Staff Pick
In this stunning masterpiece, Dostoevsky weaves together a murder mystery, a psychological thriller, and a taut courtroom drama with religious ideas, observations about family dysfunction, and some blistering social commentary. Absolutely brilliant! Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
This novel was Dostoyevsky's last and finest work, telling the story of the four Karamazov brothers—each with his own distinct personality and desires. Driven by intense, uncontrollable emotions of rage and revenge, they all become involved in the brutal murder of their despicable father. Exploring the secret depths of humanity's struggles and sins, Dostoyevsky unfolds a grand epic which attempts to venture into mankind's darkest heart, and grasp the true meaning of existence.
Synopsis
Fyodor Dostoyevsky's powerful meditation on faith, meaning and morality, The Brothers Karamazov is translated with an introduction and notes by David McDuff in Penguin Classics. When brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, the lives of his sons are changed irrevocably: Mitya, the sensualist, whose bitter rivalry with his father immediately places him under suspicion for parricide; Ivan, the intellectual, whose mental tortures drive him to breakdown; the spiritual Alyosha, who tries to heal the family's rifts; and the shadowy figure of their bastard half-brother Smerdyakov. As the ensuing investigation and trial reveal the true identity of the murderer, Dostoyevsky's dark masterpiece evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur and everyone's faith in humanity is tested.
This powerful translation of The Brothers Karamazov features and introduction highlighting Dostoyevsky's recurrent themes of guilt and salvation, with a new chronology and further reading.
"There is no writer who better demonstrates the contradictions and fluctuations of the creative mind than Dostoyevsky, and nowhere more astonishingly than in The Brothers Karamazov."--Joyce Carol Oates
"Dostoyevsky was the only psychologist from whom I had anything to learn: he belongs to the happiest windfalls of my life."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"The most magnificent novel ever written."--Sigmund Freud
Synopsis
Translated with an Introduction by David McDuff.
About the Author
Table of Contents
The Brothers Karamazov Chronology
Introduction
Further Reading
A Note on the Text
The Brothers Karamazov
Notes