#fyodor fyodorovich karamazov

[possessedbydevils]

Guess who started reading TBK!!!! Loving it so far and l had to draw some characters, l wish Dosto gave more information about them but it's fine (also: designs inspired by @gegengestalt)

[plutorine]

good afternoon. i was scrolling through pinterest and this was the edit idea that entered my mind like a rapidly moving worm.

[teeniebeenie]

[sentimentalfoolz]

“the brothers karamazov” full pencil illustration by me!

ivan and pavel (bottom left corner) inspired by @mohich ‘s wonderful “father’s blood” piece!

i’m extremely proud of this and very sorry that dimitri isn’t in here. he’s very difficult to draw for me and i didnt wanna do the guy dirty

[sad-eyed-lady-of-the-paperbacks]

this is a VERY SPOILERY ask so for those who are reading tbk for the first time, SPOILER WARNING!!

but omg your reflection on how chapter 2.1. was mostly told from Miusovs POV and how this could mean the narrator probably got his information through him, made me think of who else POV we got in the book and more importantly who's POV we didn't get. which makes me think of Smerdyakov and how he is represented throughout the novel. which is obviously not in a very favourable light with only a very few instances where in he gets to talk for himself. with him being the only brother whose perspective we are never shown. I always saw this as the narrator having a clear bias against him (which is probably also still very much the case). but now it makes me think that there might also be a very practical explanation for this, he's the only brother who doesn't make it out alive! and consequently the only one who didn't get to tell his story (since the book is supposed to be written many years after the events). so the only way we ever get to see him is through the eyes of characters like Grigory, Ivan and Alyosha, who all have very clear biases against him

Oh my goodness, you’re so right!! And there’s that time where the narrator literally deems him unworthy of the reader’s attention.

It would really be most helpful to append some special remarks about him here, but my conscience forbids me to divert the attention of my reader with such commonplace lackeys, and I shall therefore proceed with my narrative, in the sanguine trust that the details about Smerdyakov will come forth of themselves in the course of the tale's unfolding.

-3.2, McDuff translation

Not only did the narrator get his information from biased sources, but trying to understand Smerdyakov cannot have been very important to him anyway, as he explicitly sees it as a waste of time. And I think Dostoevsky is deliberate in drawing our attention to this. It plays into the class themes present in the novel.

Thank you so much for this ask!! My brain is churning.

[incorrectlit]

Ivan: You know Archaic Latin?

Smerdyakov: I got bored with classical Latin.

Ivan: You know normal Latin??

Smerdyakov: Yeah, someone from my knitting club taught me.

Ivan: YOU HAVE A KNITTING CLUB???

Smerdyakov: You don’t know everything about me, Ivan Fyodorovich. Now, do you want a sweater, or a scarf?

[mikhailrakitin]

an ivan just fer you!!

[xachaionx]

"I am too young and I've loved you too much"

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky,The Brothers Karamazov

[karamazovanon]

another tbk meme i forgot to add to the first post! ivan & the bestie

[theinsomniacindian]

I recently finished reading Crime and Punishment and now I want to see Raskolnikov and Ivan Karamazov interact

[rafasbiscuits]

“-how dare he not know me after all that has happened?”

“I want to save him forever.”

The Brothers Karamazov; Fyodor Dostoevsky

[possessedbydevils]

Do l pass the vibe check

[plutorine]

little something i made today

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Father said earlier that I paid out several thousand on seducing girls. That’s a phantom, and a pig of one too, and there wasn’t any of that, and as for what there was, for “that” in particular money was not necessary.

from The Brothers Karamazov

[hapless-raining]

Alyosha

[sad-eyed-lady-of-the-paperbacks]

Undoubtedly the worst thing about Fyodor Pavlovich is that there is absolutely nothing which he holds as sacred, holy, untouchable, worthy of reverence or respect. Everything is a joke to him.

The very worst way this is exemplified is his alleged (but come on, we all know it was him) crime against the “holy fool” Lizaveta Smerdyashchaya, which for him was yet another distasteful joke. Lizaveta’s innocence and vulnerability are recognised by the community of Skotoprigonyevsk, both young and old, and we are given paragraphs and paragraphs to show how she is widely adored by the townspeople and how attempts are made to shelter, protect, and care for her.

When Fyodor Pavlovich violates her, he violates something that the community holds as sacred.

That, to me, is the core difference between someone like him and someone like Mitya. Even though Mitya has done a lot of “dirty things” and may on the surface appear to be following in his father’s footsteps, his heart is a noble one, or at least one with noble intentions. One that is filled with reverence and genuine emotion and a hatred for what is abhorrent—even when he himself is doing things that are abhorrent.

And even though we can fully understand his hatred of his father for his loathsomely mocking, irreverent, dishonourable, ignoble attitude toward everything, once his father is dead, he still feels sorry for that hatred. He still regrets the relationship he never had with the father who neglected him as a child and possibly swindled him as a young man. That alone speaks to the kind of heart that he has.

“It is a noble man you are speaking with, a most noble person; above all—do not lose sight of this—a man who has done a world of mean things, but who always was and remained a most noble person, as a person, inside, in his depths, well, in short, I don't know how to say it ... This is precisely what has tormented me all my life, that I thirsted for nobility, that I was, so to speak, a sufferer for nobility, seeking it with a lantern, Diogenes’ lantern, and meanwhile all my life I've been doing only dirty things, as we all do, gentlemen ... I mean, me alone, gentlemen, not all but me alone, I made a mistake, me alone, alone ... ! Gentlemen, my head aches,” he winced with pain. “You see, gentlemen, I did not like his appearance, it was somehow dishonorable, boastful, trampling on all that's holy, mockery and unbelief, loathsome, loathsome! But now that he's dead, I think differently.”

“How differently?”

“Not differently, but I'm sorry I hated him so much.”

“You feel repentant?”

“No, not really repentant, don't write that down. I'm not good myself, gentlemen, that's the thing, I'm not so beautiful myself, and therefore I had no right to consider him repulsive, that's the thing. Perhaps you can write that down.”

- The Brothers Karamazov, 3.9.3 (Pevear & Volokhonsky translation)

There is no beauty to be found in anything about Fyodor Pavlovich, and though Mitya contests that the same is true of himself, I argue differently. There is something beautiful in the struggle of an imperfect human toward nobility, despite being doomed to always fall short. To again and again slip into one’s baser impulses, and yet again and again stand back up and trudge onwards.

Both are human, but Fyodor Pavlovich is all of the very worst things about humanity, while Mitya is the worst things mingled with much of the very best.