Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
My Belated Book Report on The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final masterpiece. It offers superb characterization, psychological depth and insight; intrigue, murder, and suspense; great daubs of humor, both madcap broadsides and satirical with a capital slice; that never-ending, cyclonical struggle between faith and reason; a sublimely Slavic melange of love, lust, deception, betrayal, violence, flight, revenge, apostasy, and redemption—capped off by a court trial scene that overrules Perry Mason and, in the renowned chapter The Grand Inquisitor, a full-court press by an impassioned Hierarch against Jesus’ abandonment of mankind to a terrifying freedom and overwhelming spiritual responsibility it neither wanted nor could manage that alone is worth the price of the book.
All right, I didn’t write the paragraph above (stole it from here), but it’s similar to what I would have cribbed from my CliffsNotes had I spent high school reading classics instead of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the D&D Monster Manual. A few years back I decided to make up for my literature deficit by reading at least one classic a year. Liked Moby Dick, loved The Kalevala, and 2016 was the year I’d finally read the book that smart people have told me to read for decades, The Brothers Karamazov. So what did I think of this, the greatest Russian novel ever written?
Eh. It was a bit of slog.
Fifty-three pages on a philosophical discussion in a monastery. Seventy-five pages on a trial’s closing arguments. Entire chapters written as a single paragraph. Referring to main characters with a blizzard of interchangeable and often unpronounceable names (Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov, aka, Alyosha, Alyoshka, Alyoshenka, Alyoshechka, Alxeichick, Lyosha, Lyoshenka). Hey, I get the Russkie tendency toward verbosity and depression, but throw me a bone here, Fyodor. Couldn’t you reward your long-suffering reader with a fun ending instead of a sick child’s funeral? At least have Alyosha/Alyoshka/Alyoshenka making out with a buxom Gypsy girl during the wake.
Look, I’m glad I read it. “The Grand Inquisitor” section was impressive. I liked the interplay of faith and reason at the dawn of the scientific age. But the main reason I’m glad I finished The Brothers Karamazov is that I get to brag to people that I read The Brothers Karamazov. I’m dropping this new fact into unrelated conversations. I preface statements about football and pizza with “As Dostoevsky said.” When others admit they never read the book, I give them a sympathetic look and say, “you really must.” And then I soak in their shame at not being a Learned Man of Letters like myself.
But, let’s face it — the book is still a slog. By page 876, Ayn Rand was mumbling, “yo, Fyodor, wrap it up already.” So I have a few suggestions for a Karamazov reboot that will make it a lot more exciting to the modern reader:
- Explosions.
- When the drunken Dmitri walks into the sunlight, he turns into a Sparkly Vampire.
- Drag race through downtown Skotoprigonyevsk.
- At least eight chapters with a “50 Shades of Grushenka” vibe.
- Have a dragon tear through the town market halfway through. Or a spaceship.
- A Quidditch match.
Let me know what you think of the most recent Great Book that you’ve read, or The Brothers Karamazov itself. And if you haven’t read it yet … you really must.
Published in Humor, Literature
In the sense of a defense of.
I started Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness last night, his autobiographical novel about growing up in Jerusalem at the end of the British Mandate, and ran across the following, which had me thinking about this discussion:
I would post a link to the Monty Python “Summarize Proust” competition sketch, but it of course won’t comply with the code of conduct.
I guess we disagree on that.
I am not willing to demonize every last member of the Confederacy for the morality of their time.
But that is a pass time from people who grew up in other parts of the country, I understand. The South, 150 years on, it appears, will always be Guilty in the eyes of everyone else.
Frankly My Dear, I don’t give a damn.
Tell you what, how about you don’t put words in my mouth. If you think I’ve mischaracterized the book, show me how. I do not demonize every member of the Confederacy, but every last one of them was in the wrong in that they were fighting for a fell cause; brilliantly and courageously, but for a cause which was not worthy of their courage or their honor. That was then. No one alive today has responsibility for that great injustice, but they are responsible for their own immoralities and a failure to recognize the wrongfulness of slavery and the wrongfulness of the fight to defend that system is immoral. And that is what I criticize Mitchell for. But if you want to tilt against windmills of your own making to avoid a debate on the merits, knock yourself out.
Frankly, I don’t give a damn.
Forgive me if I’m a bit amused that we’re about to start a bar fight in a book post.
Best book post ever.
:-)
Yeah. I feel strongly about some books, both up and down. I read GwtW shortly after visiting Andersonville. Mitchell’s lies about that crime may have influenced how strongly I feel about the book. So the emotion may be a bit over the top, but I stand by the analysis.
Yeah, but if John had covered Spillane, we’d’ve gotten down to business 40 comments earlier.
The first season on TV of “Mike Hammer” was true to form, but they totally screwed it up following that – beginning with the opening music and on through the content of the show.
The body count in Red Harvest is way higher than I, The Jury. This proves that Hammett is a superior writer than Spillane.
Well, *I* do not like the constant denigration of all things Southern by people claiming to be my moral better.
Gone With the Wind is not about the glories of slavery. It is not about the glories of battle. It does deal with how horrible war is.
Marietta has almost no old building because they were burnt to the ground. The Burning of Atlanta was a horrible event. (I am not arguing it was wrong, just bad).
But the South gave up. It did not engage in a long, protracted “5th Generation” war against a corrupt occupation (and it was corrupt). Robert E. Lee was the first man to get up in his Church and worship with a black man who entered. Robert E. Lee told his troops the war was over and to go home.
Gone with the Wind captures a time and a place and a loss of a way of life, and moving forward to the next day. It is not a pro-slavery book, or a pro-prison camp book. Or a Pro-war book.
As a native of Atlanta, it is part of our culture here. Tell me where you are from, and I assure you, I can find warts in your home’s past.
True. I love Mannett for the Glass Key, and the Cohen brothers for bringing it to life in Miller’s Crossing. I’ve seen that movie more times than I can count, and used it when I was an instructor in the SFQC. “Here’s how you learn to be the man that stands behind the man, and whispers in his ear.”
But Spillane had marketability. Marketability goes a long way.
I criticize GwtW, and you equate that with “constant denigration of all things Southern”? And please show me where I claim to be anyone’s moral better? You seem to insist on ascribing to me things I haven’t said, and then responding to those. I’m not interested in that discussion – it’s too much like debating with progressives. So I’m done.
You may have the last word.
Word.
I seem to have started the digression, er, discussion about the Confederacy with my comment about reading Gone With the Wind. That reminds me of another book, Andersonville, which I actually couldn’t finish. Not because of the subject matter, which is gruesome. But because the author hardly uses paragraph breaks or punctuation.
Those are some great quotes. Spillane sounds like a great character in his own right.
:-)