The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers Karamazov (?????? ?????????? in Russian) is generally considered one of the greatest novels by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and the culmination of his life's work. It has been acclaimed all over the world by authors as diverse as Sigmund Freud, Andrew R. MacAndrew, Konstantin Mochulsky, Albert Einstein and Pope Benedict XVI as a masterpiece of literature and one of the greatest novels ever written. The book is written on two levels: on the surface it is the story of a patricide in which all of the murdered man's sons share varying degrees of complicity, but on a deeper level, it is a spiritual drama of the moral struggles between faith, doubt, reason, and free will. The novel was composed mostly in Staraya Russa, which is also the main setting of the book. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger, and completed in November of 1880. The author died less than four months after publication.

Context and background

Dostoevsky began his first notes for The Brothers Karamazov in April of 1878. Several influences can be gleaned from the very early stages of the novel's genesis. The first involved the profound effect the Russian philosopher and thinker Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov had on Dostoevsky at this time of his life. Fyodorov advocated a Christianity in which human redemption and resurrection could occur on earth through sons redeeming the sins of their fathers to create human unity through a universal family. The tragedy of patricide in this novel becomes much more poignant as a result because it is a complete inversion of this ideology. The brothers in the story do not resurrect their father but instead are complicit in his murder, which in itself represents complete human disunity for Dostoevsky.

Related Topics:
1878 - Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov - Christianity - Patricide

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Though religion and philosophy profoundly influenced Dostoevsky in his life and in The Brothers Karamazov, a much more personal tragedy altered the course of this work. In May of 1878 Dostoevsky's novel was interrupted by the death of his three-year-old son Alyosha. As tragic as this would be under any circumstances, Alyosha's death was especially devastating for Dostoevsky because the child died of epilepsy, a condition he inherited from his father. The novelist's grief for his young son is readily apparent throughout the book; Dostoevsky made Alyosha the name of the stated hero of the novel, as well as imbuing him with all of the qualities he himself most admired and sought after. This heartbreak also appears in the novel as the story of Captain Snegiryov and his young son Ilyushechka.

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A very personal experience also influenced Dostoevsky's choice for a patricide to dominate the external action of the novel. While serving his katorga (forced labor) sentence in Siberia for circulating politically subversive texts in the 1850s, Dostoevsky encountered the young man Ilyinsky who had been convicted of killing his father to acquire an inheritance. Nearly ten years after this encounter Dostoevsky learned that Ilyinsky had been falsely convicted and later exonerated when the actual murderer confessed to the crime. The impact of this encounter on the author is readily apparent in the novel, as it serves as much of the driving force for the plot. Many of the physical and emotional characteristics of the character Dmitri Karamazov are closely paralleled to those of Ilyinsky.

Related Topics:
Katorga - Siberia - 1850s

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Structure

Although it was written in the 19th century, The Brothers Karamazov displays a number of modern elements. Dostoevsky composed the book with a variety of literary techniques that led many of his critics to characterize his work as "slipshod." The most poignant example that comes across to the reader is the omniscient narrator. Though he is privy to many of the thoughts and feelings of the protagonists, he is a self-proclaimed writer, and characterizes his own mannerisms so often throughout the novel that he becomes a character himself. Through his descriptions the narrator's voice merges imperceptively into the tone of the people he is describing. Thus there is no voice of authority in the story.

Related Topics:
19th century - Modern - Omniscient narrator - Protagonist - Tone

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Speech is another technique that Dostoevsky uniquely employs in this work. Every character has a unique manner of speaking which expresses much of the inner personality of each person. For example, "The attorney Fetyukovich habitually says 'robbed' when he means 'stolen', and at one point declares five possible suspects in the murder 'completely irresponsible.' " Thus the reader can perceive that this attorney is attempting to sound more learned than he really is and uses words incorrectly as a result. The novel also digresses from the plot a number of times to provide insight into other characters that may not even initially seem important to the reader. The narrative in book 6 is almost entirely devoted to the story of Zosima's biography which in itself contains a confession from a man Zosima met many years before who has nothing at all to do with the events chronicled in the main plot.

Related Topics:
Attorney - Biography - Confession

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Translation

The diverse array of literary techniques and distinct voices in the novel makes choosing a good translation of great importance. The Brothers Karamazov has been translated from the original Russian into a number of languages. In English, the translation by Constance Garnett probably continues to be the most widely read. However, some have criticized Garnett for taking too much liberty with Dostoevsky's text while translating the novel in a Victorian manner. A case in point is that in Garnett's translation the lower class characters speak in Cockney English. This is obviously a matter of personal preference so it would serve the reader well to sample many translations before deciding on a particular text. In 1990 Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky released a new translation that strove to come closer to the stylistic quality of the original and has been met with much critical and academic acclaim from such sources as The New York Times and the University of Illinois.

Related Topics:
Translation - English - Constance Garnett - Victorian - Cockney - 1990 - The New York Times - University of Illinois

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