The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky Lecture Five (Books IX-X) (Patreon)

'I am not guilty of my father's blood! I accept punishment not because I killed him, but because I wanted to kill him, and might well have killed him...'

Our journey through Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov continues, and we're talking about ocular proof, guilt, truth, confession, symbolism, fathers and sons, painful reading experiences, and much more.

Timestamps:

• 0:00 Dostoyevsky’s social concerns
• 4:00 ‘it’s a philosophical novel’
• 7:00 the problem of ocular proof
• 11:00 on painful reading experiences
• 12:51 envelope & money symbolism
• 14:44 motive hunting & expressing intent
• 17:23 ‘I’ve never hidden my feelings’
• 19:00 what is Dmitri really guilty of?
• 20:00 ‘of my fathers blood I am not guilty’
• 23:42 on being careful of what we say
• 27:00 ‘of course God is only a hypothesis’
• 28:55 resurrection of the still living
• 30:00 written evidence doesn’t signify
• 32:45 a narrative in search of a narrator
• 34:00 is everybody culpable for the murder?
• 35:30 when interrogation becomes confession
• 37:22 Smerdyakov’s abject nature & cowardice
• 39:00 ‘I deliberately told lies against myself’
• 40:20 ‘we are all cruel, we are all monsters’
• 41:50 ‘you want obedience and mysticism’
• 45:00 Christ returns as revolutionary
• 47:00 next discussion & questions for you

Supplementary Resources:

• Scripture: My recommendation is to meditate upon the meaning of the biblical passage that Dostoyevsky selected as an epigraph for The Brothers Karamazov: John 12:24 - 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.'
• The Outsider: Colin Wilson's classic study of alienation and creativity has a great chapter (seven) analysing The Brothers Karamazov. You might wish to enjoy any other chapter that leaps out to you, as Wilson also writes compellingly and with great insight into writers like Nietzsche, Hesse, Hemingway, Kafka, Camus, and more.
• The Challenge of Translation: Dostoyevsky is notoriously amongst translators as being an intensely difficult writer to translate. Here is a clip of American philosopher Sean Kelly talking about this issue. There is also a fantastic clip of him talking about the message at the heart of The Brothers Karamazov here.
• Film Appreciation: The Brothers Karamazov is never going to be an easy novel to adapt for the screen. But you might find it interesting to compare Dostoyevsky’s book with this 1958 film version, starring Yul Brynner as Dmitri and William Shatner as Alyosha.
• Biographical Pairing: To appreciate the reading public's reaction to The Brothers Karamazov, I recommend chapter fifty-six ('The Pushkin Festival') in Joseph Frank's biography of Dostoyevsky.

Reading Assignment:

Congratulations on making such powerful strides through this challenging novel. The next discussion will be on books eleven, twelve, and the epilogue. This takes us through to the close of The Brother's Karamazov.

Questions to Consider:

1) Who is guilty for the murder?

2) How do we respond to the problem of suffering in the world?

3) What makes a good father? Or positive male role model?

4) Which is worse: being convicted of a crime one didn't commit? Or committing a serious crime that is never discovered?

And please do continue to share with us your favourite passages and any ideas that have resonated with you from your reading so far.

Happy reading, everybody!