The Brothers Karamazov (Bantam Classics)

Translating anything from Russian to English is immensely difficult, let alone a singular work written by a towering master of the Russian language. I bought the Avsey translation after reading a reader's comment that it is better than the celebrated Pevear & Volokhonsky, which I had already begun. For a while, I read the two versions in parallel. For me at least, there was no comparison. Avsey's translation possesses directness and immediacy which greatly aided in understanding and enjoying this work. Pevear & Volokhonsky's version tries to replicate the Russian language's cadence and Dostoevsky's word-plays, but ends up with plodding, convoluted construction on too many occasions. This bogs down the flow of the story, which has tremendous momentum and whirlwind action. In addition, I really appreciated the fact that Avsey transliterated certain terms that have a unique meaning in Russian without equivalent in English. For example, the word Starets. A Starets is a religious personage that exists only in Russian culture. A Starets is a charismatic mystic. An ascetic holy man. The Starets exists in a somewhat uneasy relationship with the formal, organized church. Rasputin was a Starets. Avsey explains that meaning and keeps using the transliterated term. In contrast, Pevear & Volokhonsk translate it into a 'church elder', which is nowhere near to what makes a Starets so unique and powerful. Calling the Starets a 'church elder' completely obfuscates the role of a central (I'd say foundational) character, and meaningfully diminishes the understanding of the story. "Alyosha was passionately devoted to a church elder" imparts a very different notion from "Alyosha was passionately devoted to a mystic spiritual holy man". There are several more examples like this. In summary, I think that Pevear & Volokhonsk focused on details and got lost in the weeds. The Avsey translation captures the momentum of an action-packed murder mystery, without losing any of its powerful psychological, moral, philosophical, and religious teachings and insights.

This is an excellent translation that also does a good job with the footnotes. However - the translator spoiled the ending and the meat of the mystery in the introduction; I had gone out of my way to not learn too much about the plot so that I could experience it firsthand. If that’s an issue for you, steer clear of reading the intro. For me, it makes reading a 976 page book far less enjoyable.

A beneficial classic in theological and psychological issues. My copy is 1045 pages, so it took me a week and a half to finish while on a vacation. There's no doubt in my opinion in Dostoevsky's remarkable ability to convey each character's psychological makeup, each perceiving their situations slanted from their particular viewpoints, some mildly, others to the extreme, distorting facts with personal objectives. The story is about three brothers, a fourth illegitimate child and brother, the father, two women who play key roles and the murder of the father. The other main characters who play key roles in this story are also described in detail by Dostoeovsky. However, the key elements of this story relate into the psychological and theological issues raised. The story, which is about three brothers and their fathers murder, enters into the psychology of each character relating to Dostoevsky and the question of God. One of the more important chapters is that entitled "The Grand Inquisitor." In this chapter Ivan relates a Christ as teaching a Christianity which equals radical absolute freedom, which differs sharply from the traditional interpretation of Christ. Here Ivan interprets the Grand Inquisitor, the Cardinal, as the representative of the Church hierarchy as the three areas rejected by Christ in the desert offered him after his baptism. And so the Grand Inquisitor is the teacher of miracles, mystery and authority, which are the absolute and necessary tools needed to unify humanity, in that spiritual bread alone will never unify the world, while physical bread will. Now in this, Ivan argues that despite the church leaders defined as power mongers, there are always those few that are ascetic sincere God-fearers who in their journey discover the empty logic of God in this absurd world of suffering, who see the incongruity and futile attempt of the radical freedom Christ offered and rejection of mystery, miracle and human authority, and yet instead of giving up they maintain their authority in the visage to help humanity. For in doing this despite their disbelief, they unify humanity. Although such unification is in ignorance, it is also in happiness and for their best interest, while the minority, the authoritative church leaders, suffer in the true knowledge of the existential angst of reality living in this world and the empty and meaningless promises of a future world after death and immortality of the soul and so called true meanings of justice and good. Dimitry, the oldest brother, is the sensualist like the father, a reveler and passionate man with outbursts of uncontrolled emotions and violent actions and yet contains honor and in someway converts himself into believing in a God of the earth that retains morals of personal and national honor. Ivan is the skeptic who borders from atheism to theism, as he accepts God but not his world, for the suffering of innocent children and other such absurdities. Alyosha, the youngest, is Dostoevsky's hero, also a man who borders in belief and non belief in God, joining a monastery and later leaving and after the the death and decay or corruption of the dead body of his monastery teacher, the elder's Zosima, he begins questioning both God and the world his brother Ivan cannot accept. But Alyosha is the hero in that he is not Ivan, who represents the new man of intellectual existential rationalism and emptiness, as Ivan was said to say that since there is no God, or that the God humanity worships is not real, then everything is permitted, which of course eliminates universal moral codes. But Ivan's conscious battles him in this to the end. His struggle was more than between logic and the thirst for life into a theological struggle with the extreme tension of indifference and a form of atheism or disbelief with the ideas of the divine in the good and justice, which makes this suffering world absurd, so who or what truly is God? Ivan states, "I accept God, but I refuse to accept this world. . . My Euclidean mind cannot accept this world". While Alyosha battle was far less extreme and the hero who attempts to unify people without the traditional belief in God or Christianity, but in a humanistic form which contains the tension of doubt and belief, with love for the earth, as instructed by the elder Zosima, to kiss and shed tears for the earth, to become one with it, perhaps evening sharing in its sins as the Jesus kisses the cardinal in Ivan's tale of the Grand Inquisitor. The character of Alyosha starts out strong in the novel but his character fades in the end in strength and clarity. The novel itself goes into other main characters who play key roles in this story. For Dostoevsky, God is a not the benevolent but a condition of tension, from ecstasy to pain. It seems that in his personal life he was an atheist who after some years of imprisonment and hard labor in Siberia, found a faith in a humanistic version of Christianity which borders on the tensions of the incongruities that permeate the questions of justice and God.

Superb book with superb translation.

In recent years it has been impossible to read Dostoevsky in English without having the translations of Richard Pevear and Lara Volkhonsy thrust under your nose by eager and well meaning fools. For some unknown reason this husband and wife duo have become the literary press' darlings, with their work being cited as the "definitive" editions in English. This is a shame, because their translations are shockingly bad. Take a little stroll around the internet and you will find example after example of shoddy compromises, and just downright brazen mistranslation, flagrant enough for even non-russophones like you and me to spot. Ignat Avsey translated four of Dostoevsky's works before passing away. Reading them can only lead us to lament that he did not have more time to tackle the rest of the oeuvre. This translation, possibly his best, is sublime. This is the definitive edition of Dostoevsky's greatest novel. Richard and Lara live on, trampling through the rest of the golden age of Russian literature taking no prisoners. There's just no justice in this world.

Have not finished the book yet, it’s tremendously long. But it’s fantastic so far.

Interessante

The book is smaller than I expected, but I love it anyway! It's a classic