the effect of The Brothers Karamazov. As Dostoyevsky matured, so did the way he attacked the moralistic problems that hounded him his whole life. It is a relief to see how the young Dostoyevsky fell for the same type of dead-end, knee-jerk solutions that most people utilize on a daily basis. As the novels get more complicated, Dostoyevsky dismisses these tactics and he explains why in detail. The Brothers Karamazov is the final say on the matter. Not only is it a well concieved work in its own right, it explains mistakes and lends a certain amount of guidance in reading the works that came before it. The Brothers Karamazov is sort of the portable Dostoevsky, it contains all his conclusions and it is the one work that he produced that is absolutely vital.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The beating heart of world literature.
Review: There are few words to describe this towering achievement: Magnificent. Chilling. Overwhelming. Ferocious. Intense. Uplifting. Dostoevsky's masterpiece, published just months before his death, is the single greatest book I have ever read. Every book I'd encountered is just a pale shadow of this one, for it contains everything the human heart holds dear. What I truly love about this book is its depiction of human suffering and evil--why, even the Devil himself makes an appearance, as an old Frenchman who engages atheist Karamazov brother Ivan in a philosophical discussion. The Devil takes the old Latin phrase, "I am human, therefore nothing human is alien to me" and changes it to: "I am Satan, therefore nothing human is alien to me." Jesus. My blood runs cold at the perfection of that. And Ivan himself says to his young Christian brother Alyosha: "I believe that if the Devil exists, man created him in his own image." These are some of the truest, most profound words ever spoken....

But the story! Oh, what a tangled, complex, gripping tale we have of murder, jealousy, lust, anger, and guilt! Dostoevsky knew how to spin a murder mystery, that's for sure. The genius of this book (and many of Dostoevksy's) is that it is utterly contemporary--its intensity translates well to today's world; in many ways the violence and psychological torment here is comparable to a Martin Scorsese film (the filmmaker has indeed invoked the great writer's name on several occasions). While I was reading this book, the OJ Simpson trial was in full force, and it paralleled the book's penultimate chapters in the Russian courts. All of Russian society was there, and fascinated by what the murder of Fyodor Karamazov, the father, said about Russia at the turn of the century. This is precisely what America went through during that trial in 1995--Dostoevsky's book, written over 100 years before, perfectly captured our world today. I was stunned, and what seemed like a ridiculous media circus became fraught with meaning, illuminated by "The Brothers Karamazov." Who ever would've thought...?

Read this book. Read it. It is what every work of literature wants to be... but can't quite make it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: great
Review: This book by Dostoyevsky can be read in many ways. It can be read as a murder-mystery-with-gripping-courtroom-drama. It can be read as a 19th century polemic on the struggle for the Russian soul (there was such a struggle). It can be read as an essay on doubt versus faith. However one chooses to read such a book, the most important thing to know is that it has been written with passion, understanding and yearning. The ultimate question, as with any great undertaking of man, is: how shall we live our lives?

At two opposite poles stand two brothers: Alyosha and Ivan. Alyosha is the pure-of-heart believer, the disciple of Christ, the affectionate lover of all humanity, the guide of youth, the suffering monk, the bright and burning truth-seeker. Ivan is the dark, secretive, disbelieving, man-as-God, with a vicious conscience that exists seemingly against everything in his own nature. In the middle is the third brother Mitya, who acts, while his brothers stand apart from his actions. They comment on his action, they inform the route Mitya takes, but they are ultimately outside of Mitya, who is a passionate and perhaps misguided man with two poles to choose from. His apparently dark actions are brightened by his loving heart and purity of soul. Where does this all point, this life of unsolved questions, this life of enigmatic brotherhood?

Enough. The book, while comfortable with dark questions such as "How will man live without God?" is also written with great humor and vitality -- with gusto for life overall. Living is a joyous experience, Dostoyevsky tells us. Read this book and remember it when you are planning your next career move. Their flaws aside, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky vibrate with life and help their readers to forget the innummerable idiotic questions that their lives offer up on a daily basis. Return to your soul under the guidance of these Russians, and be rewarded with your own renewed vitality.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Three Brothers, Three Choices
Review: This book by Dostoyevsky can be read in many ways. It can be read as a murder-mystery-with-gripping-courtroom-drama. It can be read as a 19th century polemic on the struggle for the Russian soul (there was such a struggle). It can be read as an essay on doubt versus faith. However one chooses to read such a book, the most important thing to know is that it has been written with passion, understanding and yearning. The ultimate question, as with any great undertaking of man, is: how shall we live our lives?

At two opposite poles stand two brothers: Alyosha and Ivan. Alyosha is the pure-of-heart believer, the disciple of Christ, the affectionate lover of all humanity, the guide of youth, the suffering monk, the bright and burning truth-seeker. Ivan is the dark, secretive, disbelieving, man-as-God, with a vicious conscience that exists seemingly against everything in his own nature. In the middle is the third brother Mitya, who acts, while his brothers stand apart from his actions. They comment on his action, they inform the route Mitya takes, but they are ultimately outside of Mitya, who is a passionate and perhaps misguided man with two poles to choose from. His apparently dark actions are brightened by his loving heart and purity of soul. Where does this all point, this life of unsolved questions, this life of enigmatic brotherhood?

Enough. The book, while comfortable with dark questions such as "How will man live without God?" is also written with great humor and vitality -- with gusto for life overall. Living is a joyous experience, Dostoyevsky tells us. Read this book and remember it when you are planning your next career move. Their flaws aside, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky vibrate with life and help their readers to forget the innummerable idiotic questions that their lives offer up on a daily basis. Return to your soul under the guidance of these Russians, and be rewarded with your own renewed vitality.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Great translation
Review: This is a really great translation of one of the biggies of world literature. I found it odd that Amazon did not even list it with the translators' names, since they are widely recognized as the top translators of Dostoyevsky. If you want the most readable translation, this is it. Another real benefit of their book, are the annotations, which give info about the time of the book which would be very difficult to find otherwise. The story itself is definitely a long trip, but not one to be missed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: hallelujah!
Review: This is it. The greatest novel of all time by the greatest novelist of them all: rendered in the best translation available in English at the moment. No matter how many times I read this book, I cannot but be in awe of its tremendous musical architecture, its seething power and unforgettable beauty, like the slanting rays of the setting sun...The single most influential book on all writers from the late nineteenth century onwards...Dostoevsky had a lasting impact on Joyce and "Ulysses" has influenced the literature of this century...and so it goes...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Doomed to Failure
Review: Weak and confused narrative extinguishes the vital assortment of characters that are marginally 'Russian' in this excessive work. I would suggest reading "Crime and Punishment" for a more magnificent creating of writing.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Doomed to Failure
Review: Weak and confused narrative extinguishes the vital assortment of characters that are marginally 'Russian' in this excessive work. I would suggest reading "Crime and Punishment" for a more magnificent creating of writing.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: BEAUTIFUL TRANSLATION
Review: you don't need me to tell you this is one of the greatest works in the history of mankind. that's fairly well known (even in this dumbed-down dump of a decade). anyhow ... what isn't so well known is how indescribably beautiful this translation is. scintillating. without doubt, the version to own.


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