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Original Essays | December 12, 2009

Alexander McCall Smith: IMG The Courage of Others

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I have recently written a novel about life in England during the Second World War. I felt some concern before I tackled this theme — the War... Continue »
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    La's Orchestra Saves the World

    Alexander McCall Smith

The Brothers Karamazov

by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Pevear and Volokhonsky)

The Brothers Karamazov Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel, The Karamazov Brothers (1880), is both a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. The dissolute landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is murdered; his sons — the atheist intellectual Ivan, the hot-blooded Dmitry, and the saintly novice Alyosha — are all at some level involved. Bound up with this intense family drama is Dostoevsky's exploration of many deeply felt ideas about the existence of God, the question of human freedom, the collective nature of guilt, the disastrous consequences of rationalism.

The novel is also richly comic: the Russian Orthodox Church, the legal system, and even the author's most cherished causes and beliefs are presented with a note of irreverence, so that orthodoxy and radicalism, sanity and madness, love and hatred, right and wrong are no longer mutually exclusive. Rebecca West considered it "the allegory for the world's maturity, but with children to the fore." This new translation does full justice to Dostoevsky's genius, particularly in the use of the spoken word, which ranges over every mode of human expression.

Review:

"It may well be that Dostoevsky's world, with all its resourceful energies of life and language, is only now — and through the medium of this translation — beginning to come home to the English-speaking reader." The New York Review of Books

Review:

"The Brothers Karamazov stands as the culmination of his art — his last, longest, richest and most capacious book. [This] scrupulous rendition can only be welcomed. It returns to us a work we thought we knew, subtly altered and so made new again." Washington Post Book World

Synopsis:

The award-winning translation of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel.

Synopsis:

The award-winning translation of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel.
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About the Author

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky were awarded the PEN/ Book-of-the-Month Translation Prize for The Brothers Karamazov and have also translated Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, Demons, and The Idiot.

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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
mej1960, September 21, 2009 (view all comments by mej1960)
The book is great, the translation is amazing, but I have to wonder if the reviewer read it him/herself!

Why? Because the reviewer sees 'irreverence' where there is clearly none.

There is and there could be no 'irreverence' towards the Orthodox Church in late Dostoevsky. By this time in his life, he was, on the contrary, very reverent towards the Church.

Perhaps what the reviewer mistook for irreverence was his stark realism, sparing the reader none of the shock at the insanity of Fr. Ferapont, or at the factions within the monastery. Or perhaps he confused the author's viewpoint with that of some of the characters, since all the Karamazov's were irreverent to the Church, except for Alyosha (of course: yet even he has a 'dark night of the soul').

Or is it that the reviewer confused this dark night with irreverence? If so, then it is not just Dostoevsky he has failed to understand, it is not just St. John of the Cross the reviewer has failed to understand, but also the Russian understanding of the Book of Job, which was very important to all of Dostoevsky's work.

But in any case, his reverence should have been crystal clear from his description of the life and achievements of Elder Zosima, who was patterned after real Elders at Optina.
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myakoopa, May 21, 2008 (view all comments by myakoopa)
I first read this book for a summer homework assignment many years ago, deciding from the very beginning that I would hate it. Within two weeks, I had finished the whole book, loving every sentence. It affected my views so much that I reread shortly thereafter, recommended it to all my friends, and keep it now as one of my favorite reads ever. It's strictly brilliant.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780374528379
Author:
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Pevear & Volokhonsky)
Publisher:
Farrar Straus Giroux
Translator:
Pevear, Richard
Translator:
Pevear, Richard; Volokhonsky, Larissa
Translator:
Volokhonsky, Larissa
Author:
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Author:
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Author:
Dostoevsky, Fyodor M.
Author:
Volokhonsky, Larissa
Author:
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Location:
New York
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Classics
Subject:
Russian & Former Soviet Union
Edition Description:
First
Series Volume:
107-343
Publication Date:
June 2002
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
824
Dimensions:
8.36x5.58x1.45 in. 1.38 lbs.
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