The Brothers Karamazov

The "wicked and emotional" Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons-the impulsive and sensual Dmitri, the icy-cold Ivan, and the hale, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha-are featured in a series of triangular love encounters that explore erotic rivalry. Dostoevsky captures the entirety of Russian life-its social and spiritual striving-at what was at once the country's golden age and a sad turning point in its history-through the engrossing events of their story. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky's prize-winning translation, which keeps the original's numerous voices, comedy, and startling modernity, stays true to the verbal ingenuity of Dostoevsky's prose. It is an accomplishment deserving of Dostoevsky's final and best book. The Russian Orthodox Church, the legal system, and even the author's most beloved causes and ideas are all presented in the work with a sense of irreverence, removing the opposition between orthodoxy and radicalism, rationality and crazy, love and hatred, and good and evil. It was "the allegory for the world's maturity, but with children to the fore," according to Rebecca West. The creativity of Dostoevsky is fully captured in this novel, especially in the way he uses the spoken word to encompass all forms of human expression.