The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
“The greatest novel ever written, according to Freud, Einstein, and Kafka — a murder mystery that is really a trial of God.”
At a Glance
Three brothers — Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha — are the sons of the depraved landowner Fyodor Karamazov. When their father is murdered, Dmitri is convicted on circumstantial evidence, though the real killer is the illegitimate fourth brother Smerdyakov, who acted on Ivan's philosophy that 'everything is permitted.' The novel is a vast investigation of whether faith or reason can sustain a human soul — and whether God can be justified in the face of innocent suffering.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
Named by Freud as one of the three greatest works of world literature (alongside Oedipus Rex and Hamlet). Called by Albert Einstein the greatest novel ever written. Kafka kept it on his desk while writing The Trial. It is the founding document of the modern psychological novel, the origin of the existentialist novel, and the most sustained fictional engagement with theodicy in world literature. It has never been out of print since 1880.
Diction Profile
Variable: each character speaks in a distinctive register; the narrator shifts between erudite and colloquial
Moderate in narrative passages, very high in philosophical speeches