Shabbat Reading: Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

#whatireadovershabbat Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, translated by Michael R. Katz (1880; Norton, 2023)

I never thought I’d feel Crime and Punishment was a “tight” 600 pages. But after The Brothers Karamazov, which clocks in at 900, the adjective seems right. Dostoevsky’s last and some say greatest novel portrays a uniquely unhappy, unhinged family and the murder that changes them forever. No writer has paralleled Dostoevsky’s sensitivity for human weakness, and some of the debates about God, faith, crime, and guilt will always maintain their power. But the book wanders, proving finally too long. I’m glad I read it. I just wish it were shorter.