The Brothers Karamazov

Reviews

"This book weigh about two pounds, but I found it quite light. The writing is good and clear; fuss has been eliminated. Katz's lucid, unpretentious language opens up my favourite scenes, characters and even monologues." — Lan Samantha Chang, The Guardian

"In 'The Brothers Karamazov,' now available in a lively, fast-flowing new translation by Michael Katz (Liveright), Dostoyevsky blended the family novel with the whodunnit, revealing the capaciousness of the novel as a form and the power of blood as a metaphor... [Katz's] is, by my estimation, the voiciest translation of the novel thus far. He writes at the fever pitch of speech, unleashing the speed and the chaos of the original." — Jennifer Wilson, The New Yorker

"Mr. Katz has accepted ungainliness in return for greater intensity. His translation sharpens the sensation unique to Dostoevsky, that of a man clutching your forearm and shouting something into your face. It feels truly manic—though the better word surely is 'ecstatic.'" — Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

"Katz is the translator of more than fifteen novels from Russia's golden age, by Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Herzen, and others. His latest effort, a new version of The Brothers Karamazov, is every bit as smart as his earlier work. Attentive to both style and substance, Katz renders all of Dostoevsky's edges in sharp relief. " — New Criterion

"[A]s enthralling and nightmarish as a modern psychological thriller or film noir... the sheer vitality, the thirst for life, that characterises all the Karamazovs sweeps the reader irresistibly along. It is a work of restless energy and plenitude, filled with unexpected reversals and revelations, at once raucous and poignant, satirical and grand... exceptionally charming. " — Michael Dirda, The Washington Post