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The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers Karamazov

by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons―the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, is social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.

This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal
inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.
Paperback, 796 pages

Published June 14th 2002 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published November 18th 1879)

Book Quotes
I, for example, quiet plainly and simply insist upon annihilation for myself. “No,” they say, “you must go on living, for without you there would be nothing. If everything on earth were reasonable, nothing would ever happen. Without you there would be no events, and it is necessary that there should be events.” Well, and so on I drudge with unwilling heart so that there be events, and bring about unreason by command. People think is something serious, all there unquestionable intelligence notwithstanding. There lies there tragedy. Well, and they suffer, of course, but … al the same they live, they live in reality, not in fantasy; for suffering is also life. Without suffering what pleasure would there be in it? Everything would turn into one single, endless church service: much holy soaring, but rather boring. Well, and I? I suffer, but even so I do not live. I am the “x” in an indeterminate equation. I am one of life’s ghosts, who has lost all the ends and the beginnings, and even at last forgotten what to call myself. You are laughing . . . No, you are not laughing, you are angry again. You are eternally angry, you would like there to be nothing but intelligence, but I will tell you again that I would renounce all this empyrean existence, all these honours and ranks just in order to be able to take fleshy form in the person of a seven-pood merchant’s wife and set up candles to God in church. ‘So, you don’t believe in God either?’ Ivan said, smiling with hatred. ‘Well, how can I explain it to you, if you are serious, that is . . . ‘ ‘Does God exist or not?’ Ivan barked, again with ferocious insistence. ‘Ah, so you are serious? My dear little dove, I swear to God I do not know,
And the son bursting into his father's house, killing him, and at the same time not killing him, this is not even a novel, not a poem, it is a sphinx posing riddles, which it, of course, will not solve itself. If he killed him, he killed him; how can it be that he killed him and yet did not kill him--who can understand that? Then it is announced to us that our tribune is the tribune of truth and sensible ideas, and so from this tribune of 'sensible ideas' an axiom resounds, accompanied by an oath, that to call the murder of a father parricide is simply a prejudice! But if parricide is a prejudice, and if every child ought to ask his father, 'Father, why should I love you?'--what will become of us, what will become of the foundations of society, where will the family end up? Parricide--don't you see, it's just the 'brimstone' of some Moscow merchant's wife? The most precious, the most sacred precepts concerning the purpose and future of the Russian courts are presented perversely and frivolously, only to achieve a certain end, to achieve the acquittal of that which cannot be acquitted. 'Oh, overwhelm him with mercy,' the defense attorney exclaims, and that is just what the criminal wants, and tomorrow everyone will see how overwhelmed he is! And is the defense attorney not being too modest in asking only for the defendant's acquittal? Why does he not ask that a fund be established in the parricide's name, in order to immortalize his deed for posterity and the younger generation? The Gospel and religion are corrected: it's all mysticism, he says, and ours is the only true Christianity, tested by the analysis of reason and sensible ideas. And so a false image of Christ is held up to us! ,' the defense attorney exclaims, and concludes then and there that Christ commanded us to measure with the same measure as it is measured to us--and that from the tribune of truth and sensible ideas! We glance into the Gospel only on the eve of our speeches, in order to make a brilliant display of our familiarity with what is, after all, a rather original work, which may prove useful and serve for a certain effect, in good measure, all in good measure! Yet Christ tells us precisely not to do so, to beware of doing so, because that is what the wicked world does, whereas we must forgive and turn our cheek, and not measure with the same measure as our offenders measure to us. This is what our God taught us, and not that it is a prejudice to forbid children to kill their own fathers. And let us not, from the rostrum of truth and sensible ideas, correct the Gospel of our God, whom the defense attorney deems worthy of being called merely 'the crucified lover of mankind,' in opposition to the whole of Orthodox Russia, which calls out to him: 'For thou art our God...!
الغيرة! "ليس عطيل غيورا، إنه واثق" كذلك قال بوشكين. إن هذه الملاحظة البسيطة تشهد بعمق عبقرية شاعرنا القومي. إن ما عاناه عطيل من قلق النفس واضطراب الأفكار ناشيء عن إنه "فقد إيمانه بمثله الأعلى". ولكن عطيل ما كان له أبدا أن يرضى لنفسه هوان المرابطة في مكان ما من أجل أن يتجسس ويترصد ويترقب: إنه أكثر ثقة من أن يفعل ذلك. بالعكس: كان لا بد من دفعه ومن تقديم البراهين له، ومن تحريضه بالأدلة الدامغة لحمله على تصور الخيانة. ولا كذلك الغيور الحق. لا يستطيع المرء أن يتخيل مدى ما يمكن أن يهوى إليه الغيور من درك الدناءة والحطة دون أن يشعر بأي خجل من ذلك. وليس معنى هذا أن الغيورين يتصفون بحقارة النفس حتما. لا... رب رجل نبيل القلب نقيّ الحب مخلص العاطفة، يرتضي مع ذلك أن يختبي تحت السرر، وأن يرشي أناسا قذرين، وأن يستخدم أحط أنواع التجسس! وما كان لعطيل أبدا أن يذعن للخيانة – أقول يذعن للخيانة ولا أقول يغفرها – رغم أن له نفسا رقيقة بريئة كنفس طفل صغير. ولا كذلك الغيور الحق! ما من شيء إلا ويمكن أن يذعن له الغيور وما من شيء إلا ويمكن أن يغفره عند الحاجة. إن الغيورين أسرع الناس إلى الغفران، والنساء يعرفن هذا! هم قادرون – مثلا – على أن يمسحوا خيانة مشهودة (بعد أن يثوروا ثورة عنيفة في البداية طبعا)، وقبلات وعناقات رأوها بأعينهم، شريطة أن يستطيعوا أن يقولوا لأنفسهم "إن هذه آخر مرة" وأن الغريم سيغيب وأنه سيرحل إلى بلد في آخر العالم، أو أنهم سيمضون هم أنفسهم بحبيبتهم إلى منطقة نائية لا يستطيع الخصم الكريه أن يدركها فيها يوما. ثم لا تدوم المصالحة أكثر من ساعة طبعا. ذلك أنهم، ولو اختفى الخصم، ما يلبثون أن يكتشفوا خصما جديدا منذ الغد، فإذا هم يستأنفون عذاب أنفسهم بسبب هذه "الخيانة" الجديدة. رب متسائل يتسائل: ما في نظرهم قيمة حب يقتضي هذه الاحتياطات كلها، ويتطلب هذه المراقبة الدائمة المتصلة، وهل المرأة التي يتصورون خيانتها تستحق منهم هذا الحب كله. إلا أن هذا السؤال بعينه هو ما لا يلقيه الغيورون الحقيقيون على أنفسهم، مع أن منهم أناسا لهم نفوs سامية رفيعة، وهناك أمر جدير بالملاحظة أيضا: إن ذوي العواطف النبيلة من هؤلاء الغيورين يستطيعون، وهم مختبئون في ركن من الأركان للتجسس والمباغتة، يستطيعون أن يفهموا تماما، "لنبل قلوبهم" أنهم ينحدرون من الخزي والعار، ولكنهم مع ذلك لا يشعرون بشيء من عذاب الضمير، ما ظلوا مختبئين في أوكارهم على الأقل

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