The Idiot

Wow. I had approached The Idiot with a little trepidation, mainly because I'd tried to read the novel when I was much younger. This time around, as a sort of "advanced reader", for me the novel's fast pace and continual ambushes of scenes thrilled me. I think I read the book in a week or less.Of course, as a philosophical novel, one that deals with many social, political, cultural, and legal changes within 19th Century Russia, Dostoyevsky's frame of reference here is both iconoclastic and on-target. For long, particularly literate Russians, all steeped in Russian Christian Orthodoxy, suspected the West, and the incursion of all kinds of unexpected value and moral systems, most of them stemming from the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. Hence, ideas like utilitarianism, pragmatism, and materialism were seen by some as almost offensive to the Russian spirit. Dostoyevsky, who saw his Christianity, to put it into today's vernacular, as "on a whole 'nother level", and it definitely clashed with materialism, egoism, vanity, and the like. In fact, in some ways, Dostoyevsky was an early observer of the spiritual crisis for Christianity to come. Here in America, well, we're there now. Prosperity gospel, as one example, never could have been possible in a society not so besotten by materialism and gain.Then there are the distortions that occur to, in the Dostoyevskian sense, a truly and almost saintly man, Prince Myshkin. He's a little like today's American intellectual: seen as an eccentric, as useless, as "not with the program, Myshkin cannot help to be bruised and sometimes even brutalized by the corrupt, vain, and prideful clan of people who have surrounded him.I am particularly impressed by the translator's success in capturing Dostoyevsky's legendary rapid-fire style. I'd highly recommend this translation to anyone who wants to peruse a world of both doubles and of duplicity.

Dostoevsky takes the reader on a wild ride as Prince Myshkin, a.k.a. the Idiot, returns to Russia after years of treatment in Switzerland to cure his "falling sickness." This has to be Dostoevsky's most personal novel as in Myshkin we see his own battles with epilepsy portrayed and even a reference to the fake execution he had to suffer before being deported to Siberia as a young man. But, Myshkin is not simply a projection of himself, but rather one half of a complex "Double" with Rogozhin who personifies the lurking dark side of this novel.Like "The Double," written two decades before, Dostoevsky deals in dualities, but here the dualities are many fold and quite complex, so this may indeed not serve as one's best introduction to him. Not only do we see Myshkin forced to battle Rogozhin, ostensibly for the soul of Nastasya Fillipnova, but Myshkin finds himself torn between Nastya and Aglaya, who themselves appear to represent two sides of the same coin, which Myshkin simply can't bring himself to choose one over the other.We also see a split social life, as personified by the aristocratic Epanchins played off a Petit-bourgeois in an odd assortment of characters that circle around Myshkin now that he has inherited a modest estate. This group seems to be led by the two-faced Lebedev who rents a room to the Prince in a summer village outside Petersburg where most of the action takes place. This middling class seems largely made up of outcast, which the Prince finds himself involved with, much to the chagrin of the Epanchins who would like to bring this distant relation into their fold, especially when he develops a strong yearning for their youngest daughter, Aglaya.But, rather than play this out like a Russian soap opera, Dostoevsky delves into the psychological profiles of his characters, often with comic effect, but ultimately with tragic lessons to be learned. Aglaya refers to the Prince as the "Poor Knight," in reference to Don Quixote, and indeed the Prince seems an amusingly tormented figure unable to reconcile the two worlds he finds himself a part of. The Prince appears to identify with an earlier Russia, one steeped deeply in old Orthodox faith, as represented by General Ivolgin, who has since become reduced by drink to that of a fallen patriarch, spinning tales of the old days with the Prince being one of the few persons who will listen to him.The cast of characters are broad and each takes on a life of his or her own within the novel, thanks in large part to this wonderful translation. Dostoevsky gives his characters space, as a theater director would, to make themselves heard and felt. In this sense, it is perhaps Dostoevsky's richest novel, certainly his most emotionally fulfilling, as it is less about Dostoevsky's views on religion, the state of Russia or corporal punishment as it is his sense of redemption and how each of his characters struggle to find it within his or her soul, particularly that of his central figure, Prince Myshkin.

This is a good, but weird story. It keeps you interested. The Russian people depicted in the story are kind of super emotional, more so than most humans that I know that are not mentally ill. I guess I would say this story is about mental illness, but not in a way the reader will initially find.

Ist super

Those who have not read Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot have missed one of the best novels of all time. Prince Mishkiv’s character has been crafted brilliantly. A must read for all lovers of literature

If you struggle keeping track with the Russian names, look up online for a spoiler free character list (although it may still contain small spoilers!). Print it off and use it as a reference when you get lost.

La letra es muy chiquita, los renglones son muy largos, y está escrito muy cerca de donde el libro se abre, lo que dificulta muchísimo y hace incómoda la lectura.

Exactly as expected.