Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is a crude, greedy landowner who neglected his sons from two marriages. The eldest, Dmitri, is a passionate, reckless army officer locked in a dispute with his father over money and over the same woman, Grushenka. Ivan is a brilliant intellectual tormented by doubt about God and suffering. Alyosha, the youngest, is a novice at the local monastery under the elder Zosima. A servant, Smerdyakov, rumoured to be Fyodor's illegitimate son, lurks in the household.
Rising tension between father and sons builds towards a crime and a trial that grip the town. Along the way the novel contains some of Dostoevsky's most famous passages, including Ivan's prose poem about the Grand Inquisitor confronting Christ in Seville, and Zosima's teachings about responsibility and active love.
Completed in 1880, months before the author's death, it is a philosophical novel, a family drama and a courtroom thriller at once. It explores faith and doubt, free will, moral responsibility and the relationship between fathers and sons, and has influenced writers and thinkers from Freud to Einstein.
Book details
| Author | Fyodor Dostoevsky |
|---|---|
| First published | 1880 |
| Original language | Russian |
| Translated by | Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky |
| Genre | Classic |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 796 |
| Setting | Skotoprigonyevsk, a provincial Russian town, 1860s |
Themes
- Faith and doubt
- Free will
- Family conflict
- Moral responsibility
- Suffering
Who should read it
Readers ready for a demanding but rewarding novel that mixes murder mystery with deep philosophical argument.