The Brothers Karamazov cover

The Brothers Karamazov

by Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский

<p>Dmitri Karamazov and his father Fyodor are at war over both Dmitri’s inheritance and the affections of the beautiful Grushenka. Into this feud arrive the middle brother Ivan, recently returned from Moscow, and the youngest sibling Alyosha, who has been released into the wider world from the local monastery by the elder monk Zossima. Through a series of accidents of fate and wilful misunderstandings the Karamazovs edge closer to tragedy, while the local townspeople watch on.</p> <p><i>The Brothers Karamazov</i> was <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky">Fyodor Dostoevsky’s</a> final novel, and was originally serialised in <i>The Russian Messenger</i> before being published as a complete novel in 1880. This edition is the well-received 1912 English translation by Constance Garnett. As well as earning wide-spread critical acclaim, the novel has been widely influential in literary and philosophical circles; Franz Kafka and <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/james-joyce">James Joyce</a> admired the emotions that verge on madness in the Karamazovs, while Sigmund Freud and Jean-Paul Satre found inspiration in the themes of patricide and existentialism.</p>

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?