Brothers Karamazov, Book Eleven: Non-Stop Action

We are getting pretty close to the end of the book, I think this was the second-to-last section (excluding the epilogue). Holy cow! Dostoyevsky basically threw all the action in this section, and the kitchen sink.

Everyone is getting ready for the trial of Dimitry – and most people are in high states of agitation about it. Ivan is back and apparently has been back for a while. He was plotting with Katherine to break Dimitry out of prison and hide him away. Dimitry and Grushekna are still together, however they are having a bit of a love/hate relationship (no one here finds this surprising).

The very interesting thing that Dostoyevsky does in this section is basically ties up a lot of loose ends by having all the characters visit each other. You find out what’s been happening during the two-ish months that have passed since Dimitry was arrested. There is no exposition, it’s all conversations and action.

We find out that Ivan is really sick and is basically going (or gone) insane. He ends up visiting Smerdakov a bunch of times – who is the “faithful” servant of the Karamazov family. Smerdakov is cagey and toys with Ivan, sensing his illness. He basically bats him around like a cat with a mouse. Over the visits S. tries to convince Ivan that IF he were to have murdered his father, then it was basically Ivan’s doing – because Ivan wanted it done. In the last meeting of the two, S. completely confesses to the murder. Up to that point Ivan wasn’t sure if Dimitry did it or not.

So we are merrily reading along to Ivan having a crazy chat with a hallucination of his inner-self……when….<insert dramatic music here>

We find out that Smerdakov killed himself.

What? No one was expecting that.

Truthfully I have no idea what is going to happen in the last section.