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The Karamazov Brothers (870; 1880)* is the second book by Fyodor Dostoevsky I have read, in addition to Crime and Punishment .  The book counts towards two reading challenges: the Year of Russian Literature and Top 100 Books to be Read in Five Years . In this book, which happened to be the author's last work, Dostoevsky traversed several grounds and themes and perhaps knowing (or through serendipity) completely and fully invested himself and his knowledge in this book. I am not sure of this, but The Karamazov Brothers  could be a cauldron of a major part of Dostoevsky's ideas. In effect, this author-researcher, this psychologist of a novelist, this student of human nature and thoughts, produced a seminal work, worth studying in different fields of social sciences, in this novel. Thus, to describe The Karamazov Brothers  as a novel is an understatement. It does the book a huge injustice and undermines its quality. This is a compendium of human thoughts, psych...

But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or the other can worship, but to find something that all would believe in and worship; what is essential is that all may be  together  in it. This craving for  community  of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they've slain each other with the sword. They have set up gods and challenged one another, 'Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!' And so it will be to the end of the world, even when gods disappear from the earth; they will fall down before idols just the same. [278] For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for. [278] Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is...

It's impossible, I think, for the devils to forget to drag me down to hell with their hooks when I die. Then I wonder - hooks? Where would they get them? What of? Iron hooks? Where do they forge them? Have they a foundry there of some sort? The monks in monastery probably believe that there's a ceiling in hell, for instance. Now I'm ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling. It makes it more refined, more Lutheran, that is. And, after all, what does it matter whether it has a ceiling or hasn't? But, do you know, there's a damnable question involved in it? If there's no ceiling there can be no hooks, and if there are no hooks it all breaks down, which is unlikely again, for then there would be none to drag me down to hell, and if they don't drag me down what justice is there in the world? Il faudrait les inventer , those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for, if you only knew, Alyosha, what a blackguard I am. [22-3] It is not miracles that dispose re...

Crime and Punishment  (485; 1866)* by Fyodor Dostoevsky is the first book I have read by the author and the third by a Russian. It contributes towards fulfilling the Year of Russian Literature objective. A lot has been said about how great this book is; it is on almost every 'Best Books' list including my reading challenge list - the Hundred Books to be Read in Five Years . It has been reviewed so much that there possibly is nothing more to add. However, like Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace ,   and all my reviews here on this blog, I will attempt to put down how I understood the book; not how it has generally been received. Crime and Punishment  introduced me to the oft-quoted statement or insinuation that the Russians are ' the world's hardest writers '. Perhaps one could also include the Germans. In C&P, Dostoevsky takes the reader on a mental or psychological tour of the thought-processes, the minutest details, of decision-making; of creating or estab...

Source On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation towards K. Bridge. [3] When reason fails, the devil helps. [65] What do you think? ... [Y]ou think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That's man's one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can't even make mistakes on your own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I'll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's. In the first case you are a man, in the second case you're no better than a bird. Truth won't escape you, but life can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are w...