Dostoevsky, Joyce, Kafka, and Wharton have all cemented spots in the quarterfinals. But which lucky books will go on to the semis? Your chance to choose! Submit your votes here.
And all of them. Brothers Karamazov. I love them and I love this book so much, you know.
I want to draw some more russian literature fanarts but I’m not sure about the book. May be you want to see some characters or writers, I’d be glad to hear.
And yes, I decided to draw all brothers (except Smerdyakov, I don’t like him).
This is my favourite son of Fyodor Karamazov. This is my favourite character in this novel after may be only Fyodor Pavlovich. Ivan seems to me as a very interesting character and his dialogues like story about the Great Inquisitor is just incredible. It’s a pity that it payed not enough attention to him in the novel. Guess, in second/third book author was going to tell as more about him.
When Victor Hugo said To love another person is to see the face of God, and Dostoevsky said To love someone means to see them as God intended them and The more you succeed in loving, the more you’ll be convinced at the existence of God and the immortality of your soul.
the oldest will have a ruinous military career and develop a tendency to recklessness, alcoholism and anger management issues the middle one will be a brilliant student with strong atheist inclinations and casual demonic hallucinations the youngest will be an angel prone to hysteria turned tsaricide by circumstances
“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.” ―Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
was thinking about how ivan and alyosha’s relationship seems like it should be an ideological battleground, but it’s not. instead, what we see in their interactions is this immense love and affection and fondness felt by ivan for alyosha, and that supersedes whatever religious turmoil is going on in his heart. but it doesn’t come out as straightforward “i love you"s. (actually, it does, but ALSO) it comes out in ivan interrupting his own theological monologues to offer alyosha food.
the best chapters for this are “the brothers get acquainted”, in which ivan and alyosha meet again for the first time almost as strangers since years of separation in adolescence, and “he said that!”, in which alyosha comes to ivan in ivan’s most vulnerable hour for the first time after ivan told alyosha not to ever talk to him again.
“I’ll order some fish soup for you, or something—you don’t live on tea alone, do you?” cried Ivan, apparently terribly pleased that he had managed to lure Alyosha. He himself had already finished dinner and was having tea. “I’ll have fish soup, and then tea, I’m hungry,” Alyosha said cheerfully. “And cherry preserve? They have it here. Do you remember how you loved cherry preserve at Polenov’s when you were little?” “You remember that? I’ll have preserve, too, I still love it.” Ivan rang for the waiter and ordered fish soup, tea, and preserve. “I remember everything, Alyosha, I remember you till you were eleven, I was nearly fifteen then. […]” (Book V Chapter 3: The Brothers Get Acquainted)
“[…] some people are dear to me, whom one loves sometimes, would you believe it, without even knowing why; some human deeds are dear to me, which one has perhaps long ceased believing in, but still honours with one’s heart, out of old habit. Here, they’ve brought your fish soup—help yourself. It’s good fish soup, they make it well.” (Ivan to Alyosha. Book V Chapter 3: The Brothers Get Acquainted)
“He’s simply a devil, a rotten little devil. He goes to the public baths. Undress him and you’re sure to find a tail, long and smooth as a Great Dane’s, a good three feet long, brown … Alyosha, you’re chilly, you were out in the snow, do you want some tea? What? It’s cold? Shall I tell them to make some hot?” (Ivan to Alyosha. Book XI Chapter 10: “He Said That!”)
in both these moments ivan’s head is preoccupied with matters of god and the devil, and yet in spite of that, the back of his mind is going, hey, this is my little brother whom i havent seen in ages, he likes cherry preserve, i wonder if he still likes cherry preserve? would he like some tea, some soup? god and the devil may be fighting in ivan’s heart and screwing with him but despite that, despite all his doubts and anxieties about whether anything even matters, he remembers alyosha’s favourite food. the brothers karamazov is a book about love.
when dmitrij karamazov said “i’m not drunk at all. cognac is cognac, but i need two bottles to get drunk—” and when grantaire said “thou alone art ingenuous. two bottles never yet astonished a man.” and when -
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s appearance, mainly his majestic beard, resembles both the title character of his novel, The Idiot, as well as Nietzsche’s prophet who exclaimed that God was dead. It comes before its time to a world that was neither ready nor justified in acknowledging the difficult truths it poses.
Also, his coat is worn a bit loosely, just like the moral tendencies of the Brothers Karamazov.
