And you can sense the majesty of what Dostoyevsky was trying to accomplish - he takes a bunch of different arguments and picks them apart from multiple points of view, letting the Karamazov brothers or secondary characters or even allegorical figures hash out everything the author is thinking (or arguing against) thoroughly and articulately.
The style is completely unlike modern literature, but Dostoyevsky makes every one of his characters so complex and complete that you wish more modern authors were as thorough (and indulged as much by their editors) in their creations. The skill of the author cannot be denied. Half the book was one of the Karamazovs talking on and on uninterrupted to an audience as silent and passive as the reader/listener. The problem is, Dostoyevsky spends entire chapters on things like the background histories of the most minor character. It's a high-minded novel full of weighty intellectual themes and I could not help but appreciate the meticulous detail with which the author constructed every part of it from the events and familial and romantic relationships leading up to Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov's murder to the background histories of even the most minor characters. The Brothers Karamazov isn't so much a story as a lengthy disquisition on the Russian character and the issues of Dostoyevsky's day, detailed personality profiles, and digressions on every subject Dostoyevsky wanted to pursue, including free will, the existence of God, moral responsibility, and truth. I've never been a huge fan of Russian literature, and this book reminded me why.
A long work and a great work, but boy is it long
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