The Brothers Karamazov

By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, David Magarshack - translator

Narrated by: Gabriel Woolf

The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and is generally considered the culmination of his life's work. Published in November 1880, Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing the novel set in 19th-century Russia.

Fydor Karamazov, a mean and disreputable landowner, has three sons, Dmitry, a profligate army officer; Ivan, a writer with revolutionary ideas; and Alexey, a religious novice. A drama of patricide and fraternal jealousy unfolds, involving the questions of anarchism and atheism, and giving a portrait of Russian society in the turbulent 1870s.

Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (1821 - 1881) was a Russian fiction writer, essayist, and philosopher whose works have been acclaimed all over the world by thinkers as diverse as Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein.

Please note: This is a vintage recording. The audio quality may not be up to modern day standards.

Translated by David Magarshack

Public Domain (P)2009 RNIB

Buzz Shepard

Good translation as far as I can tell. Older performance, spirited. a good reading. not over engineered, certainly. good match for a long work. A good listen.

Strong performance, good translation

Narrator of this piece is serious about executing a thorough cast performance, and his effort is fully endearing. Translation is not the same Grady, it is a very good and different style.

great book

i think i grew into this book. i remember reading it in college and thinking, will it never end?

i love this reading of it. in fact, this reader has become one of my favorites. if you cannot excuse the occassional page turning, swallowing, and, yes, air in the breathing passage, don´t buy this book. because it does contain these little human imperfections. but, for me, i loved it. i felt like someone human was reading to me. but, it must be said, i am not one who likes the new modern slick productions you sometimes get when the reader is far more performing than reading.

when this book came to an end i just started again at the beginning and listened to it again. even after that it took me several days to find something else that could compare as an experience.

for this price, anyone can afford to give it a try, and i am really grateful to audibles for having some compaasion on my budget.

The Difference Lies in the Narration

There's a reason why Dostoevsky is regarded as one of the greatest writers in history, and one more favorable review won't change that. The book's characters and plot have so many different layers to them, that upon finishing the book, you find yourself thinking about this world that Dostoevsky has created and reveling in its masterful symmetry. Yet you don't crave more, because the author's plot ties up in a perfect ending that deliberately leaves some characters more vague and incomprehensible and other characters clearly laid out.

Yet lauding Dostoevsky's work is redundant at this point. I write this review for sensitive listeners who are looking for the best performance of the text. Gabriel Woolf brings life to the text like few other audio editions. I was impressed at his ability to make Fyodor Karamazov sound as terrible as his character is presented in the book. I'm sure it is not an easy task to formulate the perfect vocal rendition of each character (since the author is famous for creating incredibly complex and fascinating characters), so I applaud Woolf for his efforts.

If you are looking for an audiobook that will suck you up for the next few weeks of your life, this is the perfect book for you. The narrator taps into the emotional subtexts of each character's life, and it truly engages the reader.

Great Narrating and Great Story!

I'm beginning to wonder whether some of the other reviewers listened to the same book that I did. For one, you only pay $5.50 (if you're a member) for almost 35 hours of reading so from the outset, you've already made a great investment. I like the narration having enjoyed Crime and Punishment under the narration of Charlton Griffin, I looked for someone whose pronunciation was just as crisp and precise. Gabriel Woolf's narration is the best of the lot in my opinion. It was only after I had listened to all of the other narrators that I realized the low price. I prefer British accents for European novels and Woolf's Russian pronunciation is believable. He understands that the novel is told from the POV of a monk who is trying at length to make sense of the events that have transpired in his town vis a vis the Karamazov family. The narrator's tone is very conversational as if expecting feedback from the listener and this really works for me. The presentation could have used the musical backdrop of stringed instruments as in the Crime and Punishment presentation I mentioned but at $5.50, I'm not complaining.