Daniel LaPointe

Zach’s aforementioned nagging having gotten to me, I took it upon myself to finally finish The Brothers Karamazov. It is well known that Dostoyevsky intended for this novel to be the first of a longer saga. The following are my thoughts as to what could happen in the second book of a trilogy.

 

Possible plot points for the sequel to The Brothers Karamazov:

  • Miusov is too fleshed-out a character to only get one scene in the saga. So I give him an important role in the sequel as a mentor to Ivan in Paris. With Miusov in the sequel, we get a good-faith defense of the Western, liberal values that were so ruthlessly attacked in the first book.
  • Ivan recovers from his brain fever, Katerina “gets her shit together” and stops fussing over Dmitri, and the two of them leave Russia for Paris (with Miusov being their “in” to the city). This is partly because their local reputations were wrecked at the trial, and partly because they have grown bored with the simplicity of Russian towns. Recall Ivan’s desire to “live it up until thirty” and then “turn away from his cup.” This is the book where he lives it up.
  • Though Ivan speaks of living his life to the max until thirty, he does not do this in an impulsive, Dmitri-like way. Rather, he cultivates an immense self-discipline which allows him to optimize his intellectual attainment. Think one of those “Day in the Life of a Harvard Student” YouTube videos. Ivan views himself as a machine, and he seeks the optimization of that machine’s functioning. Under the guidance of a gracefully aging Miusov, he does not view this craving to optimize as the work of the Devil, but as the most perfect usage of his time on Earth.
  • Katerina becomes a vocal feminist. Ivan, being somewhat mechanical and aloof at this point in his life, allows her a fair degree of independence in their relationship. But he never questions her loyalty to him, nor does she question his loyalty to her. While in Paris, they entertain a variety of interesting guests.
  • Shortly after recovering from his brain fever and before leaving for Paris, Ivan goes to Father Ferapont to talk about demons. This is initially done with a scholarly interest in mind – as if the two of them could together come up with some coherent “theory” of hallucinations. Ivan eventually gives up on this, however, after concluding Father Ferapont to be “hopeless.” In particular, he attributes Father Ferapont’s hallucinations to chronic malnutrition, and his own hallucinations to a temporary viral infection. More broadly, he finds there to be nothing resembling an analytic drive for knowledge in Father Ferapont. It is Ivan’s overwhelming disgust with Father Ferapont that makes him finally pull the trigger on his trip to Paris.
  • While there is a great temptation to turn Ivan into a “Forrest Gump of Europe” and have him run into a variety of historical figures, this would be in poor taste. If I could only have him encounter one great figure – and even then, only by proxy – it would be the mathematician Bernhard Riemann. After befriending a disciple of the recently-deceased Riemann, Ivan takes a dive into his work and becomes entranced with Riemann’s theory of geometry in higher dimensions. Now, with conscientious study, Ivan can break free from his limited, Euclidean understanding of the world.
  • That being said, Ivan does not become hyper-focused on mathematics. The man pursues a wide variety of subjects and retains his essentially political character. Think Voltaire trying to understand Newton.
  • We find that Ivan’s forays into mysticism while visiting his hometown in the first novel (that is, his somewhat uncharacteristic curiosity in Alyosha’s beliefs) were nothing more than an ambitious extension of the Western analytic project. There is always this desire to conquer, with Ivan – this desire to reduce things to their easily comprehended essence.
  • If the first novel glorifies Alyosha while making Ivan go insane, the second novel does the opposite. That is, it holds up Ivan as the ideal and illustrates the disasters that can befall religious fanatics.
  • As Ivan’s carriage pulls away for Paris, Alyosha thinks about Father Zossima’s injunction for him to “go into the world.” In a moment Alyosha comes to regret, he chooses to go in the direction opposite his brother. That is, Ivan goes toward the enlightened West, while Alyosha goes into the dark, mystical East.
  • Lise, who accompanies Alyosha on his trip east and whom Alyosha increasingly feels bonded to only out of a sense of obligation, takes on the role of a villain. Her fascination with the torture of children evinced towards the end of The Brothers Karamazov was just the tip of the iceberg. With Lise, Alyosha comes face-to-face with the fact that Christianity glorifies suffering for its own sake.
  • Travelling into the depths of Eastern Russia – impelled to do so by his intrigue with Dmitri’s dream about “the babe” – Alyosha encounters one pitiful scene after another. The further east he goes, the more Lise takes sadistic pleasure in the things they see. She revels in their distance from home and the fact that he cannot leave her.
  • Eventually, in the far reaches of Siberia and in a scene where Lise is temporarily absent by way of some plot contrivance, Alyosha has a profoundly beautiful moment of understanding with a prisoner – a moment which immediately reaffirms his faith in God. It later comes to his “attention” by way of Lise, however, that this moment of understanding was, in fact, hallucinated. The man in question was ethnically foreign, did not speak Russian, and was, as it later comes out, the opposite of grateful for Alyosha’s actions. Lise plants the idea that Alyosha is a privileged man with a “savior complex.”
  • Later, in a fit of blinding rage, Alyosha curses the hopeless, irredeemable stupidity of criminals, the peasant class, and people of other races. In contemplating the cognitive pre-requisites for Christian love – and the fact that some human brains may lack these entirely – Alyosha has an existential crisis.
  • Dmitri escapes prison per Ivan’s plan and goes to America with Grushenka. There they live on the frontier, as Dmitri had planned. These Dmitri passages are sparse and idyllic – think the Young Vito scenes from The Godfather Part II.
  • As Dmitri struggles to learn English, he is deprived of the one thing that got him into endless trouble – his loose tongue. Forced to listen rather than to speak, he becomes a man of action rather than words. For the first time in his life, he can make a plan and genuinely believe he will follow through with it. Gone are his endless apologies. He becomes a truly reliable person.
  • Unlike Ivan and Alyosha – tethered to a feminist and a sadist respectively – Dmitri has in Grushenka a wife who is enthusiastic to bear children. And so she does. As far as Darwin is concerned, Dmitri is the most successful of the three brothers.
  • Throughout the novel we hear updates of the goings-on in the town by way of letters from Madame Hohlakov. She ends up marrying Perhotin.
  • Kalganov is put on trial for alleged homosexual behavior but gets let off.
  • The inn-keeper Plastunov makes a fool of himself looking for Dmitri’s 1,500 rubles. His business never recovers. This incident, along with the death of the prosecutor Kirillovitch and “the breaking of his spell over the town,” results in a growing realization among the populace of Dmitri’s innocence.
  • “Smerdyakov did it” becomes something of a meme among the schoolboys, and the man’s grave attracts significant attention from this demographic. Think superstitions and weird dares.
  • The Fetyukovitch speech has a lasting impact on the community, and the takeaway from it that filters down to the schoolboys is simple: “Fyodor had it coming.” Over time, then, Smerdyakov acquires a reputation as a badass. His dramatic death-by-suicide only adds to the mystique.
  • Kolya Krassotkin takes on the role of a young Alyosha. He contests the growing popularity of Smerdyakov among the children.
  • Captain Snegiryov passes away from an illness. Alyosha receives word of this in Siberia and at once hastens back to town. Lise cannot understand this haste, nor can Alyosha. She calls attention to the ease of travel that comes with Alyosha’s wealth, suggesting that he can never truly understand the poor people he claims to love so much. An argument breaks out and Alyosha leaves Lise in a random village.
  • Alyosha sneakily arrives in town to visit Snegiryov’s grave (he was too late for the funeral). He is sure to avoid Madame Hohlakov. A few years having passed since he left, Alyosha goes to Ilusha’s stone and is immediately met (and recognized) by Kolya and the boys. They are eager to tell him how things have been, and Alyosha feels immediately grounded. He kisses the earth as he had done the night of his father’s murder. He can love again.
  • The novel ends with a cliffhanger. Lise is found dead, and Rakitin puts out a gossipy article about how “her boyfriend Alyosha, with the unenviable surname Karamazov, long gone on an elopement east” has returned to town without her. Fetyukovitch reads the article and adjusts his glasses.