Brother Karamazov is the greatest novel ever written! Father is Russian Empire, Alyosha is religion and spiritual Russian society, Ivan is intellectual radical and Dimitri is a true Russian with passion and primitive existence! I never heard this concept, but I told my mother and grandfather who were professors of literature and they agreed!

This is hands down the most apt summary of Brothers Karamazov. I applaud your insight, and thank you for having given me these words to share with others!

If you don't or can't read the entire book, just read the parable of "the Grand Inquisitor." It's probably the greatest and most profound insight into freedom and human nature and raises, among other things such as theodicy or a "missing" benevolent God ruling over a world filled with evil, the question of whether man really wants to be free or not. Since freedom comes with so many responsibilities and sacrifices.

“Not everything is permitted.” Powerful and challenging. Just as relevant today as it ever has and forever will be.

One of my favorite books is brothers Karamazov. The inquisitor shook me.

I’ve always thought of the brothers as Jungian aspects of the human mandala, each quadrant representing a part of the whole. It is Alexei who acts as the spiritual mundi and moral center, integrating each aspect into wholeness. Dostoevsky anticipated so much of the 20th and 21 st psychological movements.

Love it! The Sartre vs Dostoyevsky arguments are profound!!! This is an astringent to memorize and meditate on. Where can I get more of this guy's take on Dostoyevsky?

Brother karmazove is one of the best book ever I have read. The book is of tremendous insight.

Currently reading the novel and loving it, can't wait to get into the other Dostoyevski books

Currently reading The Brother's Kamarazov. It's deep and intense

Awesome discussion!

My favorite is The Devils. But clearly the Brothers Karamazov is Dostoevsky's greatest work. Also, Albert Camus discusses Dostoevsky's work in his great, Pulitzer prize winning essay, The Rebel. And clearly Camus's thinking is much closer to Dostoevsky's than Satre's.

Wow. I finished Brother's Karamazov today. Simply incredible! It's worth the investment of time (and increased power of my reading glasses).

Am reading this now. It’s slow in places at the start but it sets the ground for an intensely written and psychologically powerful work.

God has written his law on the hearts of men.

Crime and Punishment is enthralling to read along with Demons. I really want to read all of his works. I hope you will be able to do just a video only about Dostoevsky! That would be wonderful.

This was a great conversation, and The Idiot is my favorite novel by Dostoyevsky, and probably anyone. But like so many skeptic, non-religious admirers of Dostoyevsky it is irrational how much they divorce him from specifically Christian beliefs. Dostoyevsky is clearly an ardent believer in God, the father of Jesus. It's the ethos underlying every book of his I've read (except maybe Notes from Underground, and it's probably true there only indirectly). If you're admiring the character of Myshkin, he was inspired by Jesus. If you're impressed by the themes of Brothers, the main one I would say is "we are responsible for everyone", it was inspired by Jesus and how Dostoyevsky interprets the command "to love one another." I'm not saying Dostoyevsky would be comfortable, or an ally to most Western churches. Or that we know most of his particular beliefs about God. But he is not vague in how he believes in God. He is undeniably, specifically Christian.

I recently went back to my old copy of Brothers Karamazov to add the passages I underlined to my list of book quotes. I wanted to immediately start rereading it again. I had to crack a smile at the description of the book as a "murder mystery" as the work is so much more complex that it can't be so easily categorized (especially not as a piece of genre fiction). I recently reread the Grand Inquisitor section as I wanted to go back and refamiliarize myself with the novel. I am smart enough to know my intellectual limitations, and although I understand that Alyosha is the hero of the novel, I find it difficult to simplify Dostoevsky's message other than he seemed to be pushing back against the growing "Godless" movement of the period with Alyosha being the Jesus-like character serving as a rejection of Ivan's cynicism as it is revealed in his Grand Inquisitor story that states that the price of the iron fist of the Church and the bread they provide can be one's personal freedoms (at least that is what I got from the Inquisitor's dialogue to Jesus and some of the things Ivan stated).

The Possessed, for me, was the most fun read. Lively characterizations, many who might look familiar from current events. The Russian film of it , called Demons, 2014, is very good.

I always loved the way Dostoyevsky explored certain moral questions

How timely! I finished TBK a few weeks back and I'm halfway through The Idiot

Great analysis. Balance of ying and Yang. Ontology if existenlism and essentialism. Hegels idea of controlling the river from both ends

Tastes will wary, but personally I consider Karamasov not only his best novel and the best novel of the 19th. I think it's easily the best novel ever written, period.

Dostoyevski's version of God is 100% clear. To muddy these waters is to deny the God of Dostoyevski and I've no doubt these two speakers would like to do this in an effort to convince themselves they appreciate Dostoyevskis created beauty and identify with it without having to admit this comes from a very Christian very devout man of the Bible. Their attempt to pretend Dostoyevski's God wasn't clear is purely based on their own desire that he not be clear and defined well, Dostoyevski absolutely wouldn't agree with this mischaracterization of his Savior and God. The reason these Russian writers: Dostoyevski, Tolstoy, et al wrote such beauty about the human condition was precisely because their God was very clear and well defined and because they viewed the world through His lens of the holy scripture.

Couldnt agree more.

As Sean Kelly describes it in this video clip, The Brothers Karamazov is the novel form of the moral argument for theism as well as the related argument from conscience. In addition, given Dostoyevsky's Christian beliefs, the novel doesn't give a rational propositional argument in response to the problem of evil and suffering, but instead gives a response to the problem of evil in a person. Cf. 2 Corinthians 3:2: "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all."

The Brothers Karamazov was a fascinating book

My favorite Dostoevsky novel is “The Idiot” as well.

Watching this for the second time.. Realizing I have so much to atone for... 🙊🙉🙈

Its kind of frustrating how we have all this amazing books, great movies, music, great high art in general that feeds the mind and entertains, but people still choose to be lazy and stay with the least interesting part of human creations. Music today is garbage, commercial movies are shit, some books (like self help) are just a disgrace, and yet, they are able to continue being popular and famous. Why? Is it because people have a tendency for stupidity or is it just that we are so lazy that we prefer to stay like this, swimming in big lakes of nothing, or apparent happiness and comfort. Any opinions on this? You agree, disagree? I mean, no better comment section to discuss this than a Dostoevsky video. Greetings from Colombia!

Pardon if I may misunderstand Dostoevsky but in Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov aspires to be like Napoleon and it alludes to the theme of being something like Nietzsche's superman where you can do anything in a Godless world. (Spoiler here for the book) - Raskolnikov then feels guilty after committing murder. I think Dostoevsky was trying to say that regardless if there is a God we still feel the full weight of our actions and we still have a human soul with a conscience to contend with. However, one question I'd like to ask is what about people like serial killers or psychopaths who may not feel the same weight or guilt in their actions? Does it argue against what Dostoevsky was trying to say?

I'm Russian and read it in Russian. Struggled with it. Just didn't get it. Yet Crime is Punishment is by far my favorite book. May be the timing wasn't right.

Dostoevsky once wrote: _“If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse.”_ ― Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

Reading the chapter the buffoon I was laughing so hard tears are coming out of my eyes but I couldn’t stop reading and I couldn’t stop laughing. In a coffee shop. Embarrassing

My favourite courses at uni were the Russian Literature courses; they spoke to teenagers those Russians.

What's with the subtitles

Dostoevsky is the greatest novelist ever!

Perhaps the God we believed in (or wanted to) is just the light that lives within us 💙

Wow! The transporter just got a show!

what word is he saying 3:44? Is it "permanent"?

Love the insightful contrapositive to Sartre here. As humans we do not accept that everything can be permitted, therefore there is a God.

My fav book

just stopped it at 1:02, i'll come back after i've read it

Dostoevsky was an Orthodox Christian, so where did his beliefs diverge from the Orthodox church? Toward the end of this clip they're making it sound like he had a bunch of idiosyncratic beliefs.

wow.. brings me back to Peterson and conscience - and he was very influenced by Dostoevsky: we are guided by our guilt on some level to bring us back into alignment with God. We "know" that we have done something "wrong"; we feel it and that can be a signal:do what is right. I used to push away feelings of guilt and now - since being exposed to Peterson - I try to use guilt in order to get connected and re build bridges with the people I care about.

I feel like this guy missed a lot of the depth in karamazov, but I may be just misunderstanding him. I didn't think the main points were about the murder and committing such an act, how to deal with the guilt, salvation(this one might be more relevant though). I thought the murder was more of an extreme, moral event, which was used to explore deeper aspects of the individual characters psychology. I always though the comparison between the brothers(and their worldviews and approaches to life), showing the benefits and pitfalls of each - and of course showing what Dostoevsky views as the "right" approach in Alyosha

In my opinion Turgenevs: Fathers and Sons Tolstoys: War and Peace Dostoevskys : Crime and Punishment All great works from the 1860s.

There’s this book about a doomed whaling voyage I’ve heard is pretty good…

Good.

Dostoyevsky was an Orthodox Christian and heavily implies it is our means of salvation, especially in this novel. The characters that suggest otherwise suffer much more. This is an Orthodox novel at its heart.

I've read both the Garnett and the Pevear/Volokonsky translations of a number of his works and I thought the P/Vs read better. But I don't speak Russian so I can't judge the quality otherwise.

Can someone enlighten me with the ending of Brothers Karamazov? I’ve finished reading it last night and it’s one of the best novel I’ve read but I’m not really satisfied with the ending. Still can’t get over it like there’s no closure.

Then Sartre is the modern equivalent of Ivan since that quote about everything being permitted is his words. And by all means don't just read about the Grand Inquisitor, since that requires at least Book 4 Lacerations and especially Book 6 The Russian Monk to be understood. As Zosima says, all is connected.

Picking the "best" novel from the 19th century is akin to picking the "best" song of the 70s. It is impossible, because it was a period of time absolutely flooded with great artists in a particular medium. Here are just a handful of the greatest 19th century works in literature: Le Comte de Monte Cristo, Moby Dick, War and Peace and Les Miserables.

My greatest accomplishment is reading Crime and Punishment

I saw the Thug Notes version of it!

He is the best author ever in my personal opinion.

I always find someone without an understanding of the Eastern Christian views underlying Dostoevsky's worldview that is attempting to draw meaning from his works a bit short sighted. Especially when the purposed views upon him are that of western Christianity. There is a huge distinction in the way the world is viewed, the meaning of life, etc.

" Just a single man, Fyodor Dostoevsky, is enough to defeat all the creative novelists of the world. If one has to decide on 10 great novels in all the languages of the world, one will have to choose at least 3 novels of Dostoevsky in those 10. Dostoevsky’s insight into human beings and their problems is greater than your so-called psychoanalysts, and there are moments where he reaches the heights of great mystics. His book BROTHERS KARAMAZOV is so great in its insights that no BIBLE or KORAN or GITA comes close."

one is only responsible for one actions not for ones wishes. you cant force someone to love society.

My favorite author hands down! The brothers to me is actually about faith vs. the world. Hedonism vs. Temporance. Scientism vs. Faith. Nihilism vs. everything matters. It is a real proof for God, although not explicit, if there was no God, there would be no order. No moral goods.

For me the plot is already spoiled by the intro in my version of the novel. It sound like a predictable case of parental conflict syndrome (PCS). Crime and Punishment is a great novel though. I read that many years ago. The works of Solzhenitsyn are also very good. People should learn to solve the simple problems rather than attempting the Everest issues.

After Heidegger, Colin Wilson is the greatest existentialist of the 20th century. Read his book “The Outsider”. Dostoyevsky, and this book, play an important role in it.

I would say Crime and Punishment is the best novel ever, though Brothers Karamazov is up there as well

Yes it's the best book. Also of the 19th century.

Is it supposed to be dostoevskiev? That's what sounds like lex was saying at the beginning

the after life matters..alot!

I think that The Brothers Karamazov is amazing, personally i think Crime and Punishment is better,.

ivan is right you cant force someone to love society one is only responsible for one actions and not for ones wishes.

😀😀😁😁😍😍👍👍Shop it now.

everyone has different taste. if there is a best novel, which there isnt, but if there is war and peace is probably the greatest novel ever written in my opinion. in terms of dostoyevsky i prefer the idiot and crime and punishment to brothers. i might even like demons more to be honest. but anyway, he was one of the greats. 19th century Russian literature is probably my favorite.

In English we don't say the brothers Marx or the brothers Wright but why do we insist on using non idiomatic Brothers Karasmarov,?

I didn't know who Lex was, so I looked him up. It turns out he's a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, teacher.

Mony Dick is the bet novel of not only the 19th century but also of all time.

**Ever

"God" in this context is our conscience.

Read the Double it's creepy

Dostoyevsky, similarly like Jordan Peterson wasn’t certain about the whole notion of God; and this is why he developed all these different characters in his Brothers Karamazov whom had such different opposing views. I also get a sense that he wrote the book more for himself than for the reader, albeit he didn’t hesitate to share his ideas to the reader and the world

The Count of Monte Cristo is the best of that century

First for once. Finally i win !!!

The idiot is my favorite book ever and Prince Myshkin is the greatest character ever but I don’t like the end of the book lol

As a Russian I can see yes, but Dostoevsky was too hard writer for understanding, lil 18 year old American student buys Tolstoy or Dostoevskys novels and then when he has read, he thinks “daaamn my brain was burned like cheese for taco”

I wonder what Prof. Kelly thinks of Zizek’s turnaround of this: if there is a God everything is permitted, and so on.

Fun tidbit: supposedly Dostoyevsky intended for Brothers Karamazov to be a trilogy, but he died before he could write the next book.

Also, about the Idiot; pretty sure Myshkin and Rogozhin are the same person. Never trust Dostoyevski. He likes to lie to his readers. But he always gives little hints of his deceit, like how the two are randomly right next to each other on a train in the first chapter or how Myshkin just happens to find his alter ego right after him murdering a woman. It's basically Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde a few decades earlier, more intelligently written and in Russian. I always tell people to not forget about his early short stories, such as The Nose. To really get a feel for how he developed this deceptive style of writing, you gotta read the shorts. He wasn't brave enough to do it at first with C&P, but he more than made up for it with The Idiot and Karamazov.

Dostoevsky (1821-81) Dostoyevsky was a man of many compulsions, and his storylines center on spiritual warfare. In order to understand Dostoyevsky, one must understand something about Russian Orthodox piety, a thing alien to Latin theology and Evangelical theology. And that is the figure of the holy fool. With its apophatic strain, orthodox theology eschews the rational apologetic and theodicean programme of philosophical theology. Instead, orthodox theology is more existential and hagiographic. In Dostoyevsky, characters such as Tihon and Zossima fill this function. And a special case of its hagiographic orientation is the figure of the holy fool. In Dostoyevsky, characters such as Myshkin and Alyosha discharge this role. Dostoyevsky has no intellectual answer to the problem of evil, but he has an existential answer in the exemplary lives of the saints-with special reference to the tradition of the holy fool. By definition, the holy fool is in some ways a moral naïf, yet his simplicity is a hidden strength, for his innocence is not owing to ignorance of evil. Both saint and sinner experience sin, but with a difference. A man who resists evil has felt the blade of temptation cut more deeply than the man who surrenders without a fight. The saint is a battle-hardened warrior. What is more, good understands evil-but evil can never grasp the good. And there is even an ironic sense in which evil lacks the necessary detachment to understand its own moral character, for evil is too inebriated by the passion of the moment to be objective; whereas the good, by retaining a wary distance, enjoys a more sober perspective. In this respect, Bernanos and Dostoyevsky share a common philosophy. What are we to make of Dostoyevsky’s treatment? In its favor, most devout believers are holy fools. They are not intellectuals. They are quite incapable of defending their faith by reasoned argument. For many of them, their version of a theistic proof takes the form of a person, not a proposition-of the living witness and wordless testimony of a godly mother or grandmother, pious father, grandfather, pastor or priest. Their theodicy is a breathing, flesh-and-blood believer. They take heart in the great cloud of pilgrims who have gone before. To his credit, then, Dostoyevsky strikes a note which is often missing in Christian literature-a note that reverberates in many hearts. Having said that, there are a number of weaknesses in this lopsided emphasis. Left to itself, there is a viciously circular quality to this appeal. To the question, "Why believe?" he points to the example of other believers. But that begs the question. The question is not, "Why do you believe?" but, "Why should anyone believe?" Mere belief is not self-certifying. The moon is not made of green cheese just because a majority might think so. It must be admitted, though, that there is something about the extremes of good and evil which resist reductive explanations. For both of them exceed any outward provocation. A saint is a living sacrament-an outer sign of an inner grace, whereas a human fiend is an anti-sacrament-an outer sign of an evil incubus. There is, however, something deeply deficient about ceding the high ground of reason to the devil’s party while reserving a citadel of faith for ourselves. To begin with, this disregards the Dionysian streak of evil. Depravity, in its advanced stages, is radically irrational. In addition, reason is not the privileged providence of philosophers. A philosopher is a man who never outgrew the questions of a child. Dostoyevsky, himself, was a high-powered intellectual. And he must resort to reason in making a case for fideism. Steve Hays, "A twice-told tale"

Why are schools teaching the Shakespeare crap and not this?!

Sean Kelly: "What is the Brothers Karamazov about?... It's a murder mystery". At that point I switched to another channel.

I thought some of the point of the idiot was that the prince was a Christ figure and Rogozin was the devil and that we have both of them in us they almost felt like archetypes

Existentialism as a new religion And dostoyewski and nietsche as it's prophets U can easily make the case as the best novel 0f all time. I seem many like Asian dostoyewski society or jnorth American dostoyewski society Latin American dostoyewski dostoyewski society etd.. Even the new Ruthenian church teaches him heavily (ruthenian is the name for people of Russian Ukrainian Belarus Serbia and Greece

Dostoyevsky, despite his rationalist leanings, was still greatly concerned with the subject of typically Russian deep spirituality. Tolstoy struggled with the same.

i think it a very great novel, but i believe it is also over lauded at the moment due to the influence of jordan peterson.

More guilt when you get caught.

I'm going to shower you with attention and my awareness. I'm going to give you a lot of my time. I'm going to be in physical proximity to you. I'm going to touch you, hold you, cuddle you. I'm going to try to connect with you physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. I'm going to take good care of you. I'm going to care about your needs. I'm going to help you to meet your needs. I'm going to help you to survive. I'm going to shelter you from excessive suffering, fear and trauma. I'm going to have your back. I'm going to defend you and be loyal to you. I'm going to take on your agenda as my own. I'm going to make you an extension of me. I'm going to treat you as well as i would treat myself. I'm going to be happy for you when you succeed. I'm going to want for you what you most want for yourself. I'm going to sacrifice for you and work on your behalf. I'm going to support you nurture you and encourage you. I'm going to cheerlead you. I'm going to encourage your self-exploration, self-expression and self-actualization. I'm going to respect your sovereignty as a consciousness. I'm not going to try to manipulate you, control you, dominate you or exploit you. I'm going to totally accept you and never judge you. I'm going to value you for your sake and appreciate you and see your intrinsic beauty. I'm not going to need anything from you and I'm not going to make you a tool to satisfy my own needs. I'm going to respect your point of view, wanting to understand your point of view, wanting to understand you, your uniqueness, taking the time to deeply get to know you. I'm not going to force my agenda or point of view on you. I'm going to listen to you and care about your interests and share similar interests with you. I'm going to develop togetherness with you and collaborate with you. I'm going to be there for you when you're down and hopeless. I'm going to be there for you when you're lonely. I'm going to validate your feelings, sharing your emotions with you, empathizing with you. Your pain is going to be my pain. I'm going to meet you where you're at, at your developmental level. I'm going to forgive you for your mistakes. I'm going to be patient with you. I'm going to see the good in you even when you don't see the good in yourself. I'm going to be generous and kind. I'm going to give you verbal approval and praise. I'm going to compliment you on your uniqueness. I'm going to keep my promises to you. I'm going to keep my peace with you, avoid conflict with you. I'm going to tell the truth to you. You're going to be able to fully trust me and I'm never going to cash in on that trust. I'm going to see your realness, warts and shadow and all as you truly are. I'm going to deeply appreciate the finite portion of consciousness that you are and I'm going to accept your selfishness whenever you have the urge to be selfish. Now ask yourself on a scale of 0 to 10 how loved do you feel? Open Your Eyes. 😂🦘🦘🧨

ну здорова

I don't agree with this guest's reduction of Dostoevsky's idea of God. I've read 5 of his novels and I've never come to the conclusion that Doestoevsky strictly sees salvation in the "here and now" on Earth - and no further.

To say you feel your prince mishkin is to say you feel that your like Christ I think we want to be like mishkin but or probably more like rogozin than we care to admit

Bro spoiled it for me WHAT THE HELL IM PISSED

Karamatzov? Sart?

Camus can do, but Sartre is smartre.