Everything There Is To Know About Life

A character in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five said that "Everything there is to know about life is in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky." Having finished the book about a week ago, I can see where he's coming from. Dostoevsky has certainly written a book that covers much of the enormity of the human experience. While the philosophizing all over the place in the book gave me much to think about, I mostly learned about myself as a reader in the past month.

Like life, the book is a real roller coaster. There are moments of anger, passion, joy, grief, and confusion. Somehow, despite the many tragic moments in the book, I find the whole novel rather uplifting. Dostoevsky is somehow able to bring out the beauty in ugly character relationships. For instance, the final scene, in which a child dies, is among the most uplifting for me. I think Dostoevsky is being very true to life here: very rarely are the events of our lives completely hopeless or 100% awesome. We want our books to have nice and neat resolutions, but Dostoevsky does not let his readers off so easily. Some questions remain unanswered.

It's almost comical just how many philosophical discussions occur throughout the many pages of Brothers Karamazov. It's almost as if characters never make small talk. My friends and I quote movies and make broad jokes when we get together. It's not often that we discuss whether or not free will is actually good for humanity. The climax of the novel revolves around a murder trial, and the prosecuting and defense attorneys spend their closing arguments speaking about whether or not a neglectful parent can truly be considered a parent, sparking a philosophical debate, almost as much as focusing on actual evidence. This sort of dialogue, where characters mostly spoke in monologues that stretched across several pages without even so much as a paragraph break, did become a bit tiresome, but that's not to say I found no value in it. Ivan's treatise about how he could not believe in God because of the suffering of children was particularly powerful, as were many of the teachings of the elder monk Zosima.

The real treasure in Brothers Karamazov are the brothers themselves. Ivan, Dmitri, and Alyosha are fascinating throughout the entire book, even though they're not exactly realistic. The three are extreme character types: Ivan is the intellectual, Dmitri is passionate and reckless, and Alyosha as so faithful he's practically messianic. While they don't feel like real people because of this, it does open the door for some incredible conversation. Also, I'm not sure how, but I found myself really caring for Dmitri, even though he's sort of a scumbag for most of the book.

The book gave me a lot to chew on. I liked it quite a bit, certainly more than both One Hundred Years of Solitude and Moby-Dick. However, did I enjoy it? Not always.

I found myself wishing I was reading something else about half way through, or wishing that I wouldn't have to finish it. Mostly, I think this is because I started it a week after finishing Moby-Dick, another densely philosophical epic. I had an ambitious plan for the summer to be full of "important" books, but this simply was not realistic, not if I wanted to enjoy my summer vacation reading. These sorts of books are great to read occasionally, but not back-to-back. Probably no more than four or five should be read in an entire year, much less in a single summer. It's a shame really, because I'm pretty sure my long and challenging readings of Moby-Dick and One Hundred Years of Solitude really put a damper on my enjoyment of Karamazov. At the very least, I needed a palate-cleansing book or two in between.

This is not to say that I'm done with lengthy, complicated, philosophical books. I liked Karamazov enough to put War and Peace on my to-read list, and the approaching graduate coursework will undoubtedly be intellectually challenging, but I'm taking the rest of the summer off. Sorry Faulkner and Dickens, but I need to reclaim my love of literature with something a bit more fun. Since Bros. K, I've read some Kelly Link short stories, which I love (I'll have to write about her at some point). I started yesterday and am already halfway through Never Let Me Go, which is fascinating. Took a trip to Subterranean Books last week and picked up zombie/steampunk Boneshaker and, most excitingly of all, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by one of my faves, David Mitchell. It's not to say that these books have no intellectual value (quite the contrary), they're just plain more engaging.

Here's what I've discovered about myself in reading these last three books: reading long books easily turns into a chore for me. I go through the same cycle every time. I fall completely in love with the book in the first 100 pages or so. The characters and style completely click with me. However, after the newness wears off and the authors start getting into some juicy themes, my interest wanes. Reading is not fun anymore. I read about other books online that sound like fun and get depressed. In the last 100 pages, finishing the book becomes an obsession. I do enjoy the end more than the middle, but I'm in such a hurry to finish that I don't take the time to stop and think about what's happening.

Above all else, when I'm in the middle of reading these sorts of books, I have no desire to write anything. I become creatively constipated. Maybe it's because I have no desire to write lengthy philosophical works. I just don't feel inspired, just intimidated, if anything. However, going back to reading contemporary fiction and sci-fi gets me excited about my own ideas again.

Next time I pick up one of The Great Works, I need to make an active effort to have fun while doing so. Maybe that means writing about it more as I'm reading it, maybe it means reading some fluffy stuff concurrently so I have someplace to turn when I can't pick up the dang thing. That way, I can read what I want to when I feel like it and take my time with the patience-trying intellectual heavy lifting. That at least sounds like less of a chore.