The Brothers Karamazov (Giant Thrifts) Review
My three key criteria for great fiction candidates are that they must be deep intellectually, stunning in character development, and beautifully written. This book puts the argument against the existence of god due to evil, and the appeal of worldliness, as well as I’ve ever seen, then epitomizes it, and then does pretty well trying to develop an answer. The Magic Mountain, Dr. Faustus by Mann, Sartre, and Faust epitomize but don’t argue [well]; Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is powerful and catchy and does argue, but her characters are mostly one-dimensional and her philosophical antithesis is so extreme that her opponents end up being straw men–they cannot be defended seriously.