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Shvoong Home>Books>Classic Literature>The Brothers Karamazov Summary

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The Brothers Karamazov

Book Abstract by: WillaLinstrom    

Original Author: Fyodor Dostoyevski
  • Summary rating: 4 stars (2 Ratings)
  • Visits : 87
  • words:900 
  • Comments : 0
THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Constance Garnett, The Modern Library - New York,
Publisher Random House.  Printed by Parkway Printing Company and bound by H Wold. This edition, for which I paid less than fifty cents at a second hand bookshop, has no date or ISBN No, is excellently bound with high quality craftsmanship. It is a thoroughly read book, and judged by the style of the printing and fonts, and the looks (940 plus pages) - at the very least sixty years old. It is printed on high quality paper, smooth and silky to the touch. It has been dropped many times. But the back is not broken. Not one single page is missing. It is actually so pliable that you can fold it like a paperback and use only one hand while reading it.
A deep bow to all of those who produced this book.
Now for the writing of Mr Dostoyevsky. Such genius. Such a way of looking at people, seeing right through them, around them and inside them! 
SORRY SIGHT OF A FATHER - FYODOR PAVLOVITCH KARAMAZOV
Almost everybody’s father is better than this one. A childish egotistical nastiness of a man, who's only virtue is that he did not squander the money from the estates of his two departed wives.
FOUR BROTHERS
Yes, I know people usually mention only three brothers (Mitya, Ivan and Alyosha) - born from two different mothers that was married to the ‘ old baffoon’.  But there is a fourth one; an illegitimate brother who’s mother was the village idiot.  She gave birth to him alone, on a cold night, in the kitchen garden of the man who fathered her child. This unfortunate baby was to be named Smerdyakov, and he was destined to become an ill-treated servant in his own father’s house; never openly acknowledged as a Karamazov. The idiot girl died that night, and the servant old Grigory and his wife, who had just lost their own baby, took the poor dead mother's baby in and nursed him tenderly.
NUMEROUS CHARACTERS
The story wanders in and out between a host of characters with a bewildering number of names – as is the Russian custom. I must confess that if I had only the names to go by, I would've struggled to keep track. But somehow they become so familiar that you know instantly who you (peeping tom in the confidence of a very present all seeing eye) are dealing with.  
Fyodor Dostoyevsky knew people.  He sees right into their inner beings. At the end of the book it's worth a documentary about each character in the book.  I dare say there are as many stories in this massive novel as there are characters between its pages.
THEME
Trust me, it is actualy a who-done-it; with the central question, “Who killed Fyodor Karamazov and why?”  The similarity of the old buffoon’s first name (his matronymn/patronymn?) and that of Dostoyevsky’s, is not accidental. Why? Maybe the answer holds the key to the central theme.
Dear Mr Dostoyevsky, where are you now?  Will we meet you someday to ask you if you knew what you were doing?  Were you perhaps writing from your subconscious mind - almost in a state of unconsciousness?  Ach, I'm sure you know what I mean.
THE STORY OF THE ONION
In this magnificent book the little story of the onion is told by the ‘scarlet woman’ Gruschenka. It goes more or less like this – A beggar woman asks a peasant Russian woman for something to eat, and the woman gives her an onion. Then, when the peasant woman died, she is to be thrown into the pool of fire by the angels, because she is a sinner. God inquires whether she has done one good deed in her life, and she remembers about the onion she once gave to the beggar woman. So God tells the angels to hold out the onion to her. If she could grab hold of it and they can drag her out of the pool of fire by the onion and its leaves, she will be saved. Miraculously the little onion held, and there seems to be hope for the poor sinner. But the other sinners in the pool saw that she was about to leave their ranks, and they were instantly jealous.  So they caught hold of her garments and legs to prevent the angels from saving her. This was too much for the long-suffering onion and it came apart. So the woman who 'once gave an onion' fell back into the fire of doom.
THE HOLY MAN WHO STANK PREMATURELY AFTER DEATH
The book starts with a formal visit paid by Fyodor Karamazov and his angry and tempestuous son Mitya, to the Elder of the local monastery. Alyosha, the youngest brother, a wonderful and most attractive lovable young man, adores the Elder. Without Father Zossima, Alyosha’s life would have been sad. Now, with what he learns from this humorous and broad minded mentor, who truly loves him, he can live happily ever after - the only unscathed character in the whole book.  But Father Zossima fell from grace - literally - after he passed on.
READ EVERY WORD
If you are brave, read the whole book from beginning to end. But you will have to do so more than once, otherwise you will miss out a lot in life.
Abstract written by WillaLinström
Published: July 12, 2009
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