The Brothers Karamazov (64,65,66)

Ivan Karamazov (64), Alyosha Karamazov (65),

and Dmitry Karamazov (66)

Rank 64th, 65th, and 66th on The Fictional 100

"Please understand, it is not God that I do not
accept, but the world he has created. I do not
accept God's world and I refuse to accept it."

--Ivan

"Your poem is in praise of Jesus and not in
his disparagement as--as you wanted it to be."

--Alyosha

"All of us Karamazovs are the same kind of
insect, and that insect lives in you, too, my
angel, and raises storms in your blood."

--Dmitry

The following books will introduce you to Ivan, Alyosha, and Dmitry Karamazov, who said these words in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (David Magarshack, Trans.; Penguin, 1958). To order a book, or for more information, follow the title links to Amazon.com, or return home to browse other characters.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov (Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Trans.). Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.
- Ivan--the cold intellectual, Alyosha--the youngest, the sensitive, spiritual type, and Dmitry--violent and emotional: these embattled siblings could not be more different, it seems. Yet they share a common substratum of sensuality, like their father, which each must deal with in his own way. Features Pevear and Volokhonsky's critically acclaimed translation.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov (David McDuff, Trans.). Penguin USA, 1993.
- Another excellent translation, along with a helpful introduction and notes that make Penguin editions so illuminating.
Freud, Sigmund. Writings on Art and Literature. Meridian/Stanford University Press, 1997.
- Includes "Dostoevsky and Parricide," Freud's 1928 essay on the novel which he called "the most magnificent in the world." His speculations on the sources for the parricide are provocative (if not always biographically accurate).
Miller, Robin Feuer. The Brothers Karamazov: Worlds of the Novel. Twayne/G. K. Hall, 1992.
- Good on character analysis, close reading of the plot, role of the Grand Inquisitor in the tension between Ivan's and Alyosha's worldview.
Leatherbarrow, W. J. Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov (Landmarks of World Literature). Cambridge University Press, 1992.
- Background, analysis of the novel, and critical reception, with guide to further reading.
Terras, Victor. A Karamazov Companion: Commentary on the Genesis, Language, and Style of Dostoyevsky's Novel. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981.
- Interesting analysis of the polyphonic play of voices, each with its own style and dubious handle on the truth.
Belknap, Robert. The Genesis of the Brothers Karamazov. Northwestern University Press, 1990.
- Dostoyevsky's sources and the process of creation.
Bloom, Harold (Ed.). Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (Modern Critical Interpretations). Chelsea House, 1988.

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