R’s Reviews > The Brothers Karamazov > Status Update

Smerdyakov - a servant with an upsetting back story. His mother was a simpleton and was raped at night as she was sleeping rough by FYDOR himself. She gives birth to Smer in Fydors outhouse and dies, and Grigory and his wife - Fydor's servants - raise him. But he grows up to be strange, and his adoptive parents start to resent him. Fydor has a soft spot for him. He goes on a monologue about apostasy being based.

Grushenka - the centre of this lusty whirlwind. Dimitri wants her but is married. Ivan wants Dimitri's wife, so wants Dmitri to get Gruskenka. Fydor, shameless father, ALSO wants Gruskenka, and Aloysha's colleague, Ratikin, seems to also want her, but denies it, but nonetheless gives off a jealous vibe? What's so special about Grushenka? She's low-born and described as a loose woman - she even 'wants' Aloysha?

"Can there be such a sin as would exceed God's love?" says Zozima to a woman who killed her violent, abusive husband, and before justifying a theocracy that excommunicates criminals. Huh?

So Aloysha has some relationship to Lise, the disabled girl, and her Mother. They want him to visit.

I'm completely baffled by Ivan's argument in favour of a Church-state. Anyway, we let it slide.

A whirlwind tour of the 'startsy', and what it means to be a pupil of a starets. Ego-death. These guys are revered like saints. Aloysha has a vivid memory of being in this monastery, and the sunlight dappling the wooden floor and illuminating the icons - could this be why he is so drawn to the monastery and the starets? A pure, almost aesthetic experience, that stands alone as the only truly happy moment in his life?

Three brothers: Dmitry, Ivan, and Aloysha. Dmitry comes from a pretty terrible upbringing and seems to be hated by his father and is in general a bit of a wasteman. Ivan shows up out of nowhere and spellbinds his father, having no problem extracting money from him. And Aloysha, neurodivergent perhaps, incapable of confrontation and much happier secluded in a monastery.