A Karamazov Companion: Commentary on the Genesis, Language, and Style of Dostoevsky's Novel |...

A Karamazov Companion: Commentary on the Genesis, Language, and Style of Dostoevsky's Novel | Victor Terras | A valuable reference

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A Karamazov Compan...

	A Karamazov Companion: Commentary on the Genesis, Language, and Style of Dostoevsky's Novel Victor Terras University of Wisconsin Press, 2002 - 500 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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The text of The Brothers Karamazov is removed from English-speaking readers today not only by time but also by linguistic and cultural boundaries. Victor Terras?s companion work provides readers with a richer understanding of the Dostoevsky novel as the expression of a philosophy and a work of art.
In his introduction, Terras outlines the genesis, main ideas, and structural peculiarities of the novel as well as Dostoevsky?s political, philosophical, and aesthetic stance. The detailed commentary takes the reader through the novel, clarifying aspects of Russian life, the novel?s sociopolitical background, and a number of polemic issues. Terras identifies and explains hundreds of literary and biblical quotations and allusions. He discusses symbols, recurrent images, and structural stylistic patterns, including those lost in English translation.

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Crucial

If you want to deepen your understanding of Dostoevsky's last great work, this book is an invaluable supplement. The first 1/3 is an excellent essay. One of its crucial insights is that the famous Grand Inquisitor chapter can be properly understood only when read in view of the novel as a whole. Isolating it from the whole, Terras rightly explains, has led to much misinterpretation of this pivotal part of the book. Both within this chapter and throughout the entire book after it, Dostoevsky sought to expose the fatal flaws of Ivan's thought. No, D was not at all propounding his own views in this chapter. This essay contains many more key insights into the book.

The last 2/3 contains extensive, illuminating footnotes to every chapter of BK. Unfortunately, such a scholarly apparatus is necessary to fully understand BK, removed as we are linguistically, temporally, and culturally from BK's milieu.

The notes are meant to be read with Matlaw's revision of Garnett's translation. Get the Norton Critical Edition of this, as this edition also contains much valuable material - particularly D's letters - in addition to the text. If you seek a more authentic translation, it's perfectly fine to read A Karamazov Companion with Pevear's translation instead, as I did the first time.

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A valuable reference

This book is a great reference when reading the Brothers K. I agree
wholeheartedly with the previous reviewer's comments. I would only add
that this edition of the book is poorly bound--it easily falls apart.
I am accumulating many loose pages as I read through the book.
But better to have this book available in a substandard binding than out-of-print.

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