'The Brothers Karamazov' by Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

I’ve read ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ a few times and in various translations even the one called ‘The Karamazov Brothers’.  It’s a great book quite resistant to the vagaries of the rendering of idiom.  I was reading the Garnett but when it came to The Grand Inquisitor the ‘thous’ and the ‘shalts’ put me off this time and I switched to the Pevear and Volokhonsky which is excellent.  Perhaps Garnett was attempting to give a rendition of High Church Slavonic and that might be justifiable but it seemed to me to be a distraction from the real theme of faith, freedom, and belief.

This time reading the latter parts of the book struck me more than before particularly the trial and the speeches of the prosecution and the defence.  Though what must happen is fated I still was annoyed at the lack of investigation by the star lawyer for the defence.  What about the money, ask about the money.  Was any note taken of the numbers of the notes, in Russian books, always rainbow coloured.  These are large amounts and were paid out by the banks.  Surely Fyodor Pavlovich would want new notes to give to Grushenka.  There was an envelope with a seal, new clothes for the hoped for tryst, codes, and you mean to say she was to be given dirty money.  No this cannot be.  Ivan Fyodorvich’s 15 G from cashing out bonds sounds like new money with noted numbers for security purposes.  Compare the two sets.  Are they the same?

That’s mad of course but what we were offered by Fetyukovich was ‘Papa Karamazov was a bad daddy and needed killing’.  Not an unknown defence in America but not fine forensic logic either.

The boys funeral moved me very much.  The captain his father clinging to the coffin, weeping at the sight of his little broken boots at the door that will never again be filled.  I’m filling up thinking about it and as always in Dostoevsky the hysteria, the dark atrabilious comedy, the naive yet effective speech to the boys by Aloshya, those elements of genius that we only accept from genius because all that has gone before has prepared us for it.  We say ‘only you could make me believe this’.

Nine Grams

In the ‘dismal science’ to liquidate has the general meaning of cashing out your assets. Many a ‘nine grams’ Soviet ration was dispensed. Where has all that ‘cash’ gone? Where are those rainbow roubles stashed? Such suffering and fear does not disperse readily. Fyodor was right on the direction the revolution would take (The Devils) and there must be novels being written today that bring that bloody Russian opera up to date. Memo to self: check it out. Awesome!

Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky

The simple schema of a Dostoevsky novel such as Crime and Punishment allows him to create the dramatic contrasts and oppositions that move the story along. It’s all about counterparts. Mother and Daughter of the Roskolnikovs and of the Marmelodovs arrive at a trade of their only asset to support the son in the former and the family in the latter case. Roskolnikov who kills two people and Svidrigailov who caused the death of two are juxtaposed, the one unable to rise to being a cynical ubermensch, the other untrammelled by any kind of ethos. The friend of Roskolnikov, his good angel, Razumikhin is how he might be if he were not oppressed by the evil spirit of philosophisme. Roskolnikov is isolated by the consciousness of crime which is its own punishment but has the promise of redemption. Svidrigailov is an apostle of the absurd finally defeated by Dunya and whose death allows the Roskolnikov family to set themselves up with the good brother as a guardian. Examining Magistrate Porfiry Petrovitch is for me one of literature’s great cops. He spots the culprit quickly. There are too many clues but no hard evidence so he must draw out a confession discussing the Napoleon theories, appreciating and then mocking them. He is like my cat with a captive wren. The proud murderer who must face the truth that he is a bungler whose only triumph is to terrorise Sonia Marmeledov with a confession. There is a sense in which he might have to kill her too.

Everybody meets everybody else and skandaly ensues in Part V with its grotesquerie mitigated by a pantomime German and a drunken Pole and funeral guests egging them on. A worm turns, Luzhin the dismissed fiancé is unmasked. You can’t say that Dostoevsky doesn’t give dramatic value. Even if you’ve never read the book and what are you doing here, I might add; this sketch will not be a spoiler.

C & P by Dostoevsky

For some time I have been paused at the door of the old pawnbroker’s flat in a tenement in St.Petersburg. I am afraid to knock knowing what must happen. I am going to let myself in to an ‘immersive narrative experience’ of sheer horror and unscheduled mayhem. Using both sides of his hatchet, poll and blade, Rodion Romanovitch Roskolnikov will despatch the sisters and run off with some trinkets. With feverish cunning he will bury them under a rock. There are no gamemaster alternatives to the hideous unfolding of this crime, there is no winning ticket in a lottery, Sonia does not establish a glittering salon and Dostoevsky does not find a good barber and give up staring into the human soul with those mad eyes.

Having knocked at the door and found myself slipping in the gore I am grateful for the absence of that cliche of blunt instrument slaughter, brain matter. No porridge, no gruel only the blood staining his sock through yawning boots. The brimless hat of tramp farce is noted by a passer by, ‘German hatter’ shouted after him but having murdered the powers of darkness cover him in broad daylight.

He appears to have gotten away with it. Now read on: