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Raja

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Raja’s Bookshelves

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Raja is Currently Reading

Raja is currently reading

The Brothers Karamazov

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Reading for the 3rd time

read in July 2023

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Raja said: " This book is deservedly recognised as a masterpiece and is definitely worthy of the investment of time and effort it takes to get through it's nigh-on 1,000 pages.

Once you are over the initial difficulty of getting used to the Russian naming convent This book is deservedly recognised as a masterpiece and is definitely worthy of the investment of time and effort it takes to get through it's nigh-on 1,000 pages.

Once you are over the initial difficulty of getting used to the Russian naming conventions - which are of significance in the novel, more informal versions of a name indicating the closeness of relationship, degree of familiarity and acceptance etc - and are acquainted with the characters a little, the book is difficult to put down.

The book is widely considered Dostoevsky finest work (this or Crime and Punishment) and its often recommend that one save it for last.

The plot revolves around the murder of Fyodor Karamazov the father of the eponymous brothers and is therefore a murder mystery and court drama.

One is treated to various revelations, ironies and intrigues along the way, tantalisingly adumbrated as the novel sweeps forward with event after event at an exhilarating pace, always captivating your attention from chapter to chapter. The intensity of the characters feelings, motives and emotions evoked by Dostoevsky also help drive the narrative forward and make it all the more gripping, such is the psychological depth of insight with which they are portrayed.

Though to characterise it as being merely these things: i.e., murder mystery and court room drama is to completely misrepresent the essential character of this profoundly philosophical work.

It is the substantive content of the dialogues and monologues suffused as they are with social, religious and philosophical themes, often angst-inducing, though always pregnant with appropriate meaning and purpose that are the beating heart of the novel. The existence of God, the problem of evil, the duality of man's nature containing alternations of good and evil, individual responsibility, the collective nature of guilt, the rationalism of modernity, the role of religion in society etc. This is accentuated by the extraordinarily masterful portrayal of the psyches or, as Dostoevsky would have it, 'hearts' of the key characters.

The dialogues are often multi-layered and interpretable in different ways for example the 'Grand Inquisitor'. Is he a personification of the Catholic Church itself? - Dostoevsky's Russia being Eastern Orthodox; or 'the Church' within the liberal state/i.e., Church as subordinate, or the institution of 'the Church' more generally as it stands in opposition to the spiritual message of Christ; or the voice of Enlightenment inspired modern European thought considered pernicious by Dostoevsky ('Socialism' etc) wanting to cast off the unreason of religion and cultivate a paradise on Earth.

This is a book that is best read more than once.

For a deeper understanding, background is indispensable so a bit of additional reading wouldn't go amiss, here are a few recommendations:

1. David Foster Wallace's' Essay 'Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky' repays reading manifold.
2. Jospeh Frank's Biography of Dostoevsky contains 3 very insightful chapters on the book;
3. Joseph Frank's 'Lectures on Dostoevsky'; and
4. Robin Feuer Miller's, The Brother's Karamazov: 'Worlds of the Novel' is a decent critical companion. ...more "

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(page 96 of 928)
— Jul 28, 2021 04:48PM

Oct 11, 2026 02:45AM · see review

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Islam and the Destiny of Man

by Charles Le Gai Eaton

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(page 216 of 261)
— Oct 10, 2026 05:10PM

Sep 20, 2026 12:31PM

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A Gentle Creature and Other Stories

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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"I’ve read “dream of a ridiculous man” so far following readings of The Death of Ivan Ilyich and “Master and Man” by Tolstoy thinking this would be a good accompaniment. It was decent as a short story on its own and thought provoking as expected from Dostoevsky but it’s nowhere near as good as the other two titles." — Sep 17, 2026 02:20AM

Sep 16, 2026 01:17AM

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Raja’s Notes & Highlights

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

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The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.

Raja and 1 other person liked this

Raja’s Quotes

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
― Herman Melville

5276 likes

“The difference between genius and stupidity is: genius has its limits.”
― Alexandre Dumas-fils

tags: misattributed-to-einstein

21529 likes

“One should not have to spend four years in graduate school in order to learn how to read. Four years of graduate school, in addition to twelve years of preparatory education and four years of college—that adds up to twenty full years of schooling. It should not take that long to learn to read. Something is very wrong if it does.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

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“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.”
― Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

tags: civilization, taxes

145 likes

“But oppositions have the illimitable range of objections at command, which need never stop short at the boundary of knowledge, but can draw forever on the vasts of ignorance.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

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