The Brothers Karamazov: Abridged - Softcover

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1463682158 ISBN 13: 9781463682156

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011

Synopsis

The Brothers Karamazov, completed in November 1880 just two months before Dostoyevsky's death, displays both his mastery as a storyteller and his significance as a thinker. The Brothers Karamazov is an enjoyable and accessible novel. He discusses its major themes, including atheism and belief, the nature of man, socialism and individualism, and the state of European civilization, focusing particularly on those themes of justice, order and disorder, in whose revolutionary treatment he sees the real significance of this literary landmark.

About this title

Review:

[Dostoevsky is] at once the most literary and compulsively readable of novelists we continue to regard as great . . . ;The Brothers Karamazov; stands as the culmination of his art-his last, longest, richest, and most capacious book. [This] scrupulous rendition can only be welcomed. It returns us to a work we thought we knew, subtly altered and so made new again. - Washington Post Book World; A miracle . . . Every page of the new Karamazov is a permanent standard, and an inspiration.;The Times; (London) ; One finally gets the musical whole of Dostoevsky's original. -New York Times Book Review. Absolutely faithful . . . Fulfills in remarkable measure most of the criteria for an ideal translation . . . The stylistic accuracy and versatility of registers used . . . bring out the richness and depth of the original in a way similar to a faithful and sensitive restoration of a painting.; -The Independent. It may well be that Dostoevsky's [world], with all its resourceful energies of life and language, is only now-and through the medium of [this] new translation-beginning to come home to the English-speaking reader - New York Review of Books. Heartily recommended to any reader who wishes to come as close to Dostoevsky's Russian as it is possible.; - Joseph Frank, Princeton University With an Introduction by Malcolm V. Jones --Washington Post Book

About the Author:

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881), sometimes transliterated Dostoevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Dostoyevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmosphere of 19th-century Russia. Many of his works are marked by a preoccupation with Christianity, explored through the prism of the individual confronted with life's hardships and beauty. He began writing in his 20s, and his first novel, Poor Folk, was published in 1846 when he was 25. His major works include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). His output consists of 11 novels, three novellas, 17 short novels and numerous other works. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature. His 1864 novella Notes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature. Born in Moscow in 1821, Dostoyevsky was introduced to literature at an early age through fairy tales and legends, and through books by Russian and foreign authors. His mother died in 1837, when he was 15, and around the same time he left school to enter the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute. After graduating, he worked as an engineer and briefly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, translating books to earn extra money. In the mid-1840s he wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, which gained him entry into St. Petersburg's literary circles. In 1849 he was arrested for his involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle, a secret society of liberal utopians that also functioned as a literary discussion group; they were particularly interested in the works of Charles Fourier. He and other members were condemned to death, but at the last moment, a note from Tsar Nicholas I was delivered to the scene of the firing squad, commuting the sentence to ten years' hard labour in Siberia. His seizures, which may have started in 1839, increased in frequency there, and he was diagnosed with epilepsy. On his release, he was forced to serve as a soldier, before being discharged on grounds of ill health.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1463682158
• ISBN 13: 9781463682156
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 152