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The Brothers Karamazov [Naxos AudioBooks Edition]
- Narrated by: Constantine Gregory
- Length: 37 hrs and 4 mins
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Publisher's summary
Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a titanic figure among the world's great authors, and The Brothers Karamazov is often hailed as his finest novel. A masterpiece on many levels, it transcends the boundaries of a gripping murder mystery to become a moving account of the battle between love and hate, faith and despair, compassion and cruelty, good and evil.
Featured Article: Essential Russian Authors to Know in Audio
Don’t be daunted by the towering reputations of Russia’s literary giants. Listening is the perfect way to appreciate the masters. Russia is a sprawling country with a rich and complex history, which is reflected in its literature. Whether you’re keen on brushing up on classic Russian literature or you want to find a new author to explore, we’ve rounded up 13 of the best Russian authors, classic and contemporary, whose work you should know.
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Published in 1844, The Count of Monte Cristo would become one of the most popular works of literature of its time. In this story, the reader is taken on a wild adventure as they transverse the world of Edmond Dantes, a man that has been wrongfully imprisoned in the gloomy Château d’If. Dantes' time at the château has not been a complete waste. During his imprisonment, he hears of hidden treasure on the island of Monte Cristo. With grim determination, Edmond Dante plans to escape and find the treasure.
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Wonderful story and performance!
- By Hannah on 05-09-20
By: Alexandre Dumas
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The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Jonathan Kent
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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This dark story, set in medieval Austria, hinges on unearthly and hidden mental powers. It also gives an insight to the author's psyche during his final days.
The other stories in this edition include "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg", "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", "The Story of the Bad Little Boy", "The Diary of Adam and Eve", "Edward Mills and George Benton", "The Joke That Made Ed's Fortune", and "A Fable".
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Bad text, humdrum narration
- By Tad Davis on 05-19-08
By: Mark Twain
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Resurrection
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Alastair Cameron
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In Tolstoy's final novel, a privileged nobleman by the name of Dmitri Nekhlyudov seeks to make amends for a bad deed he committed in the past. In the process, he discovers that he has been living in a world far removed from the reality of the average person.
By: Leo Tolstoy
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Notes from Underground
- By: Natasha Randall - translator, Fyodor Dostoevsky
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A groundbreaking new translation of Dostoyevsky's most radical work of fiction. In the depths of a cellar in St. Petersburg, a civil servant spews forth a passionate and furious note on the ills of society. The underground man's manifesto reveals his erratic, self-contradictory, and even sadistic nature. Yet in Dostoyevsky's most extreme and disturbing character, there is the uncomfortable flicker of recognition of the human condition. When the narrator ventures above ground, he attends a dinner with a group of old school friends.
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The first modern anti-hero?
- By John L. Murphy on 07-14-17
By: Natasha Randall - translator, and others
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After the jealous tyrant Don Rodrigo foils their wedding, young Lombardian peasants Lucia and Lorenzo must separate and flee for their safety. Their difficult path to matrimony takes place against the turbulent backdrop of the Thirty Years War, where lawlessness and exploitation are at their height. Lucia takes refuge in a convent, where she is later abducted and taken on a nightmarish journey to a sinister castle, while Lorenzo goes to Milan, where he witnesses famine, riots, and plague - all evoked through meticulous description and with stunning immediacy.
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Fantastic reading of a great work of literature
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North and South
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Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion that poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire....
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Delightful
- By Sally on 01-04-10
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Oblomov
- By: Ivan Goncharov
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A member of the landed gentry, with a seemingly guaranteed income from his estate in the country, Oblomov lives in Petersburg, uninterested in the business that provides his living and barely aware that the revenue is diminishing. Not that he leads a dissolute life of extravagance, balls and entertainment. Instead he is a dreamer, a sybarite, content above all to spend most of the day supine, in bed. The novel opens with Oblomov thus ensconced, attended only by his dirty, grumbling, indolent servant Zahar, who has looked after him since childhood, catering to his every need.
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funny and smart
- By Bennett Weiss on 07-29-20
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Starring Orson Welles, Anges Moorehead, and Ray Collins, The Count of Monte Cristo is a tale of revenge and retribution. Edmond Dantès, a young, energetic sailor, is falsely accused of treason on his wedding day and incarcerated in the forbidding Château d'If. His escape and ultimate revenge on those who wronged him makes this one of the most thrilling stories in French literature, as compelling now as when it was first published in 1846.
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Excellent
- By Stefanie on 05-19-14
By: Orson Welles
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The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov, Volume 1
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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, (1860-1904), was born in Russia at Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. His name has become synonymous with a certain literary style much admired and widely copied since his death. Typically, a Chekhov story is a "mood", a state of mind, usually with regard to relations between one person and another. Under the influence of the constant, infinitesimal, and unforeseen pinpricks of life, there occurs a gradual transformation of that state of mind.
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A Box of Chocolates
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Dombey and Son
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In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.
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Perfect pair
- By Philip on 03-25-08
By: Charles Dickens
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A long work and a great work, but boy is it long
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In early nineteenth-century Russia, the threat of Napoleon’s invasion looms, and the lives of millions are about to be changed forever. This includes Pierre Bezúkhov, illegitimate son of an aristocrat; Andrew Bolkónski, ambitious military scion; and Natásha Rostóva, compassionate daughter of a nobleman. All of them are unprepared for what lies ahead. Alongside their fellow compatriots - a catalog of enduring literary characters - Pierre, Andrew, and Natásha will be irrevocably torn between fate and free will.
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waited for this translation
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This audiobook, read by Audie award-winning narrators, includes unabridged recordings of all Fyodor Dostoyevky's greatest works: 15 novels and novellas, 18 short stories, a short study of Dostoyevsky by Virginia Woolf, and two books of non-fiction - his Letters and European travel journal.
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Also known as Demons, The Possessed is a powerful socio-political novel about revolutionary ideas and the radicals behind them. It follows the career of Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, a political terrorist who leads a group of nihilists on a demonic quest for societal breakdown. They are consumed by their desires and ideals, and have surrendered themselves fully to the darkness of their "demons". This possession leads them to engulf a quiet provincial town and subject it to a storm of violence.
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Womderful
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What listeners say about The Brothers Karamazov [Naxos AudioBooks Edition]
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rich
- 02-27-16
A Spiritual and Philosophical Tour-de-Force
At 39 years old, this is my first reading of "Brothers K". From the first chapter, this title was nearly impossible to put down. Upon completion, this book immediately rocketed to the top of my all-time favorite reads. Glorious!
"How did one person write this book?" is the question I ask myself over and over. And to think that this title was only HALF of what Dostoyevsky really wanted to finish: just outrageous! The absence of this second volume due to his death is perhaps one of the greatest losses in the history of world literature. To consider the circumstances of the author's life (the death of his real-life epileptic son Allyosha, the murder of his real-life father, etc.) and how they intertwine with this title is near overwhelming.
I can't even begin to offer a degree of plot summary that does this title justice. Perhaps the best advice to the new reader is to not worry over memorizing the convoluted Karamozov family tree (ex-wives, distant relatives, etc.). Stick to the father (Fydor), the three brothers (Mitya, Ivan and Allyosha), the four women (Katya, Grusha, Madame Hoklakov, Lise), the servant family (Grigory, Marfa and Smerdyakov) and the four monks (Zossima, Rakitin, Ferapont and Paissy). By the time other characters are introduced later in the book (the children, the captain's family, the courtroom, etc.), you'll be ready for them.
This translation (Garnett) is indeed great for first-timers and Gregory's narration is knockout. Every minute of this title is meant to be savored--relax, be prepared for brilliance around every corner and enjoy what surely must be one of the best rational, spiritual and philosophical reads I'll ever experience in my life. "Hurrah for Karamozov"--then, now, and for generations to come!
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- Robert
- 10-20-13
Best "Karamazov" yet.
Constantine Gregory decided to give a reading of the Constance Garnett translation of "The Brothers Karamazov". Constance Garnett is no longer considered the best translator of Dostoevsky. She goes to great length to "pretty up" the rather rough and bumpy language of the original. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s new translation of "The Brothers Karamazov" is now regarded by most critics to be definitive as it does not try to mask Dostoyevskys idiosyncratic prose.
Gregory gives a rather calm and relaxed rendering of the work, which is nice in the long run.
My dream "audio" Karamazov would be David Horovitch narrating the Pevear and Volokhonsky’s translation.
However as it stands now, this version by Constantine Gregory is the best "Karamazov" available.
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- Dan Harlow
- 09-13-14
How can we judge what is in a person's heart?
Any additional comments?
I wonder what inspired Dostoyevsky to write this novel? During the trial it is mentioned that there was a woman in St. Petersburg who had given birth and then killed the infant, hiding the little body and then later it was discovered she had done this numerous times. I wonder if, assuming that story is true, Dostoyevsky began to wonder about how difficult it would be to forgive someone like that, to see into their heart and find something good. This novel is, after all, about that very idea, the idea of never being able to know what goodness really lies in another persons heart and how difficult it is, or even how inappropriate it is, to judge anyone, no matter how evil they have been.
The novel ends with a promise, a promise that all the boys and Aloysha will never forget each other, never forget little Ilyusha, and never forget the goodness of their childhood memory together. Even, if later, they grow cynical or do many terrible things, Aloysha asks them to always remember this one good moment in their life because it may save them someday, just as an onion almost saved another sinner. Those small moments of goodness could, at least in the eyes of God, be the one link to salvation for even the most terrible sinner.
The novel also deals with the questions of faith and belief and it is these parts I found most fascinating because Dostoyevsky makes the strongest case I've yet heard that counters the scientific arguments of logic and reason. And while I think Dostoyevsky was too hard on science and too opposed to the good science can do for humanity, he does show how logic and reason can absolutely condemn an innocent person. At times I wondered if Dostoyevsky was trying to tell us it would be better just to forgive all criminals and then let God figure it all out later.
And that's the real issue here: forgiveness. How difficult is it really to forgive someone. Not just any regular sinner either, but a person who has done something horribly terrible. And what sort of world would we live in if we did, in fact, forgive everyone easily? A world where we forgive a terrorist or the rapist of a child? Can we even imagine such things? In the character Smerdyakov we have someone who is cunning and ruthless and who takes advantage of the people around him, but we never really know why he does what he does. Smerdyakov is the closest character to the 'main villain', but we never get his own thoughts, we only see him through the eyes of others. He is difficult to forgive because we don't know him, yet this is exactly they point Dostoyevsky is trying to make: we MUST forgive Smerdyakov, he is in the greatest need of it as Father Zosima alluded to earlier in the novel.
Dostoyevsky is not foolish enough to think that we can always forgive, however. He knows we will always be carried away by our emotions and passions. He knows those passions will lead us to do terrible things and to also condemn others, too. He quite clearly sees the onion layers that make up human interactions, the dual nature of all people who can be both good and bad at the same time. He knows how complicated people really are. But he also plants that seed of doubt in our mind while reading this novel as to if we really are qualified to pass judgment on any person. He wants us to know that nothing is what it seems and even when we are positive we know a person we might very well be wrong about them. He's showing us the danger of gossip, of judgment, of not walking in another person's shoes. And he's also showing us how we are all conflicted, how we ebb and flow between goodness and sin and even how what we perceive in others as sin might actually be virtue as in the case of little Ilyusha and his father, Captain Snegiryov, or even the Grand Inquisitor who though his actions go against God he is actually doing so because he is for God.
Then there is the faith question, the tricky nature of how faith works. Here he shows us that if God himself showed up at our doorstep and said "I am God, here I am", we would actually doubt the existence of God even more. But the lack of any proof of God, the absence of proof is the very thing that is needed for their to be faith. If we know for certain there is the possibility of salvation at the end of life then what point would life have since that would take away our own free will? We would already know beforehand if we are saved or doomed so why bother going through the motions?
The book even goes so far as to make me want to be a better person. I found myself questioning my own opinions and judgments of others while at work and out and about town. I started wondering what sort of life each person I saw was really living, how good or how bad, what tragedy or joy they were dealing with. I started to wonder if perhaps you could just do away with all the different religions in the world and have everyone read this novel instead.
And even as I write this it does sound rather absurd and I can imagine anyone reading this saying "Well clearly this person has a religious agenda", but that's not the case. In fact there is no way I could convince you that I don't have an agenda because you can't see into my own heart and know how I really feel about this subject. All I can say is that I was sincerely moved by this novel and that it makes me want to look at the world differently and that I had a better understanding of belief and faith than when I began the novel.
This book is not some "depressing Russian tome", but aside from its philosophical and theological nature it is a well plotted family novel and murder mystery. Like all of Dostoyevsky's other works it's wordy and characters seem to speak in long speeches, but it's never boring - even when it is. Dostoyevsky also makes a great counter to Tolstoy in that Tolstoy allowed you to see into a character's mind where Dostoyevsky is always more interested in looking into his heart.
This is a novel of great compassion and is one of my favorite reading experiences I've ever had.
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- Reademandweep
- 01-23-18
Wowee Zowee!
Do yourself a favor and listen to this rendition. I had to buy three different versions before I found this one. Don’t bother with the abridged version. That’s like reading an abridged version of “Gone with the Wind “- She didn’t love him. She did love him. He didn’t give a damn.”
You know how when you were a kid you wondered what was so great about the “classics”? Was it just old people thinking their stuff is the best? LOL
Then you grow up and realize that some books go beyond explanation. I read Brothers Karamazov when I was young but not much if it stuck. I’ve always been a vociferous reader and still am but a great narrator like Constantine Gregory brings a long book like this to life. He could not have done a better job.
As for the book, I do not understand why I liked it so much. I shouldn’t. Its wordy yet wordy is the very reason I don’t enjoy Dylan Thomas. Sometimes he goes off on a seemingly unrelated tangents But I don’t mind that either. I can’t say I’m crazy about the ending but it didn’t bother me like some do. Maybe because it was honest. All I know is, with so much mediocrity, thank god for classics, old and new.
Maybe you can’t explain a classic. Maybe, classics last because regardless of technology or fashion, the basic humanity that connects us, remains. The need to be loved, sadness when we are not, shame when we are at our worst and the complicated nature of human relationships are as true today as they were 200 or 2,000 years ago.
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- George
- 11-28-13
Worth The Effort
Would you consider the audio edition of The Brothers Karamazov to be better than the print version?
Yes. I need the momentum of the audio version, during some of those long Russian monologues. I like alternating between audio and text. This audio is the Constance Garnett translation which sounds good on audio.
What did you like best about this story?
I liked that the characters surprised me. I liked the world of the story, the sense of sacredness, the way that big questions were brought up in conversation. It's a lot different from the everyday world of today.
What does Constantine Gregory bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
He was very subtle in his character work. I could distinguish characters most of the time. Sometimes I could not. He did a wonderful job overall.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No. It took a few weeks.
Any additional comments?
I'm glad I listened to it. It was a difficult book, but it was ambitious.
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- John Gallagher
- 10-10-18
abridged
it starts in the middle of the book, it leaves out book one which I feel is important to the story, book one is short I recommend reading it online for free (can knock it out in an hour or so) then coming back and beginning the audio book
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- W Perry Hall
- 05-17-15
Riveting, if not for the drunken geldings
Dostoevsky's fascinating exploration of religion, Russia, family and evil -- the 3 Brothers Karamazov -- is likely one of the top 10 novels of all time.
Maybe I'm mellowing. I found Dostoevsky's THE IDIOT more enjoyable and compelling. I also prefer Tolstoy.
A general thought and criticism of Dostoevsky's work: though I don't know much of Dostoevsky's background, I believe he was mistreated by the opposite sex; I find his females hysterical (and I don't use that term to mean "extremely funny").
An assessment of the narration: the narrator has 2 of the 4 important male characters, the father and son Dmitri, neighing like drunken geldings.
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- Whit Sanders
- 03-26-15
Reading this book is a life changing experience.
Because of its prodigious length, I recommend listening to this audiobook at 2x or 3x speed.
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- Justin J. Jackson
- 04-20-15
Great Story; Great Narrator
If you're going to listen to someone for 36 hours, they better be just right, and this guy was amazing. He was able to give the different characters the subtlest of vocal differentiation so that the story and its many plots and and subplots did not get too confusing in an an audiobook format.
The story was very long, but rewarding. There is a reason this book is a much loved classic. If you have a couple if long road trips, this is the book for you.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-07-15
great reader
read it and heard audio, too. recommend that kindle book be downloaded at same time.
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