The Brothers Karamazov

GreekOrthodox

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I just started reading the novel on my ipad. Excellent on the treadmill or waiting in doctor office. Anyone care to join me and discuss it?

Ill be up for giving it another try. Ive tried reading it a few times but get bored with it a few chapters in. Maybe having someone to discuss it with might make it more interesting.
 
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durangodawood

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Oh man. I read it twice but that was forever ago.

For all Bros K readers... I suggest looking up UC Berkeley Philosophy class called Existentialism in Literature and Film, by the late Hubert Dreyfus. Full semesters of lecture are online somewhere, and I recall them providing excellent insights into the book and highlight some themes to look out for.

I like the idea of an uninitiated mind.... but sometimes it really helps to have a guide if its a good one.
 
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Ophiolite

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Like @GreekOrthodox I have tried reading it more than once. I have it in a two volume paperback version and did manage to get through volume one, but that was several years back. I made a restart a couple of months ago, but stalled when other issues (and easier to read novels) intervened.

Motivated by your post I may have a look at it tomorrow and see if I can make headway. If you never hear from me again you will know my willpower failed! :)
 
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public hermit

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I just started reading the novel on my ipad. Excellent on the treadmill or waiting in doctor office. Anyone care to join me and discuss it?

I didn't realize I wasn't alone on this. I've been trying to read my copy for years, and I'm about half way through. I would be interested.
 
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durangodawood

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Oh man. I read it twice but that was forever ago.

For all Bros K readers... I suggest looking up UC Berkeley Philosophy class called Existentialism in Literature and Film, by the late Hubert Dreyfus. Full semesters of lecture are online somewhere, and I recall them providing excellent insights into the book and highlight some themes to look out for.

I like the idea of an uninitiated mind.... but sometimes it really helps to have a guide if its a good one.
I did the same thing with Moby Dick. Was turned on by a Dreyfus class I podcasted in which 5 or so of the lectures concerned the book. Incredibly valuable.
 
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Akita Suggagaki

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Akita Suggagaki

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what Dreyfus says about "self" can be said about all literary characters. They are ways of being a human...of being a "self" and degrees of awareness of being a self. His comments on the many names of each brother is also something else to look out for.

I like the "both versions are true" theme.
 
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durangodawood

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what Dreyfus says about "self" can be said about all literary characters. They are ways of being a human...of being a "self" and degrees of awareness of being a self. His comments on the many names of each brother is also something else to look out for.

I like the "both versions are true" theme.
Awesome. Its been so long since this experience that I forgotten almost everything about it except for my sense that it was valuable somehow. I may have to put Bros K on the reading list again.

What translation are you reading?
 
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GreekOrthodox

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Akita Suggagaki

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Just started the introduction from my dad's copy from 1950 :)

Cool. You even get the old book aroma.

"Ivan Fyodorovitch published in one of the more important journals a strange article, which attracted general notice, on a subject of which he might have been supposed to know nothing, as he was a student of natural science. The article dealt with a subject which was being debated everywhere at the time⁠—the position of the ecclesiastical courts."

Anyone have a clue about what the position of the ecclesiastical courts was all about?
 
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Akita Suggagaki

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So I am taking this slowly. It may take me at least a year. I am with them in Fr Zosima's cell.
Fyodor is quite a character and he is at odds with Dimitri as well as Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov. (the first part of the middle name is the name of the father.) I can understand Dimitri. He thought he was entitled to some wealth and Fyodor disappointed him. Pyotr is the cousin of his dead first wife. Fyodor really reveals much of himself in this meeting. Alexie is mortified by their behavior.

There has been some reference to mid 19th century Russian Liberalism. I am trying to get a clue on that.
 
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Akita Suggagaki

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What can one say to an "ill-natured buffoon"?

Fr. Zosimas said,

"Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to inappropriate behavior with animals in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill⁠—he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But get up, sit down, I beg you. All this, too, is deceitful posturing.⁠ ⁠…”
 
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Akita Suggagaki

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"There is silent and long-suffering sorrow to be met with among the peasantry. It withdraws into itself and is still. But there is a grief that breaks out, and from that minute it bursts into tears and finds vent in wailing. This is particularly common with women. But it is no lighter a grief than the silent. Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to reopen the wound."

Goodness!
 
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Akita Suggagaki

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Elder Zosimas and how to increase faith.

“By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain.”
 
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Zosima speaking to Peasant Women Who Have Faith:


"There is silent and long-suffering sorrow to be met with among the peasantry. It withdraws into itself and is still. But there is a grief that breaks out, and from that minute it bursts into tears and finds vent in wailing. This is particularly common with women. But it is no lighter a grief than the silent. Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to reopen the wound.

“It is Rachel of old,” said the elder, “weeping for her children, and will not be comforted because they are not. Such is the lot set on earth for you mothers. Be not comforted. Consolation is not what you need. Weep and be not consoled, but weep. Only every time that you weep be sure to remember that your little son is one of the angels of God, that he looks down from there at you and sees you, and rejoices at your tears, and points at them to the Lord God; and a long while yet will you keep that great mother's grief. But it will turn in the end into quiet joy, and your bitter tears will be only tears of tender sorrow that purifies the heart and delivers it from sin."

"Grief that does not desire consolation". I wonder if that is really all grief. And perhaps it does purify the heart. I don't know.
 
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