Preparing to read The Brothers Karamazov

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky Translation

A good friend of mine was reading The Brothers Karamazov which prompted me to pick up this Dostoevsky classic. I have long admired Russian writers, especially Tolstoy and Chekhov, but I was little acquainted with Fyodor Dostoevsky. I have learned that a quality translation is key to experiencing such fine writing, so I researched the translations available and chose the 1990 translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. 



Often when I'm reading a beefy novel like this one, I will also download an audio version so that I can fully immerse myself in the text. I listen to it while I'm cleaning, cooking, driving, etc. I will have already read a particular section and then I will listen to it as a way to further my understanding of the novel. (This also makes domestic tasks less dreadful.) Through Audible, I downloaded an abridged version of the Pevear/Volokhonsky text, but it cuts out too much and I felt I was being cheated. Also, it is read by Debra Winger whose dramatization doesn't parallel with the voices I "hear" in the text. 

Then, through Overdrive (via my local library), I downloaded a different version, which is also abridged but more than twice the length of the Audible audiobook. Simon Vance, the reader/performer, does a fine reading. The translation/production is done by a Russian scholar, named Thomas Beyer. His translation isn't as idiomatic as the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation; however, this audiobook is more comprehensive and the dramatic reading is quite compelling. I listened to some parts over and over because Vance does such a beautiful performance, especially his reading of the father.


 When I began reading the novel, I searched The Brothers Karamazov on Goodreads to update my  "Currently Reading" bookshelf. I read the description of the novel posted on Goodreads: 

The award-winning translation of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel. When brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, the lives of his sons are changed irrevocably: Mitya is placed under suspicion, Ivan's mental tortures drive him to breakdown, Alyosha tries to heal the family's rifts, and there is always the shadow of their bastard half-brother, Smerdyakov.

This is an incredibly insufficient and misleading description of the novel. The description suggests that the murder of Fyodor is the central event of the novel; it is important, but a novel as complex and intricate as this has so much more going on than the sons reeling from the father's murder. Also, the murder, which isn't explicitly depicted, occurs halfway through the novel, but I kept expecting it and anticipating it and I feel that the expectation/anticipation may have clouded my reading. While the narrator notifies us on page one that Fyodor dies a tragic death, I, in no way, expect the event to dominate and there are so many other ideas the narrator brings forth. I guess I feel that the above description slightly skewed my approach to the novel.

I had also searched my local library to see if I could borrow this translation and, among the categories assigned to The Brothers Karamazov, it listed "Didactic Fiction." Is it just me or does such a label repel the reader? I don't want to read didactic fiction, if it is, as I understand it, intended to instruct or moralize.  Again, I was approaching the novel in a problematic way: in this case I was a little defensive or on guard lest I be moralized.

This is my first blog entry and I have already prefaced my review of the novel with the pragmatics of reading the book. Alas, I will leave this entry at just that: how I prepared to read the novel. The next post (or posts) will examine characteristics of the novel that I find most compelling. In addition, I will offer a more formal review of the novel.