The Brothers Karamazov

"The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man."

Thus speaks Dimitri to Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov. Yes, I've finally finished it - all 701 pages. Like Crime and Punishment it's fairly easy to get into, and the characters represent ideas. If you're going to pick one Dostoyevsky book to read though, I'd say go with Crime and Punishment. It's more novel and less philosophy textbook, and it flows smoothly from start to finish. The Brothers Karamazov seemed to me to leave a lot of loose ends. Does Dimitri escape? What happens with Lise and Alyosha? What about Ivan - does he ever find peace? There's a lot of questions, and you're almost left to make up your own ending.

But the book is still genius! Really well written and making points in such a subtle way with so many interlocking themes. The whole book just takes a family and analyses what they make of God. First there is Fyodor Karamazov, a man given over to his sins, with no remorse and no thoughts of God. Then there is Smerdyakov - a man who thinks of God but only with hatred. In reference to Smerdyakov's suicide the defense lawyer says, "Conscience implies penitence, and the suicide may not have felt penitence, but only despair. Despair and penitence are two very different things." I thought that was interesting in light of Judas Iscariot committing suicide contrasted with Simon Peter's repentance.

Then there is Dimitri - the passionate soldier, who sees God and the devil as waging a war for his soul. He is redeemed by love, and at the point that the book ends has determined to submit to God but still has doubts over whether his old man is really dead. But if Dimitri shows the battle of the sinful flesh against God, Ivan shows the battle of the mind against God. In Ivan the torture of Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment is replayed - the pain of a mind in rebellion against God. Finally, there is Alyosha, the hero, the man whose love for the Lord leads him to love men selflessly and who brings honour for the first time to the despised Karamazov name. His peace and joy is rarely shaken, despite all the horrific events that unfold round about him.

Dostoyevsky also brings out his perceptive themes of socialism as the outworking of atheism - as seeking to build heaven on earth. Again, as in Crime and Punishment, he deals with the fact that to the man who does not believe in God "everything is lawful". He also draws a devestatingly good picture of a Screwtape kind of devil, a "poor relative" snivelling to earn favour but secretly working his own agenda.

But for me, I think the real genius of the book is that Dimitri is wrong in his statement to Alyosha. God isn't fighting with the devil - God is clearly sovereign in this book - nothing the devil can do can thwart His plans. Despite being Karamazovs, despite their genetic make up, despite their circumstances, despite their desires - in the end God overrules, and every knee is bowed and every tongue, even Ivan's, confesses that Christ is Lord.

There is a famous chapter in this book called "The Grand Inquisitor". It is Ivan's great speech against the existence of God. The man who wrote the preface to my copy of The Brothers Karamazov felt that in this chapter God lost to the devil. He felt that the miscarriage of justice at the end of the book confirms this. But I think he doesn't see that God is changing people's lives and the circumstances are really incidental to that. And he misses the fact that the book ends with the redemption of the Karamazov name from one of shame and dishonour to one of love. Yes, injustices are done, and yes, people suffer, but through all this, God brings good. But most of all, the man who's written the preface misses that The Grand Inquisitor is not an argument against God at all. As Alyosha says, "Your poem is in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him - as you mean it to be." Speaking of those Ivan describes as the enlightened ones who protect humanity from religion Alyosha says, "It's simple lust for power, for filthy earthly gain, for domination - something like a universal serfdom with them as masters - that's all they stand for...Your suffering Grand Inquisitor is a mere fantasy." And at the end of the day that's all atheism ever is - a fantasy.

And now...I'm off to Professor Challenger in The Lost World by A.C. Doyle.