The Brothers Karamazov

It’s kicked in now. I am impatient to get back to the book when I am not reading it. For example, I am thinking about it right now. There are certain passages which are so ominous, or so insightful, so PERFECTLY put, that I have to put the book down, and just sit there for a while, thinking about it.

Yes, there is a long boring-ass chapter about the dying Father Zossima and his death-bed words … (which went on for 35 pages) … This was in the middle of the growing suspense, you could feel the forces gathering, you could feel some terrible event approaching … and then suddenly, boom, we have to hear Father Zossima ramble on for hours on end.

I know Dostoevsky does nothing on a whim, though. So I knew that the chapter did indeed have a “point”. I would say that the “point” of that chapter (I’m just guessing – and please don’t reveal what ends up happening in the book – I haven’t finished it yet …) is to set up the opposing mindset that the world is a God-given place, something to be reveled in, that everything on the planet is given by God. The leaves, the sky … So never be sad. Fill your heart with love. Be grateful, be hunble … be glad. This is Zossima’s message.

The Karamazovs are dark, brutal, earthy … there is a big deal made of their “sensuality”. They are all about the pleasures of the earth. Or the brutality of the earth. Zossima’s death-bed soliloquy is there as a contrast – that there is something more to strive for. There is the possibility of love, of hope, of purity.

It also sets up the contrast to Ivan’s viewpoint (which is just fanTAStic. Not that I agree with him, exactly, but I could read about Ivan forever – he’s the most interesting brother to me, so far) Ivan is cynical – and more chilling because of it. But there’s something very compelling there. He is obviously going to THINK about life. There is no such thing as received wisdom, as far as Ivan is concerned. Ivan’s the one who tells the story of the Grand Inquisitor. Which blew my socks off, frankly. Can’t get more of an opposite viewpoint from Father Zossima than the Grand Inquisitor!

But I’m not ready to really post my thoughts on all of this yet – what it all adds up to – because I haven’t finished the book yet.

I am now at the part where Dmitri (the pleasure-seeking sensual brother – engaged to Katerina, and messing around with Grushenka) is kind of slipping off the rails … He needs 3000 roubles. He has become absolutely convinced that if he can only get 3000 roubles, then Grushenka will run away with them, and they can start “fresh”. But … his schemes to get the money are … frankly … insane. Dostoevsky writes about his racing around in such a way that gives you the necessary distance. You can look at Dmitri’s behavior and think: “Wow. This guy is completely losing it.” We are not totally inside Dmitri’s head, we have a tiny bit of distance, so we can be afraid … and we can also have NO idea what he will do next. Also, the way the narrator describes to us Dmitri’s schemes to get the roubles, we are able to get the sense that: This will not work out – he is flailing about – he is desperate – none of this will work. We, however, the readers, are a couple steps ahead of Dmitri … so it’s upsetting. It’s upsetting to read about a man who is still back in the dark tunnel, when you’ve emerged a tiny bit into the light. You want to reach in and stop the catastrophe, whatever it is … but you know you can’t.

My favorite parts of the book – and this was true of Crime and Punishment as well – are his brief piercing psychological insights. So spot on that they are SCARY. This man could see all sides of humanity. This man could see the flaws, the fears, the hopes – and not only could he see them all – but he could describe in writing how the brain operated in those revealed moments. He can take us, the reader, step by step through a tiny epiphany (tiny, and yet earth-shaking). The tiny moments in life, tiny, not big, when we are faced with a fork in the path … it could go this way or that way. Dostoevsky writes about big things, too, obviously – love and sex and murder and God and politics – and all of that is very interesting, too – but what is the stand-out for me are the very small moments when a human being looks into his own soul, sees something there, and then makes a choice. He chooses to go either this way or that way. And of course, this seemingly tiny choice usually has enormous consequences.

The insights into how the human mind works, and how it can unhinge itself, are literally beyond compare. Freud should hang his head in shame!! I wonder if Freud ever referenced the superior nature of Dostoevsky’s psychological analysis.

I have moments when reading this book when I almost feel pissed off. Like Dostoevsky has been peeking into my journal or something. No, that’s not it, either – because the moments Dostoevsky describes are things I wouldn’t write about myself, I barely recognize these things in myself … They are in my unconscious. Dostoevsky, in those teeny moments, shows the hidden side of my own heart to myself.

I think: Ohhh, so THAT’S what was going on with me in that moment!!

Or … Wow. I remember feeling EXACTLY like that that one time but I had no idea WHY … I think that here is why …

It’s quite astonishing.

My fingers itch to pick it up again. Tonight.

There’s no game tonight, so I can get some reading in.