Summer Reading '10: Brothers Karamazov

[Virgil]

I have read Brothers three times, and have enjoyed it more each time. The only novel which comes close to Brothers is Don Quixote. After reading the novel, try to find a VHS recording of the 1950s movie. For some reason it has never been put on dvd. In the movie, Yul Brynner is Dimitri, Richard Basehart is Ivan, and a very young Captain Kirk is Alyosha. I don't remember the actor's name, but the bastard brother was nominated for an academy award. Fyodor Karamazov is superbly played by Lee J. Cobb. Claire Bloomi is Dimitri's intended, with Maria Schell as Grushenka. It's too bad this classic movie seems to have been lost.

I didn't know that dfloyd. Sounds like it's worth seeing.

[_Shannon_]

I have read Brothers three times, and have enjoyed it more each time. The only novel which comes close to Brothers is Don Quixote. After reading the novel, try to find a VHS recording of the 1950s movie. For some reason it has never been put on dvd. In the movie, Yul Brynner is Dimitri, Richard Basehart is Ivan, and a very young Captain Kirk is Alyosha. I don't remember the actor's name, but the bastard brother was nominated for an academy award. Fyodor Karamazov is superbly played by Lee J. Cobb. Claire Bloomi is Dimitri's intended, with Maria Schell as Grushenka. It's too bad this classic movie seems to have been lost.

Thanks! I'll have to check out the library to see if they have it!

[Dark Muse]

I just finished Book 1 and so far I am already really enjoying it and I find that it actually does read pretty quickly. It is easy to get into and it has nice short chapters and leaves you just wanting to read more. I cannot wait to see what happens next.

[Janine]

I listened to chapter 1 last night. I just downloaded the next four chapters, since they are short and you long to devour more, as Dark Muse has pointed out.

[Dark Muse]

I just started reading Book II and I find the meeting in the monastery to be quite hysterical.

I loved this passage, because I agree, I think that those who have a tendency to take offence as everything, do it because they simply enjoy being offended, it makes them feel self-important.

The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.

[Quark]

I just finished Book 1 and so far I am already really enjoying it and I find that it actually does read pretty quickly. It is easy to get into and it has nice short chapters and leaves you just wanting to read more. I cannot wait to see what happens next.

I listened to chapter 1 last night. I just downloaded the next four chapters, since they are short and you long to devour more, as Dark Muse has pointed out.

Yeah, the prose is pretty straight-forward, so it doesn't take long to turn a page. It's also pretty enjoyable, too. Maybe Alyosha's sub-plot gets a little tiresome in the middle of the novel, but for the most part it's a good, quick read (for a 900 page monster). The story also gets better as the novel goes progresses. Really, the best parts are further on.

After reading the novel, try to find a VHS recording of the 1950s movie. For some reason it has never been put on dvd. In the movie, Yul Brynner is Dimitri, Richard Basehart is Ivan, and a very young Captain Kirk is Alyosha. I don't remember the actor's name, but the bastard brother was nominated for an academy award. Fyodor Karamazov is superbly played by Lee J. Cobb. Claire Bloomi is Dimitri's intended, with Maria Schell as Grushenka. It's too bad this classic movie seems to have been lost.

I saw that a while back ago. Funny, I never even noticed Shatner (talk about a different role for him). The cast was good, though. The actor they got for Dmitri was excellent. I had always imagined Dmitri as a larger, more imposing presence, but I think the movie did a great job capturing his intensity. The movie avoided the usual pitfall for adaptations: trying to show everything the novel showed. So often that makes adaptations impossible to follow, as you rush from one scene and one set of characters to another. The movie cut BK down to pretty much Dmitri and his story, and was at least able to make that work. The other brothers come off more as minor players (which is unfortunate, but necessary), and they mess up the ending (which was both unfortunate and unnecessary). It also emphasizes the love triangle thing a little too much. It becomes almost a soap opera at times (she loves him, but he's in love with someone else! Oh, no!). But, overall, it followed the plot and was very watchable.

I just started reading Book II and I find the meeting in the monastery to be quite hysterical.

I loved this passage, because I agree, I think that those who have a tendency to take offence as everything, do it because they simply enjoy being offended, it makes them feel self-important.

That's a good quotation to start off with. It's a funny piece of Fyodor's buffoonery, but there's also a serious point being made. So much of what the story will hinge upon is the idea of intention, and the father is giving a little insight into how that works. Throughout the novel, characters will claim or act as though there's some one-to-one relationship between cause and effect, intention and action; yet, what the novel portrays time and again is that there is no one single impulse behind an action, but rather a range of possible actions that characters choose among for many reasons. For example, when Dostoevsky compares Smerdyakov with a peasant depicted in a certain painting he gives the reader a range of different possible outcomes for these characters rather than a single fate:

He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking; he is "contemplating." If any one touched him he start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. . . . if he were asked what he had been thing about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has hidden with himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation, Those impression are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. . . . He may suddenly, after hording impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many "contemplatives" among the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was most likely one of them, and he most likely was greedily hoarding up his impression, hardly knowing why. (BK, 150)

Again, it's not a one-to-one relationship between "hoarding up his impressions" and an action. Rather, there's a range of possible actions that Dostoevsky relates to us subjunctively with "perhaps" this and "perhaps" that. This character can burn a village or take a pilgrimage. Or, he can do both. There's a range of possibilities here.

Similarly, in the bit of dialogue from the father, Fyodor shows that it isn't simply an offense is given and then an offense is taken, but rather that possibility of taking an offense is opened up and then a person chooses to be offended for a variety of reasons. This distinction becomes key later on in the book. For more on this reading, you could look Gary Morson's book Narrative and Freedom (1994). He spells this out more clearly than I can in a few hundred words.

[victorianfan]

I saw that a while back ago. Funny, I never even noticed Shatner (talk about a different role for him). The cast was good, though. The actor they got for Dmitri was excellent. I had always imagined Dmitri as a larger, more imposing presence, but I think the movie did a great job capturing his intensity. The movie avoided the usual pitfall for adaptations: trying to show everything the novel showed. So often that makes adaptations impossible to follow, as you rush from one scene and one set of characters to another. The movie cut BK down to pretty much Dmitri and his story, and was at least able to make that work. The other brothers come off more as minor players (which is unfortunate, but necessary), and they mess up the ending (which was both unfortunate and unnecessary). It also emphasizes the love triangle thing a little too much. It becomes almost a soap opera at times (she loves him, but he's in love with someone else! Oh, no!). But, overall, it followed the plot and was very watchable.

Although I like Yul Brynner very much, I don't think he was cut for the role of Dmitri. Yul's posture is too dignified, too proud. It isn't the way I pictured Dmitri at all. For me, Dmitri is an uncontrollable, impulsive and foolish man.

Anyway, as I see it, through 4 brothers Dostoevsky tried to depicture 4 different life paths:

Dmitri - "the way of the animal"; food, sex and violence which leads to destruction of self or others

Ivan - the way of the mind; rationalizing everything and everyone which leads to madness

Aleksey - the way of faith and human compassion

Smerdyakov - nihilisim

[papayahed]

Ack!!! I think my book is buried in my storage closet. I know I bought it for the last go around but now I can't find it.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

I wanted to pass on a word on encouragement and a feeling of envy.
Having just completed TBK this past April, I can tell you from experience, you will enjoy it immensely. I posted a small blurb under "Finally Finished".

Beginning with the Constance Garnett translation, I was soon swayed to the Pevear/ Volokhonsky translation by various comments posted in the Forums and from various articles.
At the same time, I likely would have been none the wiser given my rudimentary knowledge of literature and the ability to discern such differences.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/11/bo...l?pagewanted=2

Upon completing the novel, you may celebrate as I did in the appropriate fashion:




Enjoy the read.


Gilliatt

[Dark Muse]

That's a good quotation to start off with. It's a funny piece of Fyodor's buffoonery, but there's also a serious point being made. So much of what the story will hinge upon is the idea of intention, and the father is giving a little insight into how that works. Throughout the novel, characters will claim or act as though there's some one-to-one relationship between cause and effect, intention and action; yet, what the novel portrays time and again is that there is no one single impulse behind an action, but rather a range of possible actions that characters choose among for many reasons. For example, when Dostoevsky compares Smerdyakov with a peasant depicted in a certain painting he gives the reader a range of different possible outcomes for these characters rather than a single fate:


Similarly, in the bit of dialogue from the father, Fyodor shows that it isn't simply an offense is given and then an offense is taken, but rather that possibility of taking an offense is opened up and then a person chooses to be offended for a variety of reasons. This distinction becomes key later on in the book. For more on this reading, you could look Gary Morson's book Narrative and Freedom (1994). He spells this out more clearly than I can in a few hundred words.

This makes me think of the incident in which takes place by Fyodor and his son Dmitri. When Dmitiri finally arrives at the monetary and he begins an argument with his father. Though he claims that he knows his father is just trying to make a scene, and that is the whole purpose for him bringing them all there in the first place, and he claims that he is not going to allow his father to get away with it, he ultimately enables his father to do just that.

In spite of the fact that he says he knows his father just wants to cause trouble he still allows himself to be offended by what his father says, and further more persists to argue back with his father, when if he truly wanted to prevent a scene, he could have just ignored his father, or simply turned around and left.

But he chooses to engage his father in the dispute and thus he himself ends up creating the scene in which he states that his father wants to do, and of which he says he will prevent his father from doing.

[Quark]

Although I like Yul Brynner very much, I don't think he was cut for the role of Dmitri. Yul's posture is too dignified, too proud. It isn't the way I pictured Dmitri at all. For me, Dmitri is an uncontrollable, impulsive and foolish man.

No, Brynner (was it really Yul Brynner? I'm so bad at pointing out actors in movies) doesn't really match the image of Dmitri I had in my head, either. You're right that he's too stiff for the part. After all, it's Dmitri's impulsiveness that his father uses to get the better of him for most of the novel. But, at the same time, I think Brynner does a good job of playing what I called Dmitri's "intensity." Dmitri also has a sense of honor. He gets into duels and takes the most offense at the father's antics. Dmitri's a military man, and is quick to action. That part of his character sometimes gets lost when the narrator keeps shaking his head at Dmitri's foolishness and, as it's phrased in the novel, "debauchery." The film brought that out a little more.

Ack!!! I think my book is buried in my storage closet. I know I bought it for the last go around but now I can't find it.

Check under the sofa cushions.

This makes me think of the incident in which takes place by Fyodor and his son Dmitri. When Dmitiri finally arrives at the monetary and he begins an argument with his father. Though he claims that he knows his father is just trying to make a scene, and that is the whole purpose for him bringing them all there in the first place, and he claims that he is not going to allow his father to get away with it, he ultimately enables his father to do just that.

It's been a while since I've read the novel, but, yeah, I think that's the case in the opening episode with the father. Fyodor isn't the only one responsible for his outbursts. Dmitri helps to get the father an audience, the audience gives Fyodor the attention he wants, and then once that's all in place does Fyodor make an *** of himself. It's not just the actor that's responsible. All the people who make the situation available also have something to do with the action. How much they have to do with it is questionable, but the novel wants to suggest that there's some responsibility people have to the possibilities they open up and not just the actions they commit.

[Dark Muse]

It's been a while since I've read the novel, but, yeah, I think that's the case in the opening episode with the father. Fyodor isn't the only one responsible for his outbursts. Dmitri helps to get the father an audience, the audience gives Fyodor the attention he wants, and then once that's all in place does Fyodor make an *** of himself. It's not just the actor that's responsible. All the people who make the situation available also have something to do with the action. How much they have to do with it is questionable, but the novel wants to suggest that there's some responsibility people have to the possibilities they open up and not just the actions they commit.

I love Fyodor. Probably would not want to hang out with him, but he cracks me up. He is hysterical. Yes I agree that there is a suggestion of shared reasonability within the book. Everyone knows how Fyodor is, and what he is like and no one is surprised by his outbursts and yet they still both getting angry with him when he is just being himself.

Like Miosov when he made that whole scene about how he wasn't going to go to dinner if Fyodor was going, but he knew from the beginning how Fyodor was going to act, and he still went with him just so he could act offended and ashamed by his company.

It is kind of like watching a train wreck. They don't really want to be involved it, but none of them can stop themselves from wanting to watch, but then try to act like they are really ashamed about being there.

[Quark]

It is kind of like watching a train wreck.

If you like train wrecks, you should read Notes from the Underground. That's Dostoevsky's best disaster case, if you ask me. The narrator tries to play the genius, but ends up making an idiot of himself at every turn. It's cringingly funny at times.

[Dark Muse]

If you like train wrecks, you should read Notes from the Underground. That's Dostoevsky's best disaster case, if you ask me. The narrator tries to play the genius, but ends up making an idiot of himself at every turn. It's cringingly funny at times.

I have read it, and I loved and I loved the narrator. It was quite sardonicaly funny.

[victorianfan]

It seems to me that in Fyodor and Dmitri's case we can use the phrase: like father, like son. The only difference is in the fact that Fyodor is cunning and Dmitri is frank.