Tackling tomes when you don't feel up to task
A few thoughts on (the experience of reading) The Brothers Karamazov
I’ve always considered myself bookish, but I’ve often felt a bit of imposter syndrome about applying that label to myself. In large part, it was an inherited label: my mum was a high school English teacher turned academic, and my dad is a translator who inhales books late at night, despite being reticent to align himself with a bookish identity, which he finds too smug and self-congratulatory. Although they are pretty intensive readers themselves, my parents never especially pushed a particular relationship with books on me. They certainly made sure that I had access to books, and shared some of their favourites with me. (They are wildly different people, but they both consider I Capture the Castle to be among their favourite novels, and I remember feeling a little anxious that I wouldn’t love it. Luckily, I did.) However, they didn’t push me to read when I didn’t want to, and they never filtered the books I chose for myself. We often spoke about what I was reading, but their approach was largely hands-off.
I have mixed feelings about this. I appreciate that they gave me the freedom to discover the kinds of books that interest me, so that reading always felt like leisure rather than work in my childhood. At the same time, sometimes I wish my parents had encouraged me to read more quality literature in my formative teen years - partly because I could have done with the moral formation, and partly because reading challenging literature is a muscle, and although it can be developed at any point in life, it certainly gives you a good leg up if the habit is formed in adolescence.
Alas, I did read quite a bit, but the quality of what I was reading was highly variable, and by the time I reached my 20s and decided I ought to read more of the classics, I found it pretty hard work. I continued to pick up more challenging texts from time to time, but I wasn’t really sure what the point was, and it was rarely a rewarding experience. (The big exception was Wuthering Heights, which I fell completely in love with, and only later discovered that it is pretty widely hated…).
In many ways, my conversion to Catholicism via Anglicanism propelled me to approach the classics with a more authentic curiosity. I felt adrift from most people I knew and wider society, who couldn’t understand why I would do something so retrograde as opting into an oppressive belief system. When I turned to Western classics, I could enter a world where a Christian moral framework was taken for granted. I remember re-reading Jane Eyre - the first time had been before my conversion - and feeling a deep sense of connection to Jane, who so clearly depended on an implicit Christian moral compass to navigate her, err, rather challenging romantic situation. Although I’d never had a boyfriend who kept a wife in the attic, I could relate to her earnest attempts to do the right thing when her circumstances made it difficult to do so.
As a former student of Russian1, it had long been on my list to tackle The Brothers Karamazov, and as a great Christian novel, it has been of even greater interest since conversion. This year, I decided to take Lent as an opportunity to challenge myself to read it. The timeframe was helpful in making sure it didn’t just drag on forever2, and there was also an element of penance since it meant forgoing more “fun” reads. But also, I knew I had to adjust my mindset. I tend to feel like there’s no point in reading something if I don’t completely “get” it - obviously nonsense, but hard for me to shake - yet I knew that given my phase of life (three young kids including a very clingy baby), I would have to just plow on without getting bogged down in worrying that I’d missed something, or going down Google rabbit holes about characters and plot points. It was freeing to accept that I would miss stuff, that I could never grasp all the complexities of the novel, but that it could still be worthwhile.
As previously mentioned, I read it alongside the lecture series by
, which was very helpful for giving me a broad strokes sense of what was going on or what Dostoevsky was trying to convey at key points throughout the novel. It helped me plod on when certain parts of the novel dragged, because each lecture (only 5-15 mins) provided a kind of reprieve and reorientation before the next “book” of the 12 “book” novel. My edition3 also had fairly extensive endnotes, which were really helpful for clarifying historical, cultural, literary, or religious references that would have otherwise gone over my head. I definitely think that these kind of resources can make an enormous difference when trying to navigate a novel that presumes a certain amount of historical and literary awareness.It would be false to say that I totally enjoyed the experience of reading it - although I did sometimes - but it was a rich and nourishing experience, and I’m absolutely glad I read it. I kept showing up for it even when it was boring, and when other things seemed more appealing (there were many moments when I would have rather been folding laundry than slogging through the next 15 pages). I probably won’t remember many of the specifics of The Brothers Karamazov in two weeks, let alone two decades or more, but that doesn’t mean that the ways in which it fed me will come undone. The specifics are not irrelevant, but they’re also not the whole point. This, of course, can be said of any quality literature.
Reading The Brothers Karamazov has given me the confidence to read other works that I have been too intimidated by in the past (I’m thinking of attempting Iliad later in the year). At the same time, it has actually made me feel that trying to tackle all the classics and great books is probably counterproductive, unless you really have a zeal for it. I suspect it’s more enriching to let yourself be deeply nourished by a smaller number of great works of literature, than to force yourself through long lists of them without time to really absorb what you’re reading.
The biggest lesson I took away from reading this huge novel (about 800 pages) is that you don’t need any special qualifications or skillset to read hard books. It can certainly be worthwhile trying to find some kind of supportive resource, be it a lecture series, a podcast, an essay, or a bookclub, but all you really need is curiosity and a bit of determination.
It is shocking and depressing how little Russian I can now remember, considering I spent a couple of years studying it pretty intensively and spent two periods in St. Petersburg. It makes me sort of sad, but it also serves no purpose in my life and I’ve never felt inclined to pick it back up.
I divided the number of pages in the book by the number of days in Lent in order to figure out how much I needed to read daily to stay on task, and I stuck to it pretty religiously (so to speak, ha). I ended up finishing on Holy Thursday, which was ideal as it allowed me to spend the Triduum more focussed on Scripture. Another time, I would probably count for 5-6 days of reading per week instead of every single day, as I think it would have been helpful to have a little more leeway for the unexpected happenings of life.
I read the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation from Penguin Vintage, which I believe is widely considered to be the best. However, there is a very recent translation from Michael R. Katz (2023) which sounds really promising, so if I ever read it again (big *if*), I would try that one.
Chris and I are trying to get a couple friends together to read some classic works in book club style. I think the fact that you had that lecture series to follow along with probably was so helpful! These books are so much easier to tackle in some sort of community. Plus they motivate us to finish 🙂 I really admire that you did this! And such a great thing to do over Lent!
I read this book last summer and I definitely can't remember all the details but my oh my do I remember there being a TON of details and dialogue. It did feel like quite an accomplishment to read through it though. I remember really enjoying reading Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" much more, though it was about a decade ago so I can't tell you the storyline at all, I just have positive memories of it 😆