Product Description
The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons―the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, its social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.
Dostoyevsky’s life was as dark and dramatic as the great novels he wrote. A short first novel in 1846, Poor Folk, brought him instant success, but his writing career ended with his arrest for alleged subversion against Tsar Nicholas I in 1849. In prison he received the “silent treatment” for eight months before he was led in front a firing squad. Dressed in a death shroud, he faced an open grave and awaited execution, when suddenly, an order arrived commuting his sentence. He then spent four years at hard labor in a Siberian prison, where he began to suffer from epilepsy, and he returned to St. Petersburg only a full ten years after he had left in chains. His prison experiences coupled with his conversion to a profoundly religious philosophy formed the basis for his great novels like The Brothers Karamazov.