The Cosmic Library on Reflection and Refraction

The Cosmic Library explores massive books in order to explore everything else. Here, books that can seem overwhelming—books of dreams, infinity, mysteries—turn out to be intensely accessible, offering so many different ways to read them and think with them. Season one considered Finnegans Wake; in season two, it was 1,001 Nights; season three, the Hebrew Bible; season four, Journey to the West; season five, the American short story. Now, it’s The Brothers Karamazov.

By now, it’s clear that The Brothers Karamazov sits comfortably on the shelf of books of infinity, books that can never be completed. It is, for one thing, only the first part of a plan Dostoevsky had for much more. But this novel also emphasizes incompleteness, drives toward potential rather than anything that might be perfectly established on the page.

In episode four, we talked about incompleteness theorems, finding a mathematical dimension to some of our literary notions. And in The Brothers Karamazov, no system of thought is complete on its own. Characters also change each other continually, as if in a sort of infinite chain reaction. A sense of intensified possibility pervades, and the brothers move toward that sense especially in their connection to childhood.

Throughout The Brothers Karamazov—and throughout this season—there are prompts to reflect on earlier states of potential, to recall what came before. Garth Risk Hallberg in this episode describes how the novel prompts reflection on itself, gets the reader to look back on what’s been read or experienced: Dostoevsky, Hallberg says, “likes to inset these little mirrors into the text that reflect back on it and force you to reconsider what you’re reading.” In this sense, the ending of the book—and this miniseries—can send you back to all kinds of beginnings, including this season’s first episode, where you can hear the Brothers Karamazov radio play that started things.

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Guests for this season of The Cosmic Library:

Garth Risk Hallberg, author of the novel City on Fire

Andrew Martin, author of the story collection Cool for America

Hearty White, host of Miracle Nutrition on WFMU

Paulina Rowińska, author of Mapmatics

Robin Feuer Miller, professor of Russian literature at Brandeis University and author of The Brothers Karamazov: Worlds of the Novel  

Katherine Bowers, professor of Russian literature at the University of British Columbia and author of Writing Fear: Russian Realism and the Gothic

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