Some critics have complained that in a novel of such extreme complexity and length, Book X does not contribute to the novel's unity. The section has often been said to be superfluous and a flaw in construction. A reader, they say, is anxiously concerned about Dmitri at this point, not about Ilusha. But because of the heavy chapters of violence, passion, and murder, this section can be explained in terms of Dostoevsky's inserting a healthy bit of youthful fresh air. The reader is relieved from the strain of contemplating Dmitri's fate.
This relief, however, does not explain all the charges leveled against this section of the novel. It does not, for example, explain an obvious change in tone. Here, Dostoevsky inserts the most overt sentimentality in the novel. He seems to play with the reader's emotions, and much of the pathetic background material of young Kolya's life is not central to the novel except in the very large perspective of establishing him as the person whom Alyosha will train and who will become one of Russia's future citizens, entrusted with the ideas of Father Zossima.
