Meet the Karamazovs

Do the names Fyodor, Ivan, Dmitri and Alyosha Karamazov ring a bell? If they don't, it's highly understandable.

First, they're entirely fictional characters. Second, the trilogy of books in which they feature was originally published in 1870 - in Russian. Third, the narrative that relays all their various actions, experiences and conversations comprises a forbidding total of 900 pages. If you're not an avid reader, you simply won't even consider digesting such a massive collection of letters.

But, obviously, I'm busy acquainting myself with these renowned characters, and have been for a while. Well before Christmas I bought a Kindle version of the books for five dollars on the Internet. I didn't buy the "The Brothers Karamazov" simply because they are nowadays public domain, and thus the books are sold at incredibly low prices, but I knew - and had known for years - that the trilogy ranks as a true classic, well within the limits of most literary canons.

THE ULTIMATE OPUS

"The Brothers Karamazov" was to be Fyodor Dostoyevski's final work, the crowning achievement of a long career as author of works of fiction. The books portray not only an unforgettable array of males and females of Czarist Russia, but they also furnish riveting insights into a distant society facing the relative and real novelties of pølitical liberalism (in a Russian context), naturalistic darwinism and the war of ideas that was quietly emerging: the hereditary old order of things was being challenged, labeit mostly by a small intellectual elite. A Russia steeped in class divisions was beginning to feel the light breeze of change that would - 40 years later - culminate in a veritable storm, bringing onto the scene the revolutionary figures of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.

Fyodor, the libertine and full-fledged egoist, is the father, a man of no higher purpose than that which dictates him to indulge his every sensual whim. He has over the years sired three (four, really) sons who have one thing in common: a troubled past due to the absence of their father's care and direct involvement. Ivan, the atheist and intellectual; Dmitri, the dissolute and reckless middle brother; and Alyosha, the youngest who contrary to all expectations is as pious as his father is godless.

NOT THERE YET, BUT GETTING THERE INCH BY INCH

These four, and several more, then, are the unforgettable cast in this drama involving many of the most central and fundamental issues of life. The dilemmas and paradoxes involving God and his creation are discussed and treated here: how can e.g. God be just when there's so much injustice in society?

It's not an easy read. You had better prepare for just the opposite. But if you dare get involved, you'll be richly and amply rewarded for your efforts. "The Brothers Karamazov" deserve their appellation as classics. That is my honest appraisal after having covered around 700 pages. I've 200 more to filter and consume. I trust I won't be disappointed.