This book is also notable for me in that I fundamentally disagree with one of the author’s main idea - that humans need religion as a source of morality. At least, that’s how I interpreted Ivan’s fate - he went mad trying to make sense of the world without God, purely through a rational lens. This disagreement with the author doesn’t matter to me though, because the book is a work of art. That much was clear to me, even as I was turning the pages for the first time. The vitality and detail of each of the characters, especially Dmitri - only a great artist could do that.

I also wonder how Dostoevsky would have felt, if he had written his book 150 years later. While our world was far from perfect, it is far from the universal misery of Tsarist Russia, where serfs starved to death. I feel like you can’t make sense of life in those circumstances with religion explaining why there’s so much pain in the world, so I understand where he was coming from. But would he still have felt the same even if life was substantially better for most people?

Lastly, if anyone can explain to me - why do they call Agrafena Alexandrovna Grushenka? Is this a standard nickname for Agrafena, like Alyosha is for Alexei? I feel like everyone in the novel just took the name for granted, like it was normal to call someone a little pear.

Another thought I had been having when reading the book was that Dostoyevsky uses insanity and especially insanity caused by stress way too often, it's a major plot device in his books while it's so rare in real life. However now I observe many of my friends (especially single ones) slowly going insane in various ways and I don't anymore think that it's rare. I guess mental health becomes scarce as you get older just like the physical health, just didn't expect this to manifest itself around the age of 35.

Free to download from Standard Ebooks for anyone interested: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky/the-brot...

What I find quite problematic is how it fully inverts what the Grand Inquisitor is about through its oversimplification. Its not an indictment of Christ, it’s about an indictment of Christ, but in fact it‘s Christ who is exposing the institutional church , how Ivan views it, with the only thing it ironically doesnt ‘t expect of him: a deeply Christian act

Alyosha is quite literally introduced as the hero of the novel, so saying his presence pales in comparison to Dimitry and Ivan is kind of weak. I‘d agree that his spectacle pales in comparison to his brothers, but his presence not at all.