There were ample precedents in Dostoevsky’s work for his thematic focus on the problem of theodicy raised by Ivan—the problem of the existence of evil and suffering in a world presumably created by a God of love. No Judeo-Christian reader can help but think of the book of Job in this connection, and Dostoevsky’s creation is one of the few whose voice rings out with an equal eloquence and an equal anguish. Although there is no explicit reference to Job in the notes for these chapters, his name appears three times in other sections, and Zosima will narrate the story of Job, stressing its consolatory conclusion, in his departing words. Dostoevsky, we know, had written his wife in1875 that “I am reading Job and it puts me into a state of painful ecstasy; I leave off reading and I walk about the room almost crying. . . . This book, dear Anna, it’s strange, it was one of the first to impress me in my life. I was still practically an infant.” This recollection is then attributed to Zosima, who recalls hearing the book of Job read aloud in church at the age of eight, “and I feel as I did then, awe and wonder and gladness. . . . Ever since then . . . I’ve never been able to read that sacred tale without tears.” Nourished by Dostoevsky’s own grief over the loss of his son Alyosha, this magnificent chapter drew as well on feelings that had been stirring within him throughout his life.
–Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time, 789-790.
