At this point, I'd like to poke at The Brothers Karamazov for a bit. In talking about this book with others, the way I've presented my opinion has been essentially that I have waited 500 pages for the proverbial money shot, and Dostoevsky essentially did a fade to black as it was about to happen. Every time that I've said it, I've felt like it didn't necessarily capture the actuality of my feelings about the book.
I am, at this point, not disappointed in the book. And I understand that the dynamics of the book require this particular approach. A trial can't be much of a trial if all the mystery of the crime has been removed. This book, in essence, is a study of the people involved. It is motivation. It is perception. I sit at a point in the book where the crime has been committed. Demitry is not on the run, but he's running vaguely towards the motivations of his life trying to secure some sense of completion before he puts his revolver against his head and seeks out the next mystery. The trial is on the horizon. I understand that he won't shoot himself. He won't escape without the active judgement of the people in his life. There are the written clues to this. References to the trial to come, the witnesses to be called. There are 500 pages leading up to his crime. 500 pages of motivation and character development.
When I say that I've waited 500 pages, what I mean is, I wanted the crime to occur on page one. I wanted this book to be just the trial. I wanted motivation and action and relationship to be a composite image created by the witnesses involved. As I break my teeth on the rest of the book, I'll get some of that I think. I just hope that when the end comes, and I look back at what I've read, the first bit contributes to the overall in a way that exceeds my current view. The success or failure of this book, to me, will lie in whether the book has chosen the correct fulcrum point.
