And finally here we are, the
book that stayed with me for pretty much a month! In the words of Coldplay “Nobody
said it was easy”, but it was in the end so very worth it. I honestly thought
this was going to be one of those books that I would read just for the sake of
saying that I have done so, but I was wrong.
The Brothers Karamazov ended up being way less philosophical than what I was
fearing and just plain enjoyable – every single character is interesting, deep,
and troubled in his/her own way and the fact that some of their ideas and
feelings remain hidden for hundreds of pages adds to the interest of the novel.
Well, I said every single character is interesting, but I actually meant “almost
every single character” as I found Alyosha to be simply too saintly (even more
so than his own spiritual father).
Maybe I’m just reading too
much into it, but since there is a break in the narrative as Karamazov Sr gets
killed (sorry for the spoiler, but also my own Wordsworth Classics edition
mentioned the event on its back-cover!) are we sure that Dimitri is ultimately
innocent and that Smerdyakov did the deed? I mean, can we really trust
Smerdyakov’s own confession? Possibly I’m the one who’s being too philosophical
now…
And again, speaking of me
reading a bit too much into it, I actually wonder whether the fairly open
finale means that Dostoevsky actually thought that at some point he might write
something on the lives of the Karamazovs and their women after Dimitri’s “departure”.
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