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A review by _first_but_not_foremost
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4.0
With each rereading, I find myself asking new questions. Might there actually be a god? Is righteous direction and a sound mind superior to a wealthy education? Are all men of existential ideas truly unhappy? There are so many questions and defiant contradictions in *The Brothers Karamazov* that you find yourself repeatedly questioning the reason behind all supercilious acts of glory, and the untouchable philosophies of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Foucault. I could rave forever about the wealth of knowledge and the cunning (yet equally devastating) punishments of Ivan Karamazov, leading into the infamous "Ivan's Nightmare" chapter, easily the most chilling chapter in the timeline, with an ending so spine-tingling that I almost crashed my Chrysler Town & Country into an oddly-placed mailbox upon my first listening.
Yet there's much more to this novel than just its chilling narrative. I relate heavily to the incoherent and blind lifestyle that Dimitri indulges in and tiptoe into the intellectual rumblings of the paranoid Ivan. What am I to do about reputation, and is it escapable? Is the inevitable consequence of societal influence all by design, so that I, too, might suffer from brain fever (the 19th-century nickname for schizophrenia), dance around my room, converse with the devil, and be frightened by the weight of the world?
But despite the frightening consequences of sensualism, hope rests in the faith, the "memory," as Alyosha would have it, that this moment here occurred. The fact that, despite everything, I've completed this story many times, even having the energy to journal my thoughts in this review.
And if my world were to collapse completely, here it would remain—the comprehensive proof that they struggled for a better life, the final, indefinite, unmovable token of brilliance.
"Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don't be afraid of life! How good life is when one does something good and just!"
Yet there's much more to this novel than just its chilling narrative. I relate heavily to the incoherent and blind lifestyle that Dimitri indulges in and tiptoe into the intellectual rumblings of the paranoid Ivan. What am I to do about reputation, and is it escapable? Is the inevitable consequence of societal influence all by design, so that I, too, might suffer from brain fever (the 19th-century nickname for schizophrenia), dance around my room, converse with the devil, and be frightened by the weight of the world?
But despite the frightening consequences of sensualism, hope rests in the faith, the "memory," as Alyosha would have it, that this moment here occurred. The fact that, despite everything, I've completed this story many times, even having the energy to journal my thoughts in this review.
And if my world were to collapse completely, here it would remain—the comprehensive proof that they struggled for a better life, the final, indefinite, unmovable token of brilliance.
"Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don't be afraid of life! How good life is when one does something good and just!"