The Brothers Karamazov is generally considered the greatest novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and the culmination of his life's work. It has been acclaimed all over the world, from authors as diverse as Sigmund Freud, Andrew R. MacAndrew, and Konstantin Mochulsky, as a masterpiece of literature and one of the greatest novels ever written. The basic structure of the book is arranged in two arcs. On the surface the book relates the story of a patricide in which all of the murdered man's sons share varying degrees of complicity. But on a deeper level this is a spiritual drama chronicling the moral struggles between faith, doubt, reason, and free will. The novel was composed primarily in Staraya Russa, which also served as the main setting for the book. Dostoevsky spent the better part of two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published in serial form in The Russian Messenger, and completed in November of 1880. The author died less than four months after publication. Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1099: Crusaders of the First Crusade reached Jerusalem and began a five-week siege of the city. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_%281099%29) 1905: Norway dissolved the union with Sweden. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_between_Sweden_and_Norway) 1940: King Haakon VII of Norway, Crown Prince Olav and the Norwegian government left Tromsø and went into exile in London. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakon_VII_of_Norway) 1948: Edvard Beneš resigned as President of Czechoslovakia rather than sign a Constitution making his nation a Communist state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edvard_Benes) 1981: The Israeli Air Force attacked and destroyed Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiraq) _____________________ Wikiquote of the day: "Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars." -- Gwendolyn Brooks (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_Brooks)