Ms. Hen reviews The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Bantam
1880
Translated from the Russian by Andrew MacAndrew
When Ms. Hen was an undergraduate hen, her Chaucer professor told her class that people should only read The Brothers Karamazov when they’re very happy. Ms. Hen took that as a challenge, and she read the book, but she was not a sophisticated enough reader at the time. Also, she read the original translation by Constance Garnett, and she understands that is not the easiest one to read. A hen friend recently told her that the Andrew MacAndrew translation is more palatable, so she decided to give it a whirl.
She doesn’t know if she’s happy enough to read the novel now, but she’s not unhappy. But the story is crushing.
The novel revolves around the three brothers Karamazov, Dmitri, Ivan, and Alexei, and their father Fyodor. The father did not raise his sons, who were born from two different mothers. At the beginning of the novel, Alexei, or Alyosha, is trying to decide if he is going to join a monastery. He is told by his mentor the Elder Zosima that he should not join, but instead to go out into the world and do good.
Dmitri, or Mitya and his brother Ivan are both infatuated with the same woman, Grushenka, who is a type of woman that all the men fall in love with, including their father. Fyodor is known as a sensualist; he drinks a lot, and sleeps with a lot of women.
The Elder Zosima dies, and everyone wonders why his body is not decomposing, since people thought he was a saint. Ivan recites a poem to Alyosha that he wrote, “The Grand Inquisitor,” which is about Jesus meeting an inquisitor. Alyosha knows a young woman, Lise, who cannot walk who claims she is in love with him.
Mitya goes crazy, and thinks he can run away with Grushenka. He hits his father’s servant Gregory with a pestle, and thinks he murdered him. He dashes around the town spending money for a party for the peasants because he believes his life will change. Fyodor is killed, and Mitya is arrested. Everyone thinks he did the crime, and nobody believes it’s possible he is innocent except his brothers.
This novel is filled with dastardly characters. Almost everyone is despicable, except Alyosha, who works on spreading goodwill where he goes. This is the question that the novel poses: Is it possible for a people to be decent humans when all the cards are stacked against them? The brothers never had any guidance from their father, and their mothers passed away young. The father was a horrible person, and nobody is upset that he is dead, but they want to know who murdered him and stole his money
The narrative takes a strange turn when Ivan hallucinates and thinks he’s talking to the devil, or a servant of the devil. Ms. Hen thinks this is her favorite part of the novel because it’s so weird and unexpected. She thought the novel might turn into something else after this section, but it was the character’s delusion.
Some chickens appeared in this novel which pleased Ms. Hen. The character Smerdyakov was described as coming from a hen, “He’s a chicken who suffers from the falling sickness, and eight-year-old boy could give him a beating.” Smerdyakov is the pivotal character in the novel, and is thought to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor Karamazov.
Ms. Hen thinks the reason her professor said that someone should only read this when they’re very happy is because the novel forces the reader to look at the dark side of humanity, and how horrid people can be to each other. At the very end, there’s a glimmer of hope, but in order to find out what that is, Ms. Hen will let you discover it for yourself.
Ms. Hen’s beach reading