This is a huge and very challenging book.
The basic plot is relatively simple – three brothers with an unpleasant and dissolute father, both of their mothers being dead. One of the three is a rake like his father, one an austere intellectual and the youngest initially a very Christian child, who begins the book as a novice or trainee monk in the village priory.
The love life of the elder brothers and their father is relevant as are finances and patrimony for the eldest, who believes his father has defrauded him. There is also a servant of the father’s servants, probably an illegitimate son of the father.
The father is murdered by one of his three or four children and an element of the book is simply a whodunit, the eldest son being charged and convicted although it appears that the illegitimate son may be the culprit.
There are huge tracts of quite difficult religious debate, including the famous scene in which Ivan the second son lectures the third on Christ and the Grand Inquisitor, the devil also appears as a visitor in Ivan’s house late in the book.
Huge, difficult and worth a re-read – all the characters in the plot are important and some appear briefly early on but assume a crucial role later on. So on a re-read, note details of all the characters!
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