Nell Zink at n+1:
THE PLOT OF The Brothers Karamazov defies summarization. As its unmotivated twists mounted, I was reminded of Dwight Garner’s complaint, in a review of Nicotine in The New York Times, that plot for me is “there when she needs it, like a small fleet of dependable Vespas, to shuttle her characters around.” Only now did I perceive the indelible early influence of the master. Mislaid closes with a courtroom scene whose origins I had always insisted lay in Viennese operetta, but it’s obvious to me now that I borrowed the idea from Dostoyevsky. I never even heard of an operetta with a courtroom scene.
The plot: the aforementioned contemplator bludgeons the evil dad and hangs himself, pinning the crime on the ne’er-do-well eldest Karamazov brother. The truth—that a contemplator could plan something that complicated—is known only to the middle brother, and it stresses him so severely, to the point of hearing voices, that no one in court believes a word he says.
more here.