Brothers Karamazov

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Random House Publishing Group, Nov 4, 2003 - Fiction - 1072 pages
In 1880 Dostoevsky completed The Brothers Karamazov, the literary effort for which he had been preparing all his life. Compelling, profound, complex, it is the story of a patricide and of the four sons who each had a motive for murder: Dmitry, the sensualist, Ivan, the intellectual; Alyosha, the mystic; and twisted, cunning Smerdyakov, the bastard child. Frequently lurid, nightmarish, always brilliant, the novel plunges the reader into a sordid love triangle, a pathological obsession, and a gripping courtroom drama. But throughout the whole, Dostoevsky searhes for the truth--about man, about life, about the existence of God. A terrifying answer to man's eternal questions, this monumental work remains the crowning achievement of perhaps the finest novelist of all time.


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Contents

Authors Preface
1
PART
5
A PECULIAR FAMILY HISTORY 1 Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov
7
He Gets Rid of His Eldest Son
11
The Second Marriage and the Second Family
15
The Third SonAlyosha
22
Elders
32
AN INCONGRUOUS GATHERING 1 They Arrive at the Monastery
42
The Gold Mines
508
In the Dark
522
A Sudden Resolution
529
Im Coming
548
The First and Rightful One
558
Delirium
578
PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION 1 Peter Perkhotin Starts Out on His Career as Civil Servant
596
Alarm
604

The Old Buffoon
48
Women of Great Faith
58
A Lady of Little Faith
66
So It Shall Be and So Be It
75
Why Should Such a Man Live?
85
A Careerconscious Divinity Student
97
A Scandalous Scene
108
THE SENSUALISTS 1 In the Servants Quarters
119
Reeking Lizaveta
125
The Confession of an Ardent Heart in Verse
130
The Confession of an Ardent Heart in Prose
140
Head over Heels
150
Smerdyakov
161
The Debate
167
Over Brandy
173
The Sensualists
182
Two Women Meet
190
One More Reputation Ruined
203
TORMENT
215
Alyosha in His Fathers House
227
At the Khokhlakovs
238
Heartbreak in the Drawing Room
246
Heartbreak in a Hovel
259
Heartbreak Outdoors
269
PRO AND CONTRA
282
Smerdyakov and His Guitar
295
The Brothers Get Acquainted
303
Rebellion
314
The Grand Inquisitor
328
Still Unclear
353
Its Always Rewarding to Talk to a Clever Man
366
A RUSSIAN MONK
376
Some Thoughts and Teachings of the Elder Zosima
418
F Of Masters and Servants and of Whether They Can Become Brothers in Spirit
421
G Of Prayer Love and Ties with Other Worlds
426
H Can A Man Judge His Fellow Men? Of Faith to the End
429
Of Hell and Hell Fire a Mystical Discourse
431
PART THREE
435
ALYOSHA 1 The Smell of Decay
437
The Crucial Moment
451
One Onion
459
Cana of Galilee
481
MITYA 1 Kuzma Samsonov
487
The Hound
499
The First Ordeal
612
The Second Ordeal
622
The Third Ordeal
630
The Prosecutor Catches Mitya
644
Mitya Reveals His Secret and Is Heckled
654
The Testimony of the Witnesses The Babe
667
They Take Him Away
679
PART FOUR
685
THE BOYS 1 Kolya Krasotkin
687
The Children
693
The Schoolboys
699
Juchka
709
At Ilyushas Bedside
717
Precosciousness
737
Ilyusha
746
IVAN 1 At Grushenkas
751
The Injured Foot
762
The Hell Kitten
775
A Hymn and a Secret
783
Not You Not You
800
The First Meeting with Smerdyakov
807
The Second Meeting with Smerdyakov
819
The Third and Last Meeting with Smerdyakov
831
Ivans Nightmare and the Devil
850
It Was He Who Said That
873
MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE 1 The Fatal Day
880
Dangerous Witnesses
888
The Medical Experts and a Pound of Nuts
899
Things Look Up for Mitya
906
Sudden Disaster
917
The Public Prosecutors Speech Psychological Portrayals
930
A Chronological Survey
942
A Treatise on Smerdyakov
948
Full Steam Ahead into Psychology A Galloping Troika The Finale of the Prosecutors Speech
960
The Summation of the Defense An Argument That Cuts Both Ways
975
There Was No Money and No Robbery
980
No Murder Either
988
Corrupters of Thought
998
Our Good Old Peasants Stand Their Ground
1008
Plans to Save Mitya
1019
A Lie Temporarily Becomes the Truth
1025
Ilyushas Funeral The Speech by the Stone
1034
Copyright

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About the author (2003)

One of the most powerful and significant authors in all modern fiction, Fyodor Dostoevsky was the son of a harsh and domineering army surgeon who was murdered by his own serfs (slaves), an event that was extremely important in shaping Dostoevsky's view of social and economic issues. He studied to be an engineer and began work as a draftsman. However, his first novel, Poor Folk (1846), was so well received that he abandoned engineering for writing. In 1849, Dostoevsky was arrested for being a part of a revolutionary group that owned an illegal printing press. He was sentenced to be executed, but the sentence was changed at the last minute, and he was sent to a prison camp in Siberia instead. By the time he was released in 1854, he had become a devout believer in both Christianity and Russia - although not in its ruler, the Czar. During the 1860's, Dostoevsky's personal life was in constant turmoil as the result of financial problems, a gambling addiction, and the deaths of his wife and brother. His second marriage in 1887 provided him with a stable home life and personal contentment, and during the years that followed he produced his great novels: Crime and Punishment (1886), the story of Rodya Raskolnikov, who kills two old women in the belief that he is beyond the bounds of good and evil; The Idiots (1868), the story of an epileptic who tragically affects the lives of those around him; The Possessed (1872), the story of the effect of revolutionary thought on the members of one Russian community; A Raw Youth (1875), which focuses on the disintegration and decay of family relationships and life; and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), which centers on the murder of Fyodor Karamazov and the effect the murder has on each of his four sons. These works have placed Dostoevsky in the front rank of the world's great novelists. Dostoevsky was an innovator, bringing new depth and meaning to the psychological novel and combining realism and philosophical speculation in his complex studies of the human condition.

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