Rereading 'The Brothers Karamazov'

Last week I finished re-reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. It was a strange experience: As a teenager I could vividly feel with Alyosha, Ivan, and, although I never liked his personality, even with Mitya. Now 15 years later I mostly saw them as very passionate, easily excitable young men who get into trouble because of the greed of their father, and their passionate love affairs.
It is also interesting to see, as in many 19th century books, that the protagonists are all rich and well off. Even though Dmitry works for the army, if he would be careful with the money that his father agrees to pay out to him he could establish himself comfortably.

Dostoevsky is of course a brilliant writer. I've read the book in one of its recent Oxford editions, with footnotes, introductions, and the novel's length in itself was a good 900 pages. Dostoevsky manages to maintain tension and excitement, to keep the reader's interest alive throughout all these pages, and to build up one, coherent story. A masterly achievement. The work touches on psychology, morality, politics, and religion. Of course it doesn't do that at the level in which a psychologist, philosopher, politicla scientist, or someone doing religious studies would do this, but still, the novel showcases that Dostoevsky was a real intellectual, thinking about contemporary issues, following not only the criminal news, but also the intellectual currents of his time.

In one sense the book didn't have the effect on me as more recently published big books. I suspect this is exactly because it had such an enormous influence on literature that its best features have been countlessly interpreted and applied, mimiced and developed further by writers since Dostoevsky. Therefore I have encountered similar - and in one or the other aspect even better - writing from 20th and 21th century writers. Still, that I could enjoy all that good literature as it is, is Dostoevsky's achievement.