The Brothers Karamazov

There are four brothers born of three women, Dmitry from the rich first legal wife who died early leaving a fortune as legacy for her son. Dmitry has taken after his father, explosive, lustful, grabbing, and reckless. Ivan and Aloysius born of a young and beautiful girl induced and seduced by the much older Fyodor Karamazov. The first name matches with the author’s!

Ivan is patient, philosophical and fragile. Alyosha is detached, gentle, and joined as apprentice in a monastery. His mentor Zosima is the spiritual philosopher of the book. The fourth brother Smerdyakov is born of a tramp girl, abandoned by father , adopted by the servants and angry, very angry!

This is an epic scale story of a son and father lusting after the same village temptress and for the legacy of a fortune! But it is not merely their story! Brothers Karamazov is an everlasting favorite among the classics because of it’s extensive examination of the existential philosophy of Ivan juxtaposed to the spiritual philosophy of Zosima!

However, the long story is full of spicy twists and turns of lust, greed, intrigue and gory violence! The philosophy is the parallel flow to try to put sense and smoothen the nerves! While most of the characters are in the thick of the heat, passion, conflict, and trauma reflecting the everyday world of everyone, the characters being in fact symbols of the ideas they represent , Alyosha projects his natural love and forgiveness for humanity, creating a suitable canvas for the author to examine the right way and attitude to life!

Though it is considered one of the best classics, at about 1400 pages in the eBook version, it is quite a commitment to read through! The book is so big a deal on psychology and philosophy of human nature that it was an inspiration to Sigmund Freud!