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A review by brandonpytel
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3.0
This book is generally a slog, but after you get past all the scene setting in the first 200 pages or so, it really starts to pick up. I should probably know more about Russian history and literature before making that hot take, but such is life. Overall, I’m glad I read it if only for its cultural relevancy, but also for the fact that I can now confidently read The Brothers K by David James Duncan without letting any references slip by.
Very few of the characters here are that redeemable: The father, Fyodor, is loud, drunken, and a terrible dad to his three sons, pretty much outcasting them from their childhood. His three sons – Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha – are all flawed in their own way, which isn’t a problem in itself, other than their personalities are sometimes flawed to the point where they’re dislikable, most notably Dmitri, who though he seems innocent and sincere, is still a scoundrel and untrustworthy in his loose ways with other people’s money.
Ivan may be the most interesting, in that he has a radical and sympathetic arc, at first a bit off-putting with his intellectual arrogance, but then tormented to madness by the effect his views have on others, most notably his father’s potential killer. And then there’s Alyosha, who just kinda drifts along, a bit boring, and a bit straight and narrow with his religious ties and his looking up to this old priest.
But overall, the Brothers K is a novel of torment, suffering, unrequited love, and love triangles – maybe one of the first sad boy novels. The strain of the three sons and their relationship with each other and their father carries throughout the book, causing continuous suffering and despair, ultimately becoming a novel of law and order, life and death, freewill and destiny, past and future, good and evil, and truth. These big ideas are what makes this novel what it is. But I can’t really say I enjoyed it much from a purely casual reading standpoint.
Very few of the characters here are that redeemable: The father, Fyodor, is loud, drunken, and a terrible dad to his three sons, pretty much outcasting them from their childhood. His three sons – Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha – are all flawed in their own way, which isn’t a problem in itself, other than their personalities are sometimes flawed to the point where they’re dislikable, most notably Dmitri, who though he seems innocent and sincere, is still a scoundrel and untrustworthy in his loose ways with other people’s money.
Ivan may be the most interesting, in that he has a radical and sympathetic arc, at first a bit off-putting with his intellectual arrogance, but then tormented to madness by the effect his views have on others, most notably his father’s potential killer. And then there’s Alyosha, who just kinda drifts along, a bit boring, and a bit straight and narrow with his religious ties and his looking up to this old priest.
But overall, the Brothers K is a novel of torment, suffering, unrequited love, and love triangles – maybe one of the first sad boy novels. The strain of the three sons and their relationship with each other and their father carries throughout the book, causing continuous suffering and despair, ultimately becoming a novel of law and order, life and death, freewill and destiny, past and future, good and evil, and truth. These big ideas are what makes this novel what it is. But I can’t really say I enjoyed it much from a purely casual reading standpoint.