I believe it came to my attention on a list of further books to read on Christian spirituality. And it was a classic and free on my e-reader. So I downloaded it and waited until I had a slot in my leisure reading time.
I have to say it was a hard book to get into. First of all, everyone has long Russian names, not one but two - a formal one like Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov and then a nickname, Mitya in the case of Dmitri. So you have to remember that Alexey Fyodoroitch Karamazov is Alyosha, and Ivan Karamazov is well, for the life of me I can not find his full name.
Both Ivan and Mitya have loved Katya (Katherina) at various times. And both Mitya and his father Fyodor are vying for the attention of Grushenka (aka Agrafena Aleandrovna).
So it takes a long while to get into, but then at over 700 pages you have time to get to know the characters and once you do, then the plot finally picks up as well.
I have to say I found the writing style to be fairly non-linear and almost post-modern, with lots of looping around that made me think of the TV series "Lost". there were heavy hints that THIS piece of information is going to become very important in the future. Characters were introduced and you were given an initial (often unfavorable) impression of them and then later you had an entire chapter devoted to their backstory revealing much more complex personalities. As in Lost, you also had characters that came to a sort of redemption or bettering of themselves as the story played out. And you had at least one character who was saw people who were not there (the devil in this case).
The story is painted against the backdrop of Russia in the 1870s. Most of the characters are of the nobility but have interactions with "the peasants". Social change is afoot and people fear that. Socialism, atheism, . . .
One theme is that of community vs individualism and encroaching industrialization.
"All mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, ‘How strong I am now and how secure,’ and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light."The story is centered around the three brothers, Ivan, Mitya, Alyosha, each abandoned and neglected by their father in youth and eventually brought back into his sphere of influence. They are archetypical characters. Alyosha, the youngest, begins the story in a monastery. He has a strong faith, always believes the best of those around him and brings out the best in them. I found myself wanting to know more of his story.
Ivan, the oldest, is most like his father, selfish and also given over to atheism and the idea that "everything is lawful".
Mitya (Dimitri) is somewhere in the middle. He usually falls prey to his baser nature. He has never worked an honest day in his life and lives on handouts from his father and others, and bounces back and forth between 2 women, alcohol and wild schemes, eventually becoming involved in the central plot element - parricide, but did he do it and can he, as a person be saved?
There are great spiritual nuggets tucked away in the descriptions of the spiritual life of the monastery, and Father Zossima, who ends up being a side character. He describes the first stirring of his faith when at 8 years, he goes to mass for the first time:
I remember to-day, as though I saw it now, how the incense rose from the censer and softly floated upwards and, overhead in the cupola, mingled in rising waves with the sunlight that streamed in at the little window. I was stirred by the sight, and for the first time in my life I consciously received the seed of God's word in my heart. (p.319)After Father Zossima dies, Alyosha dozes off while another priest is reading the story of the wedding at Cana. Bits of the story of Jesus turning the water into wine filter into his dream, where he sees Father Zossima at the banquet table at THE Wedding Feast, the Wedding Feat of the Lamb.
“We are rejoicing,” the little, thin old man went on. “We are drinking the new wine, the wine of new, great gladness; do you see how many guests? Here are the bride and bridegroom, here is the wise governor of the feast, he is tasting the new wine. ..."Father Zossima invites Alyosha, in his vision, to lift his eyes to Him who is at the head of the table, but Alyosha is afraid.
“Do not fear Him. He is terrible in His greatness, awful in His sublimity, but infinitely merciful. He has made Himself like unto us from love and rejoices with us. He is changing the water into wine that the gladness of the guests may not be cut short. He is expecting new guests, He is calling new ones unceasingly for ever and ever.... There they are bringing new wine. Do you see they are bringing the vessels....” (p. 403)What a rapturous picture of the Kingdom of Heaven, both on earth and above, with Jesus inviting people to the table and providing the wine of joy and gladness that is missing in our lives.
The book does bog down at points, but once you are into it, the story really pulls you along to the very end. It does suffer from the pacing so common in books written in the 1700 and 1800s when people sat indoors for months on end in the cold winter months, with nothing to do but read (and write) books with several volumes, and entire chapters devoted to side characters.
All in all, I enjoyed the book, the characters and the picture into life and society in Russia and a decent mystery and courtroom drama, as well.
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