‘But the little sticky leaves, 
and the precious tombs, 
and the blue sky, 
and the woman you love! 
How will you live,
how will you love them?’

I have been listening to The Brothers Karamozov, an extremely Russian novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is the third of his that I’ve ventured into. I like Russian novels. I like listening to them, too, because otherwise it would be hopeless trying to read all the Russian names, keep them straight when they have four different variations for the same person, and stay on top of the narrative that moves stealthily underneath a landscape of rich details. This kind of literature, the challenge it presents in a thousand pages, it’s for me.

At the same time, I’ve been through varying degrees of interest throughout it. It’s not boring, not exactly, but it does go on and on at length at times. It’s not superfluous, but the characters, each of them singular and incredible, continually lend themselves to your judgement, anticipate your judgement, and change just in time so that you must reevaluate them constantly (like real people). It’s not relatable, but it is making a case for the material of your soul.

It’s not a book that’s giving you what you want, it’s probing the universe and sending back grainy images that you have to work to piece together.
Still, if you like murder mysteries, court dramas, family ruin, that’s what you’ll get overtly from this text.

I’ve chosen a few passages to share here, but my disclaimer is that these passages should not represent the book as a whole. They are coming from one perspective, the brother Alyosha and his dying elder monk. I was surprised, I think, by this element in the mix with the rest of the novel. Because I resonated with these words, I chose them. And I think that’s exactly what Dostoevsky meant when he penned them. He represents in these passages the ideal of the human experience, the seed of unshakeable faith and transforming love that happens to some of us.

Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. 
Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love 
the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will 
perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, 
you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will 
come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

God took seeds from different worlds and sowed them
on this earth, and His garden grew up and everything came
up that could come up, but what grows lives and is alive
only through the feeling of its contact with other mysteri-
ous worlds. If that feeling grows weak or is destroyed in you,
the heavenly growth will die away in you. Then you will
be indifferent to life and even grow to hate it. That’s what
I think.

When you are left alone, pray. Love to throw yourself on the 
earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, 
consuming love. Love all men, love everything. Seek that 
rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy 
and love those tears. Don’t be ashamed of that ecstasy, prize it,
for it is a gift of God and a great one

He did not stop on the steps either, but went quick-
ly down; his soul, overflowing with rapture, yearned for
freedom, space, openness. The vault of heaven, full of soft,
shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless above him.
The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to
the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the
earth. The white towers and golden domes of the cathedral
gleamed out against the sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn
flowers, in the beds round the house, were slumbering till
morning. The silence of earth seemed to melt into the si-
lence of the heavens. The mystery of earth was one with the
mystery of the stars….
Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down
on the earth. He did not know why he embraced it. He could
not have told why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all. 
But he kissed it weeping, sobbing, and watering it with
his tears, and vowed passionately to love it, to love it for ever 
and ever. ‘Water the earth with the tears of your joy and
love those tears,’ echoed in his soul.
What was he weeping over?
Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars,
which were shining to him from the abyss of space, and ‘he
was not ashamed of that ecstasy.’ There seemed to be threads
from all those innumerable worlds of God, linking his soul
to them, and it was trembling all over ‘in contact with other
worlds.’ He longed to forgive everyone and for everything,
and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men,
for all and for everything. ‘And others are praying for me
too,’ echoed again in his soul. But with every instant he felt
clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that something firm and
unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his soul.
It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his
mind — and it was for all his life and for ever and ever. He
had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion

There is so much more to discuss in the book. This is the smallest snippet, and I don’t think it’s fair to assess the entire narrative from this. Dostoevsky’s stories go incredibly hard at his character’s most sinister moments, and that is not what I’ve chosen to pull out. He admits inside the narrative (he often discusses his choices as the writer, what his limitations were, and how the reader might perceive them) that Alyosha is the hero. I take up his point, the other brothers are doomed, trapped in their desires. But Alyosha doesn’t make a compelling story on his own. He really isn't that interesting, only in his comparison to his brothers is he worthy of note. The writer admits this, too. I hope you read the book because it’s so clever how he does it.

If such writing is compelling to you, I hope you will follow my progress as I try to write a novel. In my story, I want to make a case for faith. If you can stomach the occasional flowery phrase, and if you have a curiosity for knowing the intimate details of how another person perceives God in the quiet of their own mind, then yeah, you might like what I'm putting down.

Until next time, I'll be kissing the ground, ecstatic at my existence (which is the reason I write, yet it distracts me from writing).