Books That Made Me Cry - The Brothers Karamazov

Chapter titles can't be spoilers if they're listed in the Table of Contents, right? Right?

Books can affect you in any number of ways. Sometimes they  introduce you to new ideas and make your world bigger. Sometimes they speak to something deep inside you and make you feel like someone else understands. Sometimes they just wrench your guts out and send a cascade of hot tears down your face and make you wish you hadn't started reading that chapter on the bus.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!

When'd I read it? I first read this over the course of about a year in my senior year of high school and freshman year of college. It's actually a pretty easy book to divide into chunks and tackle over a long period of time (the second time I read it a few years ago, it took about a month).

What's it about? Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov has three sons (well, four): Dmitri Fyodorovich (Mitya), a former military officer and current wastrel, Ivan Fyodorovich (Vanya), a nihilist intellectual, and Alexei Fyodorovich (Alyosha) a novice monk (and also Pavel Fyodorovich Smerdyakov, the son of the intellectually disabled homeless woman that Fyodor raped). Anyway, they're all back in town, because Mitya thinks that Fyodor is withholding his inheritance and Vanya is the only person they both trust to resolve the issue (Alyosha's monastery is actually just outside of town, and Smerdyakov works as a servant in the Karamazov home). Further complicating things is the fact that both Fyodor and Mitya are romantically pursuing the tempestuous Grushenka, in spite of the fact that Mitya is engaged to Katya, who's secretly in love with Vanya, who A) loves her back, and 2) feels crazy guilty about falling in love with his older brother's fiancée. Things get even more complicated when Fyodor is robbed and murdered and Mitya is the prime suspect (probably because of all those times he threatened to rob and murder his father).

Why'd I cry? Nothing to do with any of that. Over the course the novel, the naïve, kind-hearted Alyosha befriends a troubled child (Ilyushechka) whose alcoholic father was beaten and humiliated in the streets by Mitya. By the end of the novel, Mitya's been (wrongly) convicted of his father's murder, Vanya's been stricken with brain-fever (over the guilt he feels about his philosophical discussions inspiring his father's murder), Alyosha's faith has been shake, and Smerdyakov (the real killer) has committed suicide. On top of all that, Ilushechka died (seriously, there's a chapter in the epilogue (yes, the epilogue itself is three chapters long) called "Ilushechka's Funeral"). Anyway, in spite of all he's gone through, Alyosha manages to give a moving eulogy to Ilushechka's school mates (I hesitate to say friends given how much they used to torment him about his alcoholic father), which ultimately is what made me cry.

Would it make me cry again if I re-read the book now? Probably not, when I read it the second time, this scene actually didn't make me cry. So, there's that.

Links:

So, it turns out that Arrested Development is The Brothers Karamazov, who knew?

A fairly accurate one picture summary of the novel.

For realsies though, this artist has a whole gallery of Dostoevsky fan art.