The Single Greatest Moment in Russian Literature

Or, possibly, the literature of any nation. Or, possibly even, any possible literature of any possible nation:

Убил отца не ты.

“It wasn’t you who killed father.”

Years & years ago, I “taught” The Brothers Karamazov at the University of Chicago, and was quite taken with it.

Just now, I’ve been revisiting the book, in an audiobook performance of the Magarshack translation, as I drive into and back from work. The line I’ve just quoted, from Book 11, Chapter 5, is, in context, so brilliant, so devastating, and so completely unexpected…I’m lucky I didn’t crash my car.

3 thoughts on “The Single Greatest Moment in Russian Literature

  1. Pingback: The Single Greatest Moment in Russian Literature | Reaction Times

  2. Ivan fears that he is himself the real murderer.- but he’s not sure. He desperately wants to believe that it was Dmitri, and not Smerdyakov, who struck the fatal blow.

    If it was Dmitri, then he (Ivan) was merely a passive observer.

    But if it was Smerdyakov, then he (Ivan) was the prime mover.

    Alexei doesn’t know the whole story, but somehow he knows both that Ivan fears that he is himself the real murderer – something that Ivan has never admitted to anybody – and that it isn’t true.

    Clear as dirt?

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