I've read the Brothers K maybe five or six times in the Constance Garnett edition--Garnett translated all the major 19th Century Russian authors, and was the first to translate Dostoevsky into English. Respect due, but her translations (re Brodsky and Nabokov) lack sensitivity to the language of the individual writers. Pevear and Volokhonsky's translations do not suffer this, and the new translation of Doestoyevsky's masterpiece is amazing. Who knew Dostoevsky was funny? But the father is funny/awful/funny/awful in the most brilliant way. Every time I read this book, it's different, because I'm different. Great literature is such a mirror that way. Doestoyevsky saved my life as a young person. The overheated claustrophobic drama that was my life found its explication.

They say that Dostoyevsky tied a girl to the tracks in the first fifty pages of every novel, and this is absolutely true of The Brothers Karamazov. A horrible, awful, hilariously dirty old man is found bludgeoned to death, and it seems one of his very different sons is the culprit. As I've aged, I've identified with different brothers--it's almost like 'which Beatle do you like the best?' When I was young it was the brooding young intellectual nihilist, Ivan. I was an "Ivan." It's Ivan who has the famous encounter with the Grand Inquisitor. Then there was the angelic son Alyosha. Can't we just get along? Great embrace of the poor, a spiritual young man, living his beliefs. Finally there's the passionate, headstrong Dmitri, who boils over and smashes things up, and is passionately in love with the questionable Grushenka--who I later identified with, (and I think is the true hero of the book). There's also an illegitimate half-brother in the wings, Smerdyakov, and even his name tells you what Dostoyevsky thinks of him--the likely product of a rape of a simple girl, a holy fool, and the grotesque senior Karamazov.

It's a great epic contest of spirit and earth, of passion and greed and everything else under the sun. If only one book were to be saved at the end of the world... to encapsulate the range of the Human Condition, who we were and what we did on earth, for me it would be a tie between the Brothers Karamazov and Ulysses.

“Until one has indeed become the brother of all, there will be no brotherhood.”

What is it about snowy weekends that gives me the urge to dive into big, fat Russian novels? I definitely enjoy sipping hot chocolate and occasionally looking up from the book and out the window to look at the snow covering everything like a thick layer of icing – and then diving back into stories set in a similar landscape. The forecast called for thirty-five centimetres of snow, so I thought the timing was perfect to pull a Dostoyevsky off my shelf.

I always thought the plot of “The Brothers Karamazov” sounded more interesting and layered than “Crime and Punishment” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... I do have a weakness for dysfunctional family stories, inherited neuroses and sibling rivalries. And I was told by many avid readers of Russian literature that this was really the magnum opus of Dostoyevsky’s rather impressive catalogue – so I was excited about getting acquainted with Dimitri, Ivan and Alexei.

“The Brothers Karamazov” is a little tough to summarize, but the broad strokes would be: three brothers reunite at their father’s house and try to sort out a family dispute involving a woman that both the father and eldest brother wish to marry, with dreadful though predictable results – which the second half of the book spends unravelling.

If you are reading this for the “murder mystery”, forget it: you will probably lapse into a coma before you get to the conclusion of the intrigue, because while there is a murder, a trial and all that none of these things are the point that Dostoyevsky is working towards. If anything, those events are merely devices that give him a good reason to dwell on plenty of other topics: spiritual starvation, the characters’ incapacity to reconcile their ideals and their urges, the value of traditional morals in a country that’s rapidly modernizing, our relationship and duty to other humans.

Given my taste for deranged characters, I am always in for a treat with Russian literature, because they certainly do not do their “bad guys”  watered down: and yet, the great writers know that a bad guy has more going on under the surface. Dostoyevsky had a wonderful talent for peeling back layers and showing you his characters’ very marrow. Those three brothers are all detestable in their own unique way, but they are also strangely lovable. Most readers seem to get very annoyed with Alexei (Alyosha), but to be fair, his innocence got on my nerves a lot less than Ivan’s self-righteous restrain or Dmitri’s truly horrible decision-making. And Katerina, urgh, Katerina! Make up your mind, for all of our sakes! Grushenka is a strange and fascinating creature, seductive and manipulative, to be sure, but her instinct to destroy is shown to be an attempt that demanding payback from a world she feels has compromised her. Her “fall” gives her the great power of feeling no responsibility whatsoever for the consequences of her schemes – but how long can that immunity last? The memoirs of elder Zosima were a fascinating little interlude and had an earnestness and a beautiful humanity: I was surprised by how much enjoyed those few pages.

As is the case with most classics written in the era, there are often long and rambling passages that while interesting, also weigh down the plot – literally and figuratively. Even if I agree with Ivan’s musings about religion having to be the result of direct experience, and not as something dictated by an organization, I thought that a 6-page paragraph on the topic was a bit long-winded. But those moments are more than made up for by the very modern psychological exploration of the relationship between father and sons, but also between brothers. None of three were really raised by Fyodor Pavlovich, but he remains a looming shadow of their lives, and his conduct bleeds a strange influence on theirs.

Just like my experience of “War & Peace” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), this was quite the immersive read, and I was happy to be snowed in and really indulge in it for a few days. It also almost ruined my wrists, because my edition of the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation is gigantic (this is another contender for a Kindle version when I’ll feel like re-reading it). Also, just like “War & Peace”, this novel is worth all the praise that’s been heaped on it. It’s a lot of work, and requires quiet and concentration, but it’s a very rewarding undertaking. It gets 4 stars instead of 5 simply because the first half sometimes felt like a chore, but as soon as I reached the midway point, it was quite a gripping read!