The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist often acknowledged by critics as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in World Literature. Dostoyevsky's literary works explored human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. Considered by many as a founder or precursor of 20th-century existentialism Dostoyevsky wrote, with the embittered voice of the anonymous "underground man", Notes from Underground (1864), which was called the "best overture for existentialism ever written" by Walter Kaufmann. He is known for his other novels like Crime and Punishment, The idiot and the novellas The Gambler and Poor Folk. This review however shall focus on his last and and in my view the most ambitious of all works - The Brothers Karamazov; a work to which he devoted his life and soul but was nevertheless destined to die before its completion.The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploitation
of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving Karamazov and his three sons- the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy young novice Aloysha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the social and spiritual strivings in what was both a golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.The Brothers Karamazov is a joyful book. Readers who know what is "about" may find this an intolerably whimsical statement. It does have moments of joy, but they are only moments; the rest is greed, lust, squalor, unredeemed suffering, and a sometimes terrifying darkness. But the book is joyful in another sense: in its energy and curiosity, in its formal inventiveness, in the mystery of its writing. And therefore finally, in its vision.This paradox is not peculiar to The Brothers Karamazov. The manner of the Brothers Karamazov is essentially comic, as opposed to its matter and its humor erupts at the most unexp
ected moments. It is a comedy of style which, again paradoxically, in no way detracts from the realism "in the highest sense" that Dostoevsky claimed as the principle of his art. The seriousness of the art is not the same as the seriousness of philosophy, or the seriousness of injustice.This acclaimed last and magnificent level does justice to all its levels of artistry and invention: as murder mystery, black comedy, pioneering work of psychological realism, and enduring statement about freedom, sin and suffering.It is perhaps apt to end this brief exploration with the words of Dostoevsky himself"The underground, the underground, the poet of the underground- the feuilletonists keep repeating it as though there were something demeaning in it for me. The little fools. The is my glory, because truth is here." -- Fyodor Dostoevsky in Notes from Underground

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