The Brothers Karamazov (Easy Classics)

Written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Gemma Barder

Narrated by Dan Bottomley

An adapted and illustrated edition of the Russian classic, at an easy-to-read level for all ages!
Dimitri is angry and reckless. Ivan is smart and logical. Alyosha is caring and forgiving. And their half-brother Smerdyakov is treated no better than a servant by their father. When Dimitri falls in love with a woman who isn’t his fiancée and sets out to get the money his father is keeping from him, tensions within the family run higher than ever.
Can Alyosha bring the Karamazov family together before disaster strikes?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sweet Cherry Publishing
• Release date: Oct 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781782267850

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow in 1821. He died in 1881 having written some of the most celebrated works in the history of literature, including Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov.

Reviews for The Brothers Karamazov (Easy Classics)

[citizencane-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It requires a certain amount of modesty to review a work of the caliber of The Brothers Karamazov. As far as I am concerned Dostoevsky is the greatest of the pantheon of 19th century Russian authors who collectively represent the pinnacle of Russian letters and culture. This novel has been on my list of books I need to get to for some time. It was worth the wait.The plot revolves around the male members of the Karamazov family. a father and three sons who could not be more unlike. The dissolute patriarch Fyodor, the ex-officer eldest son by Fyodor's first wife, Dmitry, the intellectual atheist middle son, Ivan, and the devout monk in training Alexey. The main female characters are Katerina, the sometime fiancée of Dmitry and beloved of Ivan, and Grushenka, who is an obsession of Dimitry and his father. Grushenka, in turn, is holding a torch for a Polish officer who had wronged her and abandoned her five earlier. Katerina is a woman scorned, by Dmitry, and who ultimately is revenged upon Dmitry, who, undone by his fatal flaws, ends up on trial for the murder of his father, who is not only in competition with him for the favors of Grushenka, but has, at least according to Dmitry, cheated his son out of an inheritance from his mother who died when Dmitry was in his early childhood.Among the supporting cast is one Smerdyakov, a servant in the household of Karamazov pere, and thought to be Karamazov's illegitimate son. Also, Rakitin, like Alexey, a novice in training to become a monk, but in reality a first-class cynic, who could not be less promising a candidate for a religious vocation. Alexey is a disciple of a Fr. Zossima, who is what is called an "elder" which is a role a lot deeper than just an older man. He is visited early in the novel in an attempt to resolve the broken relationship between Dmitry and his father, at least concerning the dispute over the inheritance.There is a large supporting cast of characters that come in and out of the novel, with particular significance attached to an ex-captain Snegiryov and his family, most prominently his ailing son Ilyusha. There are plots within the plot, but they all revolve around the brothers and especially Dmitry. It is clear that Ivan is a representative of the modern, Western looking liberal intellectual bent in 19th century Russia. He is rational, atheistic and scientific. Alexey is obviously Dostoevsky's hero; he says as much in the novel. He represents the Russian orthodox believer. He is pious, modest, chaste and unfailingly generous of spirit. Dmitry is a little more difficult to pigeonhole. Late in the novel in a speech made by a public prosecutor he is likened to primitive Russia, maybe before the triumph of Orthodoxy. Whatever he is meant to symbolize, he is dissolute, prone to drink, violence and unable to be responsible with money. He suffers from an excess of thymos. and is unable to contain his emotions. The one positive character trait he possesses is a sense of honor.It would take more time than I can allot or the reader is likely to endure to relate all of the events of Dostoevsky's masterpiece. After all, my Penguin Classics edition runs to 913 pages. It would also involve revealing a great number of spoilers which should not be done to prospective readers willing to tackle this immense work. Suffice it to say that The Brothers Karamazov is suffused with the great themes of literature: love, hate, envy, jealousy, suffering, guilt, vengeance, greed, loyalty, betrayal, justice, belief, atheism, evil, virtue, charity, man's fate in general and the destiny of Russia in particular.This is a great book and worth your time and effort, both of which will be taxed and rewarded.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The question of nature versus nurture has always been a topic for debate. Who are we? Why are we here? Do we have a divine reason for being on this planet? In short, Dostoevsky is asking for the meaning of life. Sort of. This is the story of a patricide when any of Fyodor's children could have been his killer because no one has a good relationship with him. Not to mention the competition between father and son over Agrafena (Grushenka). Here is a brief overview of The Brothers Karamazov: Book One sets up the family dynamicBook Two introduces the dispute over the family inheritanceBook Three is about the love triangle between Fyodor, Dmitri, and GrushenkaBook Four - you can skip. It's a side storyBook Five is pros and contra, the Grand Inquisition & Jesus (reason and blind faith)Book Six is about the Russian monk; the life and history of Elder Zosima, dying in his cellBook Seven introduces Alyosha and the death and decay of ZosimaBook Eight illustrates Dmitri's greed in order to run away with GrushenkaBook Nine is Fyodor's murder (finally)Book Ten is another side storyBook eleven is about Brother Ivan and his quest to find his father's killerBook Twelve is the trial of Dimitri

[saschenka-316193 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dostoyevsky’s final work, his manifesto, can be a slog. Primed on literature of the last 50-100 years, the contemporary reader is hard pressed to wade through elaborate detail, occasional plot holes, characters who are too representative to be relatable (female characters receive short shrift) and an ending that leaves the fate of its characters up in the air. This is a book best read in chapters, like a Dickensian serial, with the mindset of a long winter. Hard to get through at first reading; better the second time around (with a bit of speed reading through parts) when one knows what to expect and has the whole of its importance in hand. Dostoyevsky was a (gasp!) flawed person. He didn’t write sentences as beautifully as Turgenev or Tolstoy. He hits the reader over the head with his positions and his allegories. The importance of The Brothers Karamazov lies in 1) its reflection of late 19th century provincial Russia and its position in that time period; 2) its influence on the 20th century (including Freud, D.H. Lawrence, Graham Greene, Orhan Pamuk, apparently Putin); and 3) it’s discussion of questions still engaging the 21st century: faith and intellect, freedom to choose not to be free, the individual vs the society, the meaning of grief, can one have hope in a hopeless place? Under the ‘some things never change’ banner are comments on the medical profession, class interactions, established religion, the appearance of Trump, and why Putin succeeded where Gorbachev could not. Americans should have an affinity for Dostoyevsky — both Russia and America have based much of their identity on not being European, having a love/hate relationship with Europe, and a belief in their own innately special separateness.

[farrhon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Yes a lovely engaging story - maybe too masculine?

[beauxarts79 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This novel has such near-universal appeal that I expected to be riveted. Not so. Each day I picked the book up to read, it felt heavier and heavier, and the mere idea of continuing was so oppressive I felt as if I were engaged in a kind of masochism. It's primarily a novel of ideas. At its worse, it is variously pedantic (on the part of the male characters) and hysterical (on the part of the emotionally incontinent female characters), though there are moments of brilliant realism (for example, the interrogation in Part 3). Generally, it was simply tedious, and one of the three stars is out of deference to its canonical status.

[et.carole · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Today, I am a new person: I am a person who pays debts, who calls their mom, who wakes up before 8 a.m. and makes coffee, unafraid of the startling amount of sunshine, unafraid of emotional honesty, unafraid of long Russian novels. Yesterday I finished the Brothers.
This novel was summer reading for me on the eve of my senior year in high school. That particular online English class was the source of the most influential reading assignments I’ve ever had, and I went on to get an English degree, which is testament to the superiority of one or the inferiority of the other. And the piece that Mr. Cothran started us off with, the gentle beginning, the slope into Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Berry’s Jayber Crow and a few more theological essays than I ever thought I’d read was this one. I started it that summer but could not get through it, and later assignments of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky’s short stories led me to a seven-year belief that the Russians should stick to things less than a book long.
Of course it’s incisive. Of course the characters come alive, and reading it while living alone in a new place, I’ve had that peculiar experience of knowing fictional and archaic Russians better than the humans around me. Zossima's life was, unexpectedly, the section which kept my mind most captive within the pages. Somehow the relentless drama and uncertainty of Dmitri and Ivan kept me assured that they would survive to continue creating disputes and debates. The whole cast were apt characterizations of faults. Perhaps that’s people, though, just a fully-fleshed version of the one thing that’s worst about them.
People who read long books wear this trait as if it is a mark of sainthood. In the past week, as I’ve been finishing the final remarks of the trial, I’ve seen two people name it as a favorite book, and it’s near two inches’ width make that a bold claim. It was too wide, I think, for it to be a favorite of mine, but I would not have it any other way; its length allowed it to be a complete world and without aspects or characters or scenes it would have been less. That’s the wonder of good long books: they give themselves space and become perfect in their universes. Living with a book like this and finishing it, or even getting a good distance into it, is a suspension not of disbelief but also a little bit of reality, for the time when you’re willing to sink inside it. The distance of reading a few hundred pages is an exercise in the meaning of reading, especially when the author is at some distance to you, the era is beyond your easy knowledge, and the book serves as a single door in—the mystification of reading is that a door is an insufficient symbol. Your eyes are replaced, your ears are replaced, each sense is overwhelmed, your thought processes bend to the customs of the place you’ve entered, and yet the phrase “without leaving your easy chair” is also insufficient, because you feel the breeze tickle your arms and your phone buzz with a notification all at the same time. It is an absorption that movies take to an extreme, so the experience of reading a long book is a kind of doubled perception.
Brothers was good, of course, even if some parts read like the scandalous romance novels American women were getting published at the time, even if the characters had more emotion in a fingernail clipping than most people I know, even if the pace put my patience on the rack at times. But it’s just one of a magnificent species, a dangerous and delightful animal.

[lethalmauve · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The plane where faith and morality tend to meet is deeply shaken and bent in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. A familial tale of anguish and madness exacerbated by financial desperation and daddy issues, a taste of deceit runs through every elation brought by hedonistic inclinations and lethal romantic undertakings as grudges continue to accumulate in the background. More than a novel about the struggle with belief and nonbelief, it is also a psychological and philosophical examination of humanity; how one's way of presenting and carrying one's self mostly determines reputation, capability, more so the truth and lie beheld through one's actions and decisions. The Brothers Karamazov’s unexpected turns and twists in its engrossingly lengthy family affair mould it into disquieting and gripping suspense. This eventually shoves its paragraphs into a somewhat nicely-executed courtroom drama if not for a semi-dull and hypothetically concluded recollection of events through one of its side characters. Indeed other than its intriguing take on the justification of suffering, what further strengthens this highly-esteemed classic is its dimensional set of characters, though mostly unlikable (and some of them may not even warrant any kind of pity and understanding), recognisable through some of our encounters and intimate relations. And albeit with an end asking for a lot more, even a possibility of another story, The Brothers Karamazov is an excellently weaved and spiritually piercing page-turner of a classic.

[stravinsky-544320 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

people often make fun of what is kind and good.

[stillatim · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I came into this pretty optimistically. I didn't get much out of 'The Idiot,' which seemed a bit, well, pubescent; even less out of 'Memoirs from the House of the Dead,' which was about 200 pages too long. Let's not even bring up 'Netochka Nezvanova.' But I'm determined to keep trying, since he has his high points (none in 'The Idiot,' though) and I feel a moral compulsion to read him.

Also, the other books I read for various classes, and thought that might have been the problem. It wasn't. The problem is that nobody with as much talent as Dostoevsky has ever written flabbier, more repetitive books. I know that this is intentional, and part of his 'democratic' genius and so on, all the characters get a say and so on and so on. That only works is all the characters deserve a hearing, and doesn't excuse them getting their say twelve or thirteen times per novel. If Dmitri K had had one more soliloquy I might have attacked him with a pestle. Novels of ideas are only good when the ideas are good.

The good news is that the famous Grand Inquisitor chapters really are amazing, as are the fables and little stories spread throughout the novel, and Ivan K generally had more interesting things to say than anyone else. The 'optimism' of the sub-plot focusing on the young boys is, well, a little flimsy (almost 800 pages of murder, despair and stupidity, ending with 'let's just all get along'??), but the children themselves are actually far more interesting than the adults.

Anyway. I can't really recommend it to anyone who's not interested in 'The Russian Soul,' and/or filled with adolescent existentialist angst. I am clearly an anti-democratic tyrant who likes hierarchical fascism in my novels. So be it.

[briandarvell_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fantastic book if you’re willing to invest in the time to read it. Even at a pace of 30 pages per day it took over a solid month to read. There are some amazing dialogues which really get into the philosophy and psychology of life. The characters are all amazingly defined and brought to life. I could relate to so many people I know from the way the author described and used his characters in the novel. The only part of the book I struggled with was the final chapters, perhaps I was getting anxious to complete the novel but really I think it was the constant explanations of what had already occurred in the novel. I enjoyed Crime and Punishment more than The Brothers Karamazov but I am still in awe that someone could write this novel by hand. Would eagerly read another novel by this author any day.

[locriian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book, it was so dramatic and the characters were excellent. At first dmitri was my favourite but By the end it was Ivan. Also ... Smerdykov. At first you're like , come on, move along the story, but then it picks up and picks up and oh man the ending. The only thing I didn't like was alyosha's storyline. He was really boring.

[dominiquemarie-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Back to the Classics Reading Challenge 2017
Category: Russian Classic

This book took me a little while to get into, but once I got through the first few chapters, I was hooked! This is a long, philosophically dense book, but do not let that deter you. It is anything, but boring, and it will make you think. The main conflict in the novel is Faith vs Doubt. The characters are so dynamic that I believed they were real people. Definitely take your time reading this one. I read it in two months, and there is so much to it that I want to read it again. I think I will read a different translation every time. I actually regret that I can't read it in Russian. I would love to experience this novel in it's original glory.

[danielstj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an amazing, transcending book. Although I preferred the first third of it to the last, I completely recognize the scope and intensity of the prose. The characters are vivid and vital. I was very pleased reading it.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

After seeing the stellar reviews for this book, I definitely feel like I missed many of the lessons and themes of this weighty novel. Like many other critics of this book, I found it hard to like any of the characters. The 'good' characters - Alexei, Father Zosima, etc. - were just too perfect for me, almost in a saccharine way. I liked some of the flawed characters - Dimitri, Ivan, Grushenka - but the long lessons about faith and God almost made me stop reading this book. And in hindsight, I should have put the book down and picked it up again when I was in a more receptive mood. Right now, I'm too preoccupied by this horrible Trump administration -- the lack of integrity, and the destruction of environmental protections, race relations ... I could go on forever, but I'm off track about this classic. The takeaway for me is to not rush and 'check off' a book just to have it appear in my finished pile, especially when there are so many lessons to be learned. Will I ever pick this up and read it again, unlikely, but possible.

[margaretfield · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found it tougher to get through than his other works. But the scene where Jesus comes back to visit the church officials was amazing.

[kerns222 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Philosophical, theosophical, word-drunk, symbolic, high-emoting Russian telenovela in longbook form. One that whaps you in the head and knocks your socks off.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant and enthralling examination of the brothers with a thoroughly Russian feel.

[longhorndaniel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well it took me long enough but I finally finished; I did like the writing and the story was well thought out but was sometimes just tooooooooo drawn out for me. My favorite part was actually the characterizations.

[stef7sa-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I just don't get it. The characters are weird, I cannot understand their motives, I am not interested in their theories or philosophies. Different universe. Reminds me of the Lars von Triermovie Breaking the Waves, full of people and emotions alien to me.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Story of faith and doubt. It also is a story of Russia and the Russian peasant. There is a lot of contrasts in the book. Ivan and Alyosha are opposites. One a man of faith and the other a man of doubts. Dimitri the first born son is a wild, reactive man who is loud in his abusive threats but really in the middle between his two brothers. It is a story of Russia, a story of a dysfunctional family and a story of faith and doubt. I rate it 5 stars because it is very good. I liked Crime and Punishment a bit more but the author considers this his best book. It deserves a reread someday.

[neurodrew · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Everyone has of course heard that this is a great book, and a classic. I was not aware that it was a crime and judicial procedural novel as well. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov had three sons, the eldest, Dmitry (also Mitya) by his first wife, and Ivan and Alexey by his second. Fyodor is described as muddle-headed, but cunning. Dmitry, hot-headed and impulsive, thrown out by his father at a young age and raised as an army officer, returns to claim his inheritance, which has been spent, and thus sets the plot going. Ivan is the second oldest, and in the course of the book seems to have less of a role, although he is the author of the "Grand Inquisitor" story, a famous speculation on what the inquisition would have done if Christ himself had appeared in their jurisdiction. Ivan is a free thinker, but refuses to do his father's bidding on a commercial matter, and returns in the course of Dmitry's trial. Alexey is the saintly one, initially a novice at a monastery in the region, and throughout the novel a kind soul, achieving a redemption among poor children at the end. The father, Fyodor, is murdered, suspicion immediately rests on Dmitry, and he is convicted, although we learn that a puffed up servant was the killer. Each of the brothers, their lovers, the servants and monks, the lawyers at the trial, and the townspeople are exquisitely described, and I felt like I was living in the village with the Karamazov family. Dostoyesvsky is also a philosopher, and keen to comment on politics, so there are extensive asides, but the story of the murder and the trial are always driving the plot. I enjoyed about 2 weeks of steady reading, taking advantage of long airplane flights, to finish the book.

[natek_23 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Welcome to crazy town.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Aye yi yi.

I didn't love it. It took me 2 months and 3 days to read this puppy.

Am I glad I finished? Yes

Will I re-read it some day? No way

The best parts of this book are when characters are doing actual things, and when Dostoyevsky describes Russia and Russian things and "the Russian way". Sometimes he has his characters do this, sometime the narrator. I feel like I learned a lot about Russia after the serfs were emancipated (and about how that emancipation affected everyone). I was shocked to read that trials were by jury. (Actually, I think I might just look that up, because I just can't believe it was true.)

The worst parts are the long-winded philosophical/religious discussions/arguments that go on amongst the characters. Soooo tiring. I know nothing about the Russian Orthodox church (let alone about that church in the 19th century), so it all just left me tired and bored.

Also, the women. The women are ridiculous. The scream, they cry, they beg, they fight, they are helpless, etc etc etc. With the exception of Katya, they also seem unable to make any decision on their own. There are so many types of men in this book, but the women are all slight variations of the same.

[jculkin-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

At times difficult and quite tedious... but after 200 pages there are some great events and better discussions. A confused but decidedly confused opinion about belief and faith. The 3 brothers are great characters.

[donnamariemerritt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"But what is there to wonder at, what is there so peculiarly horrifying in it for us? We are so accustomed to such crimes! That's what's so horrible, that such dark deeds have ceased to horrify us. What ought to horrify us is that we are so accustomed to it . . ."A recent speech by President Obama? No. This is from Dostoyevsky's THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, published in 1880. I don't know why I never got around to reading it, but I'm glad I finally did. There are some absolutely brilliant passages in it. Read it carefully and it will make you think more deeply about philosophy, religion, motives, and human nature.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Boy, I found Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" to be a really tough read. (I'm currently working my way through Proust and those novels were conquered much faster than this one.) The prose is really dense and Dostoevsky penchant for repeating made this a difficult read for me.That said, I did enjoy the story of three brothers, Dmitry, Ivan and Aloysha, who traveled very different paths in life after rejection by their father. The father is murdered and Dmitry is accused and the case moves right along to trial. It's an interesting book. I didn't like it as much as other works by Dostoevsky, which I read in college when I had professors pointing out the threads that paralleled what was going on in society as the time. This book felt more like an interesting story.

[joeydag · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I couldn't even tell you the names of the four brothers. I do remember reading the parable of the grand inquisitor and being amazed at some of the enmity between the brothers.

[drardavis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, is a fascinating puzzle. It is removed from the present reader by more than a century, hidden behind the wall of translation, and describing a people whose customs and manners are as foreign as alien cultures in science fiction. Yet, universal truths flood through. Individuals, strange as they may be, come alive. It seems as if it could be turned into a long running television soap opera, or a two part episode of Law and Order. But these formats would find it difficult to include Dostoyevsky himself as he directly confronts the reader both to enhance and clarify the story and to emphasize the philosophical ideas that the reader might not have picked up from the symbolism of the work. I especially liked two of these well known philosophical passages involving Ivan Karamazov; the Grand Inquisitor and Ivan’s hallucination of the Devil. This book is not for the faint of heart, but I doubt that you could understand Russia without having read it.

[ted_newell-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Many sections read twice. Dostoyevsky is dough-y going but you re glad you made the effort when the last chapter is done. Fr Zosima, the Grand Inquisitor, the modern scientific atheist Ivan, all essential mental equipment.

[benuathanasia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If the option is available to you, I highly recommend the dramatized audiobook version by David Fishelson. The casting is phenomenal.Hmmmm...I'm not sure what to say about this. It had funny bits, but it wasn't a comedy. It had a bit of romantic drama, but it wasn't a romance. It had tense bits, but wasn't a horror. It kinda just was. That being said, despite my complete inability to characterize this book, it was really interesting. It was kind of like peeking through your neighbors' window while they're having an out-and-out fight. Morbidly fascinating.