I can personally relate to Ivan a lot because I used to be religious (muslim) but then I became extremely critical and now I don't believe in religion at all. Furthermore, I think that Ivans atheistic and nihilistic views actually stem from his deep concern for humanity as he mentions all those injustices to his younger brother etc... and as you said he refused to give back his "ticket" to God. Unlike Dimitri, Ivan is not too much into vices of the world and in my view is kind of a sage like Buddha or the great Chinese Philosopher Zhaungzi, someone who has no bad intentions and is genuinely out to find the truth. Another thing I wanted to point out is that I can see that, through Ivan, Dostoevsky is trying to portray a kind of Blaise Pascal type of message in which the intellect will always fail etc ... HOWEVER I don't think that Intellect is the only thing that Ivan is reliant on , his arguments are largely emotional...Ivan is a beautiful character and I can relate to his thoughts and feelings so much! I wish he had a better ending.

The wonderful extra layer of meaning in that "Plagiarism!" jab is that Dostoyevsky himself "plagiarized" that idea, of answering a religious riddle with a holy kiss, from another author, and the line is a little nod to that!

I think it's interesting that Ivan's initial offer to Alyosha (happiness for all but founded on the suffering of just one child) is a kind of determinate equation-a bargain with set parameters and only one solution. The novel is full of references to Euclid and that rigid, geometric way of looking at the world, but I think Dostoyevsky's oblique answer to the Grand Inquisitor chapter is that happiness and suffering don't have to be so transactional. The Devil will later say that he is an "x" in an "indeterminate equation." Bad things-including the horrible acts that Ivan describes-are an undeniable part of life. They are a variable within this equation. But the fact that the equation is indeterminate rather than simple and rigid (as Ivan sees it) opens up the possibility for a non-euclidean model of redemption and happiness. Enjoyed the video. Keep up the good work.

I have Brothers Karamasov on audiobook by the narrator, Constantine Gregory, who pronounces Russian names with exquisite perfection. Said aloud, Aloysha actually sounds as if it’s with a subtle rolling R instead of the L. Ayy-oi-sha kind of like are-you-sure, but said really quickly with emphasis in the middle. Ayy-oi!-sha.

I just discovered your channel! Thank you for the insight and inspiration! Love from Queen's U, Canada.

Rebellion was the most disturbing chapter I’ve ever read, to the point that I skipped some graphic parts… I confess I put the book away for a couple weeks to digest all of that…. Also, when he asked Alyosha if he would accept the job as the architect of the project, I felt that’s when he somehow started to implicitly blame Christ for the suffering of the innocent, at the same time Christ represents the innocent- He had no sin. This led to the next chapter where Christ is blamed for the freedom He gave to humanity.

I am thoroughly enjoying this book, it truly is a page turner and am so glad that I jump into this December read-along. I will certainly be investigating other works by Dostoyevsky. The one thing I had to get used to was the variation on the same name. I assume these are formal vs informal vs nickname variations of each name.

I’ve been enjoying Ivan and his inner turmoil. After I finished this chapter, I watched a KZfaq lecture on it because I didn’t want to miss anything!

Just finished this chapter and could watch this. Quite a tour de force. Unexpected in the structure but fascinating. Ivan picks up on some of the illogicalities of religion. Do you think Dostoyevsky felt the same?

Thank you

Enjoyed your synopsis...like the Hindu scripture The Gita or the Sermon on the Mount the Legend has been divorced from it's much larger literary context and displayed alone to be contemplated as an individual text... 3 takeaway's: 1 Freedom is incompatible with human happiness 2 Christianity is a myth designed to curb man's rebellious imagination All the best ☮️ 3 the Inquisitor ( an atheist) really harbors the best intentions

I would like to live in those times, the 19th century mostly. There are limited things to spend your free day. You can read, you can discuss the new ideologies, novels and maybe create your own consideration. If you want to be ignorant all you have to do eat sleep, drink, and sex maybe or you can be a basic believer like the grand Inquisitor had mentioned. But nowadays even though the people who have white-collar jobs or study at Uni, still can be ignorant. Because most of them live for sharing posts, like kardashian ass on Instagram and talk about funny videos mostly.

You should construct an anthology of pieces from great novels which are stand out and stand alone! That's two already from your great readalongs. 'The Grand Inquisitor' and 'Snow' from the Magic Mountain. What one next?

I asked myself, after Poe and Gogol and Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and Chekov and Dickens and Nabokov, and I'll throw Henry Miller in for good measure so the autobiographical element be not excluded, since the best of Kafka is already included in Dostoyevsky we can leave him out: I asked why write anything else. After them the novel seems a finished form. I've read a lot of great books before, between, and after these, but don't these take care of the whole thing really? for my own satisfaction I put Faulkner in there because I've loved him and been moved by him as much as by any other novelist but I think Dostoyevsky handles Faulkner; and I think we can exclude Joyce even though Nabokov thought Ulysses was the greatest novel of modern times. for some reason I have to do these taxonomies for myself, they're meaningless and hopefully harmless....

Oh poor Ivan. Dostoevsky did him dirty. Ivan deserved better ending.

Bread and water

You pass over the arguments Ivan gives as to why Christ is no longer needed and why The Grand inquisitor thinks jesus was wrong. These arguments are critical to Ivan’s belief system.

Do you think Ivan is sarcastic when he is being emotional and sensitive or does he really care too much about the questions he posed to Alyosha?

I’ve really been struggling with the chapters. The Grand inquisitor uses the three temptations of Christ which is also what tempts Adam and Eve. I don’t know. I agree with the Grand Inquisitor. Things might have been better if Jesus had given us all something obvious to worship.

Ivan is a homogeneous Mayberry. A respectable well-behaved intellectual self consciously speaking to the Laconian big other. Who, in fable like uncanniness gets swept into the unavoidable dank pit of Cyebelian forces which intoxicate and sicken one into the unprepossessing visages of everything and therefore nothing but sheer future. Ergo, ecce Dugin! 😊