The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is a story of patricide, murder, and moral and spiritual redemption. The novel follows the lives of three brothers, Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha Karamazov, and their father, Fyodor Karamazov. Fyodor is a wealthy landowner who is known for his debauchery and lack of moral responsibility. He has three sons from two different women, and he treats them all differently. Dmitri is the eldest son and is passionate and impulsive. He is in love with a woman named Katerina, but his father is determined to marry her off to someone else. Ivan is the middle son and is a rationalist and intellectual. He is deeply troubled by the moral and spiritual questions of life. Alyosha is the youngest son and is a spiritual seeker. He is devoted to his spiritual mentor, Father Zosima, and is determined to follow his teachings. The novel follows the brothers as they struggle to come to terms with their father's behavior and their own personal issues. As the story progresses, a murder is committed and the brothers are all implicated in the crime. The novel culminates in a trial where the brothers must face the consequences of their actions. In the end, the brothers are reconciled and Alyosha is able to find spiritual redemption.

By Fyodor Dostoevsky · First published 1879 · Genre: Philosophical Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Drama · 60 chapters · 350,533 words

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Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this "landowner" -- for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estate -- was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest; he ran to dine at other men's tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupidity -- the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough -- but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it.

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1533-1917 · Best Books Ever Listings · Brothers · Didactic fiction · Fathers and sons · Fiction · Historical Novel · Novel · Russia · Social life and customs · alyosha · brother

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