026 – A First Grade Book Report on The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky

It includes no spoilers.

Good morning class! I hope everyone had a great weekend. I’m very excited to hear about the books you picked out from our Reading Shelf on Friday. Does anyone want to tell the class what book they read over the weekend? OK Joey, you can go first.

[redacted]

That was an excellent report, Joey. I’m very glad she ended up finding her lost animals. And you were right about all the rhyming words: Sheep, leap, sleep, and Bo Peep all rhyme with each other! Thank you for sharing. I’m putting a gold star on the board right next to your name. Does anyone else want to go next? …If no one raises their hand I’m just going to call on someone.

Sam, I can see you slumped down in your desk. Were you not able to read a book this weekend?

I read one.

Oh really, Mr. Sleepy Head? And which book did you read that made you so tired today? Remember class, this is why we read a little bit every day so we don’t save it all for the last minute.

The Brothers Karamazov.

Excuse me?

I read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

Oh my. But you are only supposed to read books picked out from the Reading Shelf.

It was on the Reading Shelf.

Well, that certainly shouldn’t have been.

Well, it was.

Sam, that book is over 900 pages.

So it is.

How did you manage to read it?

I sounded it out, same as the other books.

And you expect me to believe you read the entire thing this weekend?

Almost. I still have 37 pages left.

Sam, as I’m sure you know, you have to finish the book over the weekend to get a gold star. You’ll still have to give your report, but you will only get a check now.

Ah… the devil take you! And devil take your checks and your stars too. I have no need for them.

Stars are important, Sam, they’re how we determine who is in the Super Reader’s Club.

And what happens to the rest of us? Hard labor during recess? A time out in Siberia? Ah enough of all this, it’s nonsense, nonsense really! Go on, ask your questions.

Did you have a favorite part of The Brothers Karamazov?

I know what you want me to say: the chapter around the ‘The Grand Inquisitor.’ I can see you’re expecting it. You’re all thinking it.

Is anyone else in the class thinking that?

(A few hands shoot up)

Well, I won’t say it. It’s a good chapter but it’s not the best. Everyone just says it’s the best because they’re following everyone else. But I won’t say it. I’m a scoundrel, maybe even a murderer, but I am no conformist. Let it always be said that Sam is not a conformist. I, alone in my convictions, like the chapter with the doggy named Zuchka.

And what happens with the doggy?

Well, he’s brought into cheer up a dying boy, a boy no older than you.

(Sam points to Isaiah even though all the children are the same age.)

Only he’s dying very fast, surrounded by a crippled sister, a disgraced father, and a mother suffering from brain fever – all of them cramped into a fetid hell-hole fallen to abject destitution. And yet, the doggy is meant to cheer up the boy, see? But the doggy can do no more than the best doctor in all of Russia. The boy’s life is in God’s hands. And devil take him! God that is. Ah, no, I shouldn’t say that. I shall need God someday. But see, the dog knows all kinds of tricks to try to cheer the boy up, only, well, a dog is not God, you know? Just the spelling is similar.

Very good Sam, dog and God do use the same three letters. And did you know God spelled backwards is dog?

I didn’t. No. How could I have?

And who was your favorite character, or animal, in the book?

Of course. Of course. I should have known this was coming. In the same way I know for certain that I am Donatello of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Red Power Ranger of the Power Rangers; I am also keenly aware that I am Dmitri Karamazov and so he is my favorite. I have no shame in saying it. I am Dmitri – forever and always fated to my lot as a wastrel. Give me three graham crackers at snack time, they’ll be gone by nap time!

Nap time IS very important, class. Are we ready for the next question?

Spare me, sir! Only God can interrogate me! No, no, I’m forgetting myself, I’ll answer. I’ll tell everything. Even if I suffer… In fact, I want to suffer if it will show I’m an honest man. Yes. I’ll suffer. Go ahead and ask your questions, I won’t hide anything from you.

How did The Brothers Karamazov book make you feel?

Remember when Susie lost her scissors?

Let’s not play the blame game.

Right, of course. The scissors were lost, I won’t allege how. And they were lost for a long time. Weeks even, and every day we searched… Searched but never found, until one day we did.

That’s right, Shelton found them behind the bookshelf! Good job, Shelton!

I feel my hope and joy are similarly lost, like the scissors were. And that I shall spend a lifetime looking for them. Only I won’t find them the way we found the scissors. I will search and search and only get farther from the things I seek, until one day they are so distant and foreign to me that even if Shelton found my hope and my joy behind the bookshelf, and held them up to me, I wouldn’t recognize them. ‘Throw them in the bin, Shelton,’ I’d say, ‘I’ve never seen those things in all of my life.’

And Shelton would have to read the labels on the bins to see which one to throw them in, isn’t that right, class? Remember? Because if we can, we like to throw things into the…

(“Recycling!” the class yelled in unison)

OK, OK, Settle down. So, Sam, would you say this is the best book you’ve read from the Reading Shelf this year?

It’s all superlatives for you, is it? The best book for the best of times? Voltaire and I laugh at you as we laugh at Candide. Life is not so exciting to be using words like ‘best’ and ‘favorite.’ Life is not ups and downs but a slow decline into hell. A samovar boiling us all alive until we evaporate and are forgotten. Yes, there are ecstasies, of course!, but a man cannot live for ecstasies alone or he is a scoundrel. We cannot concern ourselves with those fleeting moments of earthly ecstasy, only the phenomenon of ecstasy, its classification, seeing it as a product of our social principles, as characteristic of the Russian element, and so on and so forth. But that it is all one big tragedy is not up for debate. No, you grand inquisitor, I won’t do it. I won’t submit to ecstasy and I will not name a favorite! Ah, but devil take you, what do I care if you come to learn that I preferred Moby Dick? Yes, so what if I like a chase? I do! A lifetime’s worth of chase, seeking only the perfect opportunity to destroy myself… Hope! Joy! The white whale of it all! Take it, take it! God is no brother to me!

Whales, class, are the largest mammals in the world. Thank you for sharing, Sam. I’ll write your check on the board. Try to finish the book, next time. OK, who’s next?

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