Product Description

A tragedy of Shakespearean force and intensity, Dostoyevsky's drama of parricide and family rivalry chronicles the murder of depraved landowner Fyodor Karamazov and the subsequent investigation and trial. Extensive notes explain the many literary and topical allusions and provide background information.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1792689 in Books
• Published on: 1986-08-05
• Original language: Russian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

Review
The final novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, first published as Bratya Karamazovy in 1879-80, and generally considered to be his masterpiece. It is the story of Fyodor Karamazov and his sons Alyosha, Dmitry, and Ivan. It is also a story of patricide, into the sordid unfolding of which Dostoyevsky introduces a love-hate struggle with profound psychological and spiritual implications. Throughout the whole novel there persists a search for faith, for God--the central idea of the work. The dramatization of Ivan's repudiation of God is concentrated in the famous "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor." A response to Ivan is contained in the preaching of the monk Zosima that the secret of universal harmony is not achieved by the mind but by the heart. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Review
“[Dostoevsky is] at once the most literary and compulsively readable of novelists we continue to regard as great . . . The Brothers Karamazov stands as the culmination of his art–his last, longest, richest, and most capacious book. [This] scrupulous rendition can only be welcomed. It returns us to a work we thought we knew, subtly altered and so made new again.” –Washington Post Book World

“A miracle . . . Every page of the new Karamazov is a permanent standard, and an inspiration.” –The Times (London)

“One finally gets the musical whole of Dostoevsky’s original.” –New York Times Book Review

“Absolutely faithful . . . Fulfills in remarkable measure most of the criteria for an ideal translation . . . The stylistic accuracy and versatility of registers used . . . bring out the richness and depth of the original in a way similar to a faithful and sensitive restoration of a painting.” –The Independent

“It may well be that Dostoevsky’s [world], with all its resourceful energies of life and language, is only now–and through the medium of [this] new translation–beginning to come home to the English-speaking reader.” –New York Review of Books

“Heartily recommended to any reader who wishes to come as close to Dostoevsky’s Russian as it is possible.” –Joseph Frank, Princeton University

With an Introduction by Malcolm V. Jones

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Russian

Customer Reviews

A dark, affecting look at man's soul (or lack thereof)
In his most comprehensive (and not coincidentally, his final) masterpiece, Dostoyevsky addresses and discusses a number of the most fundamental and universal issues which face man. His multiple perspectives are embodied in seperate characters -- taken together, these characters form the whole of the Karamazov family, and these perspectives constitute the whole of Dostoyevsky's view.

Each of the brothers represents a distinct school of thought or values -- the impulsive Dmitri portrays the instinctive and carnal desires of man; the nihilist, Ivan, displays the cold and unforgiving intellectual, governed by the rules of logic alone; the religious Alyosha, student to the Great Elder Zossima, depicts the humble and devout spiritualist. While the murder of their father, Fyodor Karamazov, is the catalyst to the real action of the book, it is certainly not the central focus -- a fact that might be surmised in light of the fact that the murder is not carried out until more than halfway through the text.

Instead, the work is a discussion and analysis of man's values and beliefs, and an affirmation of Dostoyevsky's fundamental conviction: that the presence of the human spirit cannot be denied without disastrous results, and that despite the assertions of the nihilists, God is a necessary element in the world of man.

get the Andrew MacAndrew translation
Andrew MacAndrew's translation of the "Brothers Karamazov" (1970; the one that's been used for the past couple of decades for the Bantam paperback) is, I submit, far and away the best that has been done into English since Dostoevsky's book was published in about 1880. It reads naturally and does not contain too much slang.

NOTES ON OTHER TRANSLATIONS:

* The translation by Constance Garnett (many editions): Avoid it! High-toned and dense. Will make reading "The Brothers Karamazov" far more difficult than it has to be. People who are into Dostoevsky really detest this translation: it's tough going: stale and stuffy throughout. When will this thing die?

* The Pevear and Volokhonsky version (ISBN: 0374528373). Several scholars of Dostoevsky have come out saying this is the "most faithful" translation to date, as the book's jacket does not neglect to point out. However, other equally well-respected scholars have complained that it is breezy and inaccurate.

* The David MacDuff job (Penguin, ISBN: 0140449248). Serviceable but not sparkling. Also a bit slangy. It does, however, do a great job with the footnotes.

* The Ignat Avsey effort (Oxford World Classics: ISBN: 0192835092). I confess to never having negotiated this particular one, and can only warn you that it, like Garnett's above, is British English.

* There is another edition I'm aware of: The translation by Louis Hechenbleikner and the Princess Alexandra Kropotkin, which first came out in 1949 and for which W. Somerset Maugham wrote the introduction. The translation has a fair reputation, but the problem is that it is so thoroughly out of print that you'd probably have to search through rare book shops to find it.

Bottom line: MacAndrew's read most swiftly and naturally for me. It's like you're not even reading something that has been translated!

(Note that Amazon's page on the MacAndrew edition The Brothers Karamazov (Bantam Classics) gives the impression, at least in declaring that the book is "by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Konstantin Mochulsky" that Konstantin Mochulski is the translator. Not the case: Mochulsky merely wrote the 10-page introduction. The translator is still Andrew MacAndrew.)

Anyhow. Happy reading, folks!

The Fulfillment of Artistic Vision
"I would die happy if I could finish this final novel, for I would have then expressed myself completely."

This statement from Fyodor Dostoyevsky helps elucidate both the theme and purpose of the The Brothers Karamazov, one of the greatest masterpieces of world literature. Superficially, the novel deals with a patricide and how each of the book's characters contributed directly or indirectly to that murder.

Yet, The Brothers Karamazov, at its heart, is so much more. Its underlying theme deals with the drive for self-redemption in the eyes of both God and man and the role suffering plays in facilitating that redemption.

Fyodor Karamazov has fathered four sons, Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha, by two wives, and one, Smerdyakov, with a peasant woman known as stinking Lizaveta.

Fyodor Karamazov, a vulgar and ill-tempered man represents, for Dostoyevsky, the Russian government of his times. Like the government, Fyodor shuns his children, preferring instead the materialistic, but joyless, life of wealth and possessions. His union with Lizaveta, who comes to represent all the peasants of Dostoyevsky's Russia, produces Smerdyakov, a bastard child who, in his own turn, will be raped and pillaged by the government and will go on to give birth, metaphorically, to bastard children of his own.

Karamazov's eldest son, Dmitri, an impulsive sensualist, finds respect as an overbearing soldier but one whose inability to pay his debts eventually turns him into a poor and irrational man.

Ivan, Fyodor's second son, is a cold intellectual who finds his fulfillment in his literary and creative abilities. He becomes famous through his writings, especially those concerning the Russian Church.

The youngest son, Aloysha, finds temporary fulfillment in the cloistered, monastic life. Outwardly innocent and naive, Aloysha struggles with his desire for spiritual fulfillment in the monastery and the joys and excitement of the secular life.

The character who provides the catalyst for change is that of Father Zosima, a character who seems to embody the strong spiritual sense that was Dostoyevsky, himself.

Father Zosima, who has lived a pure and spiritually-nourishing life, has the gift to sense both a man's motivations and his needs. Zosima tells the brothers Karamazov that a sheltered, monastic life is not a prerequisite to the achievement of spiritual riches, a fact that seems to be proven true when Zosima's corpse rots after his death in direct contradiction to Russian belief at the times regarding spiritual purity.

It is Father Zosima who, throughout the book, expounds Dostoyevsky's theory that it is suffering that will purify and cleanse our soul, thus bringing us peace. Each brother, in his own fashion, undergoes his own trial by fire, and, in the end, is better for it.

One brother, tormented by a guilt he does not deserve, must live his life in unwanted exile, or not at all, though he possesses the heart and soul of a true Russian. Another suffers the torments of a complete nervous breakdown that leaves him grappling on the very edge of sanity. Only a third son seems to find the answer he is seeking and the novel's uplifting final scene epitomizes Dostoyevsky's eternal belief in the importance of Russia's children in her future, as children hold their hands high and shout, "Three cheers for Karamazov," ending this essentially depressing masterpiece on a joyous note.

An extraordinarily complex and rich novel, The Brothers Karamozov also deals with man's response to death. All of the characters, each in his own way, attempts to flee from death and only those who can finally accept the finality of death and the suffering of living find justification and fulfillment in life.

Dostoyevsky uses many stylistic devices to expound upon his theme of redemption through suffering: imagery, irony and dreams are three of the most prominent, however, it is Dostoyevsky's wonderful ability to manipulate the third person subjective that serves to illuminate each character and bring him to life.

The Brothers Karamazov is a book that delves deeply into the heart of man and the soul of Russia. Dostoyevsky, as any true artist, presented facets of himself in all of his characters who each manages to see the world in a different way and finds redemption through his own unique vision.

Ironically, one of the brothers Karamazov is portrayed as a young man who begins to instill the seeds of change in Russia through its children, something Dostoyevsky, himself, thought was needed if Russia was ever to make the transition from a backward country to a global power. That it did, although the children Dostoyevsky envisioned as spiritual visionaries became instead, violent revolutionaries. They sought to free the peasants, not through enlightenment but through the establishment of a totalitarian state Peter the Great would have envied. Today, however, Russia tragically lies amidst the same poverty in which it was dwelling one hundred years earlier.

Clearly, Dostoyevsky's path to enlightenment, illuminated brilliantly in The Brothers Karamazov, has not yet been fully assimilated by either the people of Russia or the people of the world in general.

A sad and ironic twist to the vision of a master writer and a truly prophetic man.