duke
05-24-2005, 06:07 PM
Such a great book, it is even more compelling if you place it in context. What intigues me is that Dostoevsky was an early radical who was thrown into a brutal prison by the Czar. But instead of growing bitter and reinforcing his revolutionary ideals, he learned to see Russia's salvation in its faith. Its so simple, but so difficult to grasp. Without god, there is no moral authority, we are merely sophisticated animals. Right and Wrong does not exist in a state of nature only survival. This book explores the full depths of man at its natural primal core and its eternal battle with it moral imagination. Body (Dmitri), Mind (Ivan) and Soul (Ivan) and the empty vacuum that is evil (smerdykyov). In the end, mans salvation is his soul, his body yearns for salvation, but it is the arrogance of the human mind that leads to evil.