The Brothers Karamazov

I am currently reading a great book, The Brothers Karamazoz by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The story is about a Russian man who is very wealthy, and also a disgusting human being. He is murdered, and his four distinct sons are all suspects. It is incredible that a book written in the mid 1800's could have so many insights which are relevant today. The book is over one thousand pages long, so Dostoevsky is able to go into obscene levels of detail in every aspect of his subject. I found one particular page quite interesting, where he is describing the mystical son Alyosha's pursuit of a life as a monk / priest... or whatever they had in 19th century Russian Orthodox Churches.

"Some may say that Alyosha was not too bright, rather uneducated, had not even finished school, and so on. It is true that he had not finished school, but it would be doing him a great injustice to say that he was obtuse or stupid. I shall simply repeat here what I have said before: he chose the course he did not only becuase it struck him at that particular moment as the ideal course for his soul, which longed to escape from darkness into light. It must be added that, in a way, he was indeed a member of our younger generation, which means that he was honest, that he believed in, demanded, and searched for truth; that, becasue he believed in it, he yearned to serve it and give it his whole strength; he was spoiling for immediate aciton, was prepared to sacrifice everything, his life itself, in an act of supreme devotion. Unfortunately, these young men often fail to understand that the sacrifice of their lives may be the easiest of all sacrifices, much easier, for instance, than giving up five or six years of their seething youth to hard study, to the acquisition of knowledge which would increase their strength tenfold in the service of that same cause, and in the performance of the great works they aspire to. But to sacrifice those few years to study often proves too much for them. Alyosha chose a course opposite to that of the majority, although he felt the same yearning for action and sacrifice as the others."