The translation you need is the Pevear/Volokhonsky edition (either Vintage or Farrar, S, &G). None compare! They don’t edit Dostoyevsky and capture all his lovely humor and wit and weirdness.

I read this over 7 years ago and am starting to read it again with some friends. It’s the craziest thing—how can a book where people just sit around and talk be so engrossing and fast-moving??

the only other book by Dostoyevsky that i’ve read is Crime and Punishment, which is one of my favorites. the problem i’ve been having with this version of The Brothers Karamazov is the translation. i can’t remember who translated my copy of C&P, and since we just moved recently, i have no idea where Brian packed it. i tried looking it up here, on Amazon, and on the Borders web site, but couldn’t find it. or if it is listed on any of those sites, there’s no image of the book cover.

once i dig it up, i’ll pick up a copy of BK by the same translator of the C&P that i own. one of my nurses (i was just released from the hospital today) recommended the one published by Penguin Classics.

Właściwie jestem uprzedzony do Dostojewskiego, ale pisać to on potrafił! Tę tak długą i złożoną książkę czyta się łatwo i przyjemnie jak broszurkę—genialny warsztat.

finally picked this up after having heard about it for years. loved what i read (and, surprisingly, understood quite a bit)

This, friends, is nothing less than the holy grail of human literary striving. It is the book of life. Good, evil, pleasure, suffering, self-destruction, poetry, pulp, redemption, God, atheism, saints, sinners, hope, fear, freedom, identity, choice, despair… but above all, humanity, in all their flawed, pitiful, glorious forms of existence are embodied in the epic (inner and outer) struggles of the Karamazov family. The questions that would define the twentieth century… that have defined all of human existence for that matter, it’s all right there.

Erin gave me this book at the end of the summer. Elizabeth and several others recommended it and said that one of the characters (Alyosha) reminded her of me.