The Brothers Karamazov

[Akita Suggagaki]

Anyone still reading? I just finished The Grand Inquisitor chapter.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

“Don't cry, mother,” he would answer, “life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we won't see it, if we would, we should have heaven on earth the next day.”

“And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own sins, you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful how you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in very truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a dream, but a living reality.”

 

[Irkle Berserkle]

I read Karamazov when I was 16 on my own initiative and have read it a couple more times since then. The Grand Inquisitor chapter was assigned in one of my college Philosophy classes. I also have the Russian language mini-series, which is 8 or 9 hours. One of the beauties of the Russian mini-series is that they faithfully track the entire book, including the Grand Inquisitor chapter. If you've seen the mini-series, you've effectively read the book. (This is true of all Russian mini-series. Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, which also has a heavy Christian theme, is practically psychedelic and seems like it would be impossible to film, but the mini-series is astonishingly faithful.)

Slightly off the topic, but Leo Tolstoy's writings on Christianity are also extremely profound.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

I read Karamazov when I was 16 on my own initiative and have read it a couple more times since then. The Grand Inquisitor chapter was assigned in one of my college Philosophy classes. I also have the Russian language mini-series, which is 8 or 9 hours. One of the beauties of the Russian mini-series is that they faithfully track the entire book, including the Grand Inquisitor chapter. If you've seen the mini-series, you've effectively read the book. (This is true of all Russian mini-series. Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, which also has a heavy Christian theme, is practically psychedelic and seems like it would be impossible to film, but the mini-series is astonishingly faithful.)

Slightly off the topic, but Leo Tolstoy's writings on Christianity are also extremely profound.

This one?

I think I might try Anna Karenna next...or The Idiot.

 

[Irkle Berserkle]

This one?

I think I might try Anna Karenna next...or The Idiot.

Yes, that's it. The casting and acting are excellent.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Yes, that's it. The casting and acting are excellent.

It is good to see the words in the book come to life.

 

[Eftsoon]

I'm glad this thread exists, I'm on a sabbatical from politically oriented threads. I've read this twice, and it isn't the religious themes that stay with me, it's the intensity of the human drama. The mutually assured destruction between the brothers and their father is haunting. I suppose that is part of the religious fabric of the novel.

Dostoevsky wants to show a world which has fallen into decay. In a way, their gift for dysfunction is reminscent of some of the relationships in the early OT. The period immediately after Eden is the lowest point for human relations. The level of dysfunction is off the charts.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Thanks for your interest, Eftsoon. I am now at the trial. he makes it sound like O.J. Simpson trial, media frenzy of the time. There are sure some dark characters, Lise, Smerdyakov.

Mitya says something interesting, “You see, I never had any of these doubts before, but it was all hidden away in me. It was perhaps just because ideas I did not understand were surging up in me, that I used to drink and fight and rage. It was to stifle them in myself, to still them, to smother them."

Kind of like is father. So we see some growing self insight in him.

But another thing that Mitya says (I cant find it now) recalling something that Fr Zosima says his elder brother says, "“Mother, little heart of mine,” he said (he had begun using such strange caressing words at that time), “little heart of mine, my joy, believe me, every one is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything. I don't know how to explain it to you, but I feel it is so, painfully even. And how is it we went on then living, getting angry and not knowing?” p. 364 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/old/28054-pdf.pdf


That, "...every one is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything." It sounds like an essential part of Dostoyesky's view. I am thinkin I will read The Idiot after this.

 

[Eftsoon]

Thanks @Akita Suggagaki ! Right after your first quote, he says:

Rakitin says that one can love humanity without God. Well, only a sniveling idiot can maintain that...if He doesn't exist, man is the chief of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God? That's the question

Without God man is bestial and incapable of love. TBK kind of gives us a glimpse of a godless world. The inversions and perversions are indicative of this.

I think, in a sense, the novel follows Mitya's individuation from his father. He spends the novel at war with his father, but as the novel goes on he begins to resemble him more and more. Their war brings out the worst in them.

 

[Tom 1]

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 enjoyed it but it was so long ago I can’t exactly remember why. What stuck in my head most was the anecdote the atheist brother tells about the church’s reaction to Christ returning (this is a story in the story, not part of the plot), but if you haven’t read that yet I won’t spoil it. If you like the moving descriptions of life in rural Russia, like the sub plot about the schoolboys and the dog, you might like Yevtushenko’s poetry too.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Thanks @Akita Suggagaki ! Right after your first quote, he says:


Without God man is bestial and incapable of love. TBK kind of gives us a glimpse of a godless world. The inversions and perversions are indicative of this.

I think, in a sense, the novel follows Mitya's individuation from his father. He spends the novel at war with his father, but as the novel goes on he begins to resemble him more and more. Their war brings out the worst in them.

Yes, i see some transformation about the time of the murder, when he goes to Grushenka with a feast willing to give her up for her o happiness. Then also in prison. i am eager to finish.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

I enjoyed it but it was so long ago I can’t exactly remember why. What stuck in my head most was the anecdote the atheist brother tells about the church’s reaction to Christ returning (this is a story in the story, not part of the plot), but if you haven’t read that yet I won’t spoil it. If you like the moving descriptions of life in rural Russia, like the sub plot about the schoolboys and the dog, you might like Yevtushenko’s poetry too.

The Grand Inquisitor is that story. There is a lot to think about in that story. The 3 temptations of Christ in the desert, for example. And the whole thing about freedom and hoe people do not ant the burden of freedom. very existential. And would rather hand it over to church authority.

 

[Eftsoon]

Yes, i see some transformation about the time of the murder, when he goes to Grushenka with a feast willing to give her up for her o happiness. Then also in prison. i am eager to finish.

It's Christian redemption through and through. I look forward to hearing more of your insights.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

I loved the final words of Aloysha to his younger friends to close the novel. And the fate of Mitya is still uncertain. Great book.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

I am into The Idiot now. Main character is in some ways like Alyosha Karamazov.

Always some strong, puzzling women.