Book Review: The Brothers Karamazov by, Fyodor Dostoevsky

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  • Опубликовано: 29 окт 2024

Комментарии • 44

  • @GlitchWave-s6z
    @GlitchWave-s6z 14 часов назад +37

    the fact that nobody talks about the book called Manifestation Hacks by Olivia Cooper speaks volumes about how people are stuck in a trance.

  • @MusidoraKeller
    @MusidoraKeller 2 дня назад +6

    My fav book as well. No book has touched me as this one did. Love your book reviews ❤

  • @MrUndersolo
    @MrUndersolo 14 часов назад +1

    I never thought Dostoyevsky would be called "my boy, D-Money".
    Consider myself subbed!

  • @davidbucci973
    @davidbucci973 2 дня назад +1

    Great work of literature. Great video. You’re on a roll!

  • @matthewgallant3622
    @matthewgallant3622 День назад

    I read this one this year. This book will stay with me forever I think. It also took me about 8 weeks to read, and it’s so worth it. I think about the things that happen in this book all the time. It’s converted me back to Christianity also.

  • @benmmarino
    @benmmarino 2 дня назад +1

    I literally just finished Brothers K. Love it, and relate to all the brothers in some many ways, as is most likely something many can claim. I also just read White Nights for the first time. It’s sad in a sweet way.

  • @FrankOdonnell-ej3hd
    @FrankOdonnell-ej3hd 20 часов назад

    The K Bros generally considered by critics to be his greatest book although not the most popular (Crime and Punishment) or my personal favorite (Demons). This novel lays out most of the biggest issues humans have to face in a wonderfully clear and dramatic way and at the same time combines it with a thrilling story of suspense. On a scale of ten I have to give it an eleven!⚛️❤

  • @joshuaharwell1698
    @joshuaharwell1698 20 часов назад

    Glad I found your channel! This was a very insightful review, it’s like I can’t find any people of color like me on youtube that are into the more classical literature and this breakdown was great. I feel the same way about Marx, lol.

  • @SandyDollZee
    @SandyDollZee 2 дня назад +1

    I read it a few months ago and it's now one of my favourite books. The Idiot and Demons are next on my list.

  • @JohnSeney-t1i
    @JohnSeney-t1i 2 дня назад +1

    Great review! 👍 Where did you read that Dostoyevsky had alcohol problems that is new to me. Definitely yes on the gambling problem and he fictionalized it in "The Gambler." Though his biographer Joseph Frank says that this was much exaggerated and that once Dostoyevsky was over it he never went back 👍

  • @davidnovakreadspoetry
    @davidnovakreadspoetry День назад

    In my efforts to become a reader, this was probably the most significant milestone. It’s been some years now, so I enjoyed revisiting it with you. I still prefer _Crime and Punishment._ 😂

  • @kamaboko.gonpachiro
    @kamaboko.gonpachiro 2 дня назад

    Ahhhh...that's what I was waiting for 😍

  • @novelideea
    @novelideea 2 дня назад +1

    I’ve been waiting for you to talk about BK!

  • @stephenn3727
    @stephenn3727 2 дня назад +1

    I love this book as well!

  • @Scr3675
    @Scr3675 День назад

    I really look forward to reading this book and honestly this is the best review I’ve seen for it. I read Crime and Punishment when I was too young, yet I liked it. Though I don’t know what Dostoevsky to dive back into first! What would you read first?

  • @kackljas
    @kackljas 15 часов назад

    This was a great book, though I had mixed feeling about it when I first started reading it. It took me some time to get used to the dialogue/monologue format where a conversation between two people turns into one person going off on a monologue for ten pages. Still, I was glad to stick with it, and found getting through this book to the end a rewarding experience.

  • @renee_angelica
    @renee_angelica 2 дня назад

    Just stumbled across your channel. Only watched this one so far, but your book selection seems divine. Excited to browse.

  • @JohnSeney-t1i
    @JohnSeney-t1i 2 дня назад

    Looking forward to watch this later thanks in advance 👍

  • @sandy23stories40
    @sandy23stories40 2 дня назад

    Amazing review !!! Excited to read BK 😊

  • @leopercara3477
    @leopercara3477 2 дня назад

    Amazing! Have you ever changed translations? Not with this book in particular, but with Big D in general. In re-reads or maybe trying different ones of the same book while reading it.

  • @sochiazuh
    @sochiazuh 2 дня назад

    I haven’t read this yet. I plan to soon. Thanks for sharing. 😊

  • @Christian-ut2sp
    @Christian-ut2sp 23 часа назад

    Great review

  • @etagged
    @etagged 7 часов назад

    Okay you inspired me to re-read this. Thanks lol

  • @biancastephanie8830
    @biancastephanie8830 14 часов назад

    Im currently reading crime and punishment

  • @achunaryan3418
    @achunaryan3418 2 дня назад

    Nice work😊

  • @SheanaJo
    @SheanaJo 2 дня назад

  • @evaphillips2102
    @evaphillips2102 2 дня назад

    Hi Alana!

  • @Thecatladybooknook_PennyD
    @Thecatladybooknook_PennyD 2 дня назад

    I can't say or write the name without wanting to type "D-Money" 😅❤

  • @kurtfox4944
    @kurtfox4944 2 дня назад +1

    Interesting that you use the word "parricide". It was not until you used that word that had me thinking what the sequel to The Brother Karamazov would have been.
    To add to your teacher's questions: Was Dostoevsky using the Brother's K as an analogy of parricide to the implications of the death/demise of Christianity?

  • @derekgo611
    @derekgo611 2 дня назад

    Read The Stranger next by Camus plssssssssss

  • @PoppyMorreale
    @PoppyMorreale 2 дня назад

    So this is your favorite book ever

    • @kurtfox4944
      @kurtfox4944 2 дня назад

      That would be Jane Eyre (see her videos on Top 10 Classics and Top 10 Contemporary)... but if IIRC, this is in her top 3 Classics

    • @derekgo611
      @derekgo611 2 дня назад +1

      ​@@kurtfox4944 this definitely beats jane eyre

  • @Manfred-nj8vz
    @Manfred-nj8vz 2 дня назад +1

    Please allow me to express my personal and totally heretical opinion about Dostoyevsky. I know that the topic is not easy and that one cannot start a discussion of such an extensive issue on this platform. Nevertheless, I will try to formulate a few thoughts that have occupied me intensively for years.
    I absolutely cannot stand Dostoyevsky and I will explain why: I read him twice ('Crime and Punishment', 'Demons' and 'Brothers Karamazov'), once during my puberty (I didn't understand much at the time anyway, but I was still reading the great "Dostoyevsky") and once almost 20 years later, after I have more or less developed myself as a person and reader as well.
    There are many points that literally repel me from Dostoyevsky's oeuvre. The most important and fundamental ones are his predictability, conventionality and conservatism. This particular pattern can be found in most of his novels: all the "good guys" are rewarded in one way or another, while the "bad" ones, on the contrary, either kill themselves (Smerdyakov, Stavrogin), go mad (the atheist Ivan Karamazov) or go to prison to be "punished" for their sins (Raskolnikov, Dmitri Karamazov). There are also "bad" characters who experience a religious turn or remorse, such as Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky ('Demons'), who discovers religion shortly before his death and suddenly... wants to spread the... gospel. I honestly have great difficulty with such forced solutions (something similar takes place in 'Crime and Punishment' - "The Murderer and the Prostitute and the Eternal Book" - according to Nabokov).
    Back to 'Karamazov': Everyone is excited and talks intensely about the "Grand Inquisitor", who appears relatively early in the book. But I have the impression, although I could be wrong, that we pay less attention to what happens further in the novel: The inspirer of the 'Grand Inquisitor's' story, the atheist Ivan Karamazov, the only one who could save his brother Dmitri from court (by revealing their father's murderer) simply goes... mad (!) one day before the court. Exactly. This is the solution that the "brilliant" author offers, in order to show, in my opinion, what a) "evil atheists" have to suffer and b) the "good-for-nothing" Dmitri can in no way be saved so easily. He has to spend a few years in prison so that he can finally become a "useful" person. Am I the only odd one who found all this extremely cheap, predictable, conventional and kitsch while reading the "masterpiece of masterpieces"? It is beyond my comprehension that such a "great" author (many even consider him "the greatest") would resolve these fundamental conflict problems with such disappointing solutions.
    Should I talk about the philosophical background of the Karamazov novel? "If there is no God, then everything is permitted." Of course I looked for the allegory, the metaphor of this idea in the novel. Unfortunately, I found nothing. But seriously: do atheists, agnostics, etc. have no principles and no morals? Or has the religious and christian West committed no crimes and will not do so in the future? In my opinion, Dostoyevsky preaches mercilessly and brazenly in his works. But if I want to hear a sermon, I would rather go to church than open a novel. Not to mention the chapter with Starets Zossima; I don't even want to remember that. Of course, a person without principles and without morals is dangerous; we have always known that and I would have liked to have seen this fundamental theme dealt within the Karamazov novel in a special, Dostoyevskian way. In contrast I found only preaching, convention and ultimately disappointment.
    Besides that, no-one seems to be bothered with the fact that the 18-year-old, I think, Alyosha Karamazov tries to convince a... 13-year-old boy (!) on various theological questions?! Or: At the end of the book, where Alyosha again celebrates the joy of anticipating the... Judgement Day (!) with a group of preadolescence children (!). We read: "Is it really true what religion says, that we will all rise from the dead and live again and see each other again [...]". What is that supposed to mean? I have never read anything more kitsch in my life. When I read this, I felt like I was being mocked and my intelligence underestimated. In my opinion, even a religious reader should finally be disgusted by this passage, because this is simply bad literature.
    Therefore, all of these points and of course many others, put Dostoyevsky (at least for me) at a disadvantage as well as into the category of a writer of the committed literature, who moralizes and preaches and teaches us with his index finger which is the "right" and which is the "wrong" way to take in our lives. But I could possibly have accepted this too if his literary language was at least special, beautiful or exciting. He does not even master that; his language offers me absolutely no literary pleasure. Therefore, the conclusion I have come to is that for me Dostoevsky is nothing more than an overrated writer, to put it as politely as possible.
    Finally: There have been some critical observations on YT about Dostoyevsky for some time now, such as: «Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky BOOK REVIEW Part 2 of 2 (SPOILERS)» from the channel "Better than Food".
    Instead of Dostoevsky please read Nikos Kazantzakis (Christ Recrucified, The Fratricides, The Last Temptation, Zorba the Greek). You'll be surprised.

    • @Damascene749
      @Damascene749 2 дня назад

      Dostoyevsky is a Russian Orthodox Christian, son of strict Christian. Of course he’s going to write books that ultimately point to Christ and the Church he establishes on earth.
      I don’t understand your point on Alyosha, so what he teaches kids about the bible and the resurrection, if he believes it true. Doesnt everyone teach their children what they believe to be true, whatever tradition they came from. I mean this point is just nonsensical.
      When Dostoyevsky says “If God is dead, then all things are permitted” he isn’t saying that you can’t construct a moral system apart from God, but that such moral system will be arbitrary and therefore lacking in truthfulness.
      Why does it matter what you and I think is “the good” or “the bad”, these are all preferences, and if it’s just pfefefences then there is no reason (epistemological fortitude) independent of your preference that we OUGHT to accept your system of good and evil.
      It’s a classic argument from Christian theology, the reason Dostoevsky is so lauded is because he was able to express the sentiment through writing interesting characters who’s motivations, desires, actions and settings are all so realistic that we can derive lessons from those characters as if those stories really happens.
      And what do you know, the guy who wrote about nihilism and the destruction of the self (those suicides you were mentioning) through the rejection of Christ came to happen years later when the secular Bolshevisks took power and tried to destroy and eradicate Eastern Orthodoxy from society, thankfully, since our Church is not earthly and ‘the gates of hell shall never prevail’ over it, it survived the mass slaughter and martyrdom that its faithful were exposed to.

    • @TimeTravelReads
      @TimeTravelReads 2 дня назад +1

      Deities are social constructions. They are arbitrary. Christian morality is just as arbitrary and fallible as any other moral system. Also, do you hear yourself? According to you, only Christians have the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood in constructing moral codes, and would even care to do so. Christians are smarter than everyone else. Can you perceive how arrogant and laughable that claim is? This is part of the reason why Christians often have a bad reputation with non-Christians.

    • @Manfred-nj8vz
      @Manfred-nj8vz 2 дня назад +1

      @@Damascene749 Believe it or not, I myself am a Greek Orthodox Christian. Still, I don't find it a good argument if you start your answer with the fact that D. was a Russian Orthodox Christian. So what? I don't care about any author's beliefs while I am reading a novel, a work of art. Are we talking about literature here or are we talking about ideologies? I'm afraid I cannot find any of your explanations convincing. Dostoevsky's characters are, at least for me, simply predestinate marionettes; they are in no way interesting characters.
      You said: "When Dostoyevsky says «If God is dead, then all things are permitted» he isn’t saying that you can’t construct a moral system apart from God, but that such moral system will be arbitrary and therefore lacking in truthfulness". But this is exactly one of the ideology points that seems nonsensical to me. Except if one is a "blind" christian and for that matter is happy with that. But such "ideologies" we tend to find only in committed literature; and I hate committed literature.
      And yes, there is a big issue about Alyosha's (18) discussions with a preadolescent child (13). Think how you have thought with 18 and how one thinks with 30, 40, 60 or 80. The Alyosha discussions are absolutely implausible for someone with some more life experience than his. Alyosha is still a child, so he cannot have the state of mind he will have later. Such devices are no way good literature - at least for me. The discussions were absolutely implausible as well as horrible for me. Cringe to say the least.
      I also cannot accept the poor argument that Dostoevsky pointed to the much later Bolshevik revolution, and therefore is he a good writer. I tend not to look at a work of art having in mind how influential or "prophetic" it might have been.
      I tend to look directly to the object itself; I tend to analyse and criticise a novel from within. Otherwise I should have mentioned many horrible situations from Dostoevsky's life. For example the fact that he lost a child simply because he played all his money; his wife sold her last coat in order for him to play, although she had no food and no heating. And at that time she was pregnant. So Dostoevsky, instead to bring food and provide the right conditions for his pregnant wife, he kept playing all their money. How's that? Should I criticise this "christian" author from studying his work or from studying his life? Still, I tend to separate the two. But no, I no-way can accept Dostoevsky's pseudo-afterlife-sermons. Maybe he was pleased and convinced with them; I am not.
      Anyway, we are not going to agree on Dostoevsky whatsoever and that's fine. However, please do read Kazantzakis's 'Christ Recrucified'.

    • @Damascene749
      @Damascene749 День назад

      In what way is it committed literature, he’s not defending Christianity, it doesn’t need him to defend it. He’s simply writing characters that embody the contemporary ideas that were around in his era, which were uniquely destructive, and showing the consequence of their decisions.
      So what the atheist nihilists end killing the themselves or facing bad outcomes, it’s a destructive ideology. He’s not saying … therefore become Christian and avoid it and live happily ever after. There’s plenty of Christian characters like Katerina Ivanovna that end up with a bad outcome even though they were faithful. Or his mother who ends up delirious and dies from an illness.
      What he is saying is that in nihilist thought there is no redemptive qualities. If you take the worldview to its logical conclusions you end up with fratricide, patricide, revolution, ideas like anti natalism etc. how can you divorce an author essentially a social critic from the world he was living in. That he was able to predict the Bolshevik revolution, which he did, is a testament to how well he understands human nature and motivation.
      Maybe you’re reading the wrong genre. Ultimately he was a critic of ideas. And to be a critic you have to have somewhat of a committed worldview.

    • @Manfred-nj8vz
      @Manfred-nj8vz 23 часа назад +1

      @@Damascene749 Look, I've written enough about Dostoevsky and I believe my view is clear. But who knows, maybe you are right and I am wrong. But keep in mind that it isn't just the content of Dostoevsky's books I cannot stand, his preaching, but also his general writing style. Therefore I urge to read Nikos Kazantzakis's Christ Recrucified or The Fratricides. I hope that you can see what I mean while reading those books.

  • @TimeTravelReads
    @TimeTravelReads 2 дня назад +2

    My brother forced my family to listen to part of The Brothers K in the car on a road trip once. I came away thinking it was an obnoxious soap opera. That was back when I was still a believer. I watched this wondering if the novel had any redeeming qualities. Now, it seems like it's even worse than merely a soap opera.
    The author is basically the cringey conservative Christian uncle at Thanksgiving who tells you that unless you believe in the deity your uncle and his friends have constructed in their heads, and obey their every whim, you believe nothing true and are immoral. Apparently he and his church, and probably Fox News and some random MLM, are the moral arbiters of the world. He thinks that without his church, which is probably a huge corporation that rips off elderly people and covers up child abuse, telling everyone what to do, they'll have no morals, no purpose, and no ability to tell truth from falsehood. That says more about him than anyone else. If he doesn't have someone directing him, there's no telling what he might do, or what conspiracy theories he'll spout next. In fact, his church eggs him on, and often encourages him to be less moral than he'd be under his own power.
    This uncle constantly preaches about right and wrong, but does everything he can to uphold unjust systems that cause people to rot and die in terrible conditions for his benefit. He's proud of it because he stands for God against socialism. I'm not even socialist. But he thinks everything to his disadvantage, or anything he doesn't like, is socialist. Nobody can have nice things but him, because everyone but him, should be content to be spiritually fed, but not physically fed. If innocent people get hurt, they should just grin and bear it. Have faith in him and the god he and his church constructed anyway. The hypocrisy is strong with this one.
    Cringe! Cringe! Cringe!

    • @teakara
      @teakara 2 дня назад

      👏👏👏👏👏

    • @MadMac007
      @MadMac007 День назад +1

      😴

    • @Damascene749
      @Damascene749 День назад +1

      If God real, why bad things happens. Atheism in 2024 is cringe and you fell for it.