Anti-Climacus

LINK: If you haven't been following TruePravda's "Books That Haunt" series, be sure to check out the most recent entry, on my favorite book of all time: The Brothers Karamazov. My only regret is that he spends so much effort trying not to say too much that he doesn't end up saying enough!

One quibble, though:

"The novel focuses on the murder of Fyodor Karamazov, and the intrigue surrounding the case involving his sons, each of whom represent different worldviews; Alyosha—a theistic worldview, Dmitry—a romantic worldview, Ivan—an existentialist worldview, and the illegitimate Smerdyakov, who appears as the evil outcast.

The most famous chapter of the book, "The Grand Inquisitor," has been hailed by one critic as one of the most compelling arguments for Christianity and at the same time one of the most damning arguments against it. In my view it's a stunning look from a Russian Orthodox writer about the need for reformation. It is here that the existentialist Ivan makes the pronouncement, "If God is dead, then all things are permissible." I've alway thought it odd that Dostoevsky is so casually labeled as an existentialist, seeing how the character Ivan ends up."

Actually, I always took it that Dmitry was meant to be the beastly, Ivan the intellectual, and Alyosha the emotive one (if you read it this way, they map on nicely to Svidrigailov, Raskolnikov and Sonia/Dunya in Crime and Punishment). But, of course, what does Alyosha realize in the book, if not that it is not sufficient for him to spend his life with his head in the clouds, that he must go into the world, filled with all the miserable things it is, and find a way to emerge happy and sane? That seems to be quintessentially existentialist to me.