The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
This book came highly recommended from one McFeltenbenbergersteinovski, a Dostoevsky lover. I took the enormous book in hand and dove in full of expectations. This can be a tough endeavor. The book is certainly a podium for tumultuous conversation surrounding the canon of good conversation: religion, morals, love. I almost wish I had read it in college, when my brain soaked it all up like dry sawdust in a morning mist, but truth be told, I wanted the story more than the conversation. The Brothers, a sorry lot competing for the attentions of women, their goals assumed, their attempts assumed, their guilt, their innocence, their meaning, their purpose--all assumed, are wise, young, and sound devilishly handsome. One an intellectual, one a walking treatise on morals, one a walking depravity. All not understood by even themselves; all still in the air toward the end. I was told that the book was to be a trilogy and I was hoping that Fyodor could have lived long enough to share it. The stories that fascinated me the most were the ones that took up only 200 pages of the 800 page novel: the kids in the alleys, the old men in the bar, the women locked in rooms in wheelchairs. We're given just enough cheese to nibble, but miss the satisfaction of a trap on our throats. Maybe next time.
