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karingforbooks's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
User error: book not understood. I have no idea what the plot was or really how the characters related to each other. I’m still not sure how we got to the resolution either. It’s dense and too long and while I like Russian literature, this is not it. It’s got some good turns of phrase and I suspect it would be a good book to study in earnest but as a just cause book, don’t do it.
supernovafm's review against another edition
emotional
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
jacksonfj8's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
boomerlusink's review against another edition
3.0
A slog more often, and in more of a sloggish way, than his other books I've read. Not without great, masterful moments, but I really struggled to come to concrete conclusions about the themes and really just the point of the book at all. Some excellent comedic moments and some insanely astute sociological and psychological insights- as is to be expect of our man Fyodo Baggins. Not much else to say, I don't think.
vidica's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
fionnualalirsdottir's review against another edition
Further chapter in the story of my books and the conversations they strike up.
There's a scene in The Idiot where the main character, Prince Lev Nikolyevich Myshkin, while traveling on a train to Saint Petersburg, recalls an execution by guillotine he witnessed in France.
Being a very sensitive sort, he empathizes intensely with the victim, imagining that the worst aspect might not be the blade itself but the knowledge, during the days and hours leading up to the beheading, that the victim is facing his final moments. The Prince considers that the last half minute before the blade falls must be the most intensely cruel. He speaks about that experience several times in the novel so it's a significant theme—though the book handles many themes in the course of its baggage-laden journey to the final page.
When I read about the guillotine scene, I was reminded of Vladimir Nabokov's novel, [b:Invitation to a Beheading|376561|Invitation to a Beheading|Vladimir Nabokov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405182507l/376561._SY75_.jpg|4479600] in which the victim's dilemma is the opposite of the one in Prince Myshkin's account. Nabokov's main character has been sentenced to death by beheading, but he has not been told the date or time of the execution. His torture lies in not knowing what hour will be his last hour—he wants desperately to be told the date and time but no one will oblige him. I wondered if Nabokov's book was a response to Dostoyevsky's—he was not one of D's greatest fans, after all. There was also the fact that Nabokov places a pretend spider in the condemned man's cell. Might that have been a way to ridicule a sentimental detail about a real spider in Prince Myshkin's account of a prison cell? Or maybe I'm searching too hard to link these two books together?
When I finished The Idiot, I went looking for information on Dostoyevsky's life and found that he was sentenced to execution by firing squad for his involvement with a literary group critical of the Tzar (incidentally, the group used to meet in the café on Nevsky Avenue in Saint Petersburg in which Pushkin spent his last hours before the frivolous duel that ended his life).
It seems that Dostoyevsky and his comrades were already blindfolded and standing in front of their graves on Semyonov Place when a message came from the Tzar commuting the sentence to several years hard labor in Siberia instead. The Tzar's decision had been made the previous day but ordered not to be communicated to the prisoners until the last minute. It's clear that Prince Myshkin's theories about the horrors of awaiting execution originated from Dostoyevsky's real experience unlike Nabokov's theories.
But the thing is, one of the men responsible for ordering Dostoyevsky's execution was called Ivan Nabokov. What if he were related to the writer, I thought, so I looked him up. He was! Ivan Nabokov belonged to the same prominent St Petersburg family as Vladimir Nabokov's immediate forebears. It may not mean anything but it is an interesting coincidence.
Ok, I hear you say, enough with the coincidences. But here's another one. In Nabokov's novel, [b:The Gift|8147|The Gift|Vladimir Nabokov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1526825311l/8147._SY75_.jpg|144481], there is a chapter ridiculing Nikolay Chernyshevsky, a writer and contemporary of Dostoyevsky who was also subjected to a mock execution because of his revolutionary activities. Nabokov had more than a passing interest in the subject of executions, it seems, and reading The Idiot has given me new ways to think about those two Nabokov novels as if the three books had just had a conversation with each other.
Actually, there's a fourth book involved in the conversation. I started reading a long [b:novel|14660025|Roman Petersbourgeois En Six Canaux Et Rivieres|Oleg Strijak|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|20305238] by contemporary Russian author Oleg Strijak weeks ago. His book is a beautiful but complex tribute to Saint Petersburg, to its history, its literature, its canals and its rivers. Half-way through, I decided to pause the reading and choose a nineteenth century novel associated with the city that I haven't yet read. I picked The Idiot. It's a book I've dutifully intended to read for years (ever since I was eighteen and found myself too embarrassed to admit I didn't know who Prince Myshkin was), but we all know about our reading intentions—they often remain just that. What I prefer is when the urge to read something comes, not from any sense of duty, but because another book nudges me to finally get to it. I know then that the time is right, and that was the case with The Idiot. Strijak's angst-ridden idiot of a main character was the perfect preparation for meeting Dostoyevsky's angst-ridden Prince Myshkin who is not an idiot at all. He's now joining my list of favorite literary characters. I think I'll place him beside Leopold Bloom and let them chat to each other. And needless to add, I'm very grateful to Oleg Strijak's book for introducing me to the Prince at last.
There's a scene in The Idiot where the main character, Prince Lev Nikolyevich Myshkin, while traveling on a train to Saint Petersburg, recalls an execution by guillotine he witnessed in France.
Being a very sensitive sort, he empathizes intensely with the victim, imagining that the worst aspect might not be the blade itself but the knowledge, during the days and hours leading up to the beheading, that the victim is facing his final moments. The Prince considers that the last half minute before the blade falls must be the most intensely cruel. He speaks about that experience several times in the novel so it's a significant theme—though the book handles many themes in the course of its baggage-laden journey to the final page.
When I read about the guillotine scene, I was reminded of Vladimir Nabokov's novel, [b:Invitation to a Beheading|376561|Invitation to a Beheading|Vladimir Nabokov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405182507l/376561._SY75_.jpg|4479600] in which the victim's dilemma is the opposite of the one in Prince Myshkin's account. Nabokov's main character has been sentenced to death by beheading, but he has not been told the date or time of the execution. His torture lies in not knowing what hour will be his last hour—he wants desperately to be told the date and time but no one will oblige him. I wondered if Nabokov's book was a response to Dostoyevsky's—he was not one of D's greatest fans, after all. There was also the fact that Nabokov places a pretend spider in the condemned man's cell. Might that have been a way to ridicule a sentimental detail about a real spider in Prince Myshkin's account of a prison cell? Or maybe I'm searching too hard to link these two books together?
When I finished The Idiot, I went looking for information on Dostoyevsky's life and found that he was sentenced to execution by firing squad for his involvement with a literary group critical of the Tzar (incidentally, the group used to meet in the café on Nevsky Avenue in Saint Petersburg in which Pushkin spent his last hours before the frivolous duel that ended his life).
It seems that Dostoyevsky and his comrades were already blindfolded and standing in front of their graves on Semyonov Place when a message came from the Tzar commuting the sentence to several years hard labor in Siberia instead. The Tzar's decision had been made the previous day but ordered not to be communicated to the prisoners until the last minute. It's clear that Prince Myshkin's theories about the horrors of awaiting execution originated from Dostoyevsky's real experience unlike Nabokov's theories.
But the thing is, one of the men responsible for ordering Dostoyevsky's execution was called Ivan Nabokov. What if he were related to the writer, I thought, so I looked him up. He was! Ivan Nabokov belonged to the same prominent St Petersburg family as Vladimir Nabokov's immediate forebears. It may not mean anything but it is an interesting coincidence.
Ok, I hear you say, enough with the coincidences. But here's another one. In Nabokov's novel, [b:The Gift|8147|The Gift|Vladimir Nabokov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1526825311l/8147._SY75_.jpg|144481], there is a chapter ridiculing Nikolay Chernyshevsky, a writer and contemporary of Dostoyevsky who was also subjected to a mock execution because of his revolutionary activities. Nabokov had more than a passing interest in the subject of executions, it seems, and reading The Idiot has given me new ways to think about those two Nabokov novels as if the three books had just had a conversation with each other.
Actually, there's a fourth book involved in the conversation. I started reading a long [b:novel|14660025|Roman Petersbourgeois En Six Canaux Et Rivieres|Oleg Strijak|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|20305238] by contemporary Russian author Oleg Strijak weeks ago. His book is a beautiful but complex tribute to Saint Petersburg, to its history, its literature, its canals and its rivers. Half-way through, I decided to pause the reading and choose a nineteenth century novel associated with the city that I haven't yet read. I picked The Idiot. It's a book I've dutifully intended to read for years (ever since I was eighteen and found myself too embarrassed to admit I didn't know who Prince Myshkin was), but we all know about our reading intentions—they often remain just that. What I prefer is when the urge to read something comes, not from any sense of duty, but because another book nudges me to finally get to it. I know then that the time is right, and that was the case with The Idiot. Strijak's angst-ridden idiot of a main character was the perfect preparation for meeting Dostoyevsky's angst-ridden Prince Myshkin who is not an idiot at all. He's now joining my list of favorite literary characters. I think I'll place him beside Leopold Bloom and let them chat to each other. And needless to add, I'm very grateful to Oleg Strijak's book for introducing me to the Prince at last.
dngoldman's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.5
The Idiot is Dostoevsky’s penultimate novel— the novel where he wanted to “say everything” and portray a character of Christlike capacity for sympathy and understanding in human form. Like a true artist, Dostoevsky followed the idea of what a Christlike character would be in the Enlightenment world of 19th-century Russia enamored with European attitudes. The novel investigates many of the issues Dostoevsky struggled with throughout his career. The confrontation with mortality, the redemptive power of suffering, the battle between reason, sensuality, and spirituality, and the ultimate question— can a man survive in the world? Dostoevsky could fully not work through ideas in this novel— that novel would turn out to be The Brothers Karamazov, one of the greatest novels ever written.
While Brothers Karamazov is Dostoevsky’s “masterpiece of masterpieces,” The Idiot remains a wildly entertaining novel that stands on its own as a great achievement, if not quite Dostoevsky’s “say it all” last word. The novel seems to take place almost exclusively in the drawing rooms of the upper and middle classes. These wildly entertaining confrontations usually end with participants being stunned into silence or a show-stopping disruption. It is the final dramatic scenes in a Chekhov play that are the entire play. As such, the novel has a propulsive eagerness as it explores these deep psychological and philosophical questions.
The novel also shows Dostoevsky’s strengths as a writer— the ability to explore ideas within the psychology of the characters. No one can take a thought experiment or philosophical argument, put the ideas to work in real people, and then let the consequences fall where they may. Thus, the title character, Prince Myshkin, was meant to be a model, but those Christ-like virtues placed in an actual human turn him into the titular idiot— perhaps admirable but completely ineffective in being able to save anyone around him. Indeed, the novel ends with Myshkin being sent back to the hospital and one of the women in the triangle dead. There is no character that can be reduced to a type, even if they are meant to be a type.
Prince Myshkin as a human Christ.
The heart of the Idiot is a thought experiment - what if Christ was just a man? The idea is inspired by his viewing of Holbein’s “Christ” painting that is recreated in the Idiot itself. A painting so brutal that it shows nature has some huge machine of the newest construction, which has a census that seems crushed and swallowed up blankly, and I’m feeling a great and priceless being.“ The prince, by extension, dusky himself, wonders how Christ disciples, seeing a corpse like that could believe “that this sufferer would resurrect“ in even if Christ himself seeing this image would have “gone to the cross and died as he did.“ And there are many Christ analogies throughout. See Aglaya catches the Prince as he falls like Christ from the cross. “ And the novel presents alternative Christs to Myshkin (Ippoliat, Natasha, and Aglia are all references at different times as perfect).
Christ in 19th Century Russia
Dostoevsky’s “positively beautiful man” does not fare well in contemporary society. The novel examines how much of the Prince’s failure is based on the falsity of Russian society vs the fact that compassion without reason and passion are just not human. The novel is a wicked satire of Russian society. And the novel is populated with nihilistic, atheists, con-men, and fools that beyond Myshkin’s turn the other cheek approach. Yet, Myshkin is also a flawed “hero.” Honest but with no clue about the characters’ real situation. Naive without being able to help. Loving but an intellectual love that is not really human. Aglya’s “poor knight” poem sums up both the valor and naivety of the Prince.
Because this poem directly portrays a man capable of having an ideal and second once he has had the ideal of believing in it and believing in it a blindly devoting his whole life to it. It is clear that it was some bright image and image of pure beauty and instead of a scarf the enamoured night even wore a rosary around his neck…. It seems the poet wanted to combine in one extraordinary image the whole immense conception of the mediaeval chivalrous platonic love of some pure and lofty night. Naturally it’s all in ideal. But in the poor night that feeling reached the ultimate degree asceticism.
Alternatives appear no better. Ippolit’ chilling rationalism that justifies his own death and Lebedevi’s foolish materialism.
Confrontations with death. Death pervades the Idiot. Near the novel’s beginning, Myshkin tells the story of the prisoner who death sentenced was commuted at the last moment (thinly veiled from Dostoevsky’s own life), the beheading in a crowd (among all of these people only I am to be killed) Myshkin’s painting suggestion of man in his final moment, Ippolit’s consumption which provides a known death within weeks, the musings over Holbein’s “Christ” painting, and , of course, the final shocking scene of Natasha’s murder (which she practicty through herself into). And there is the Prince’s own illness, particularly his epileptic fits which cause a near death experience. The confrontation with death drives the characters a clarity of purpose and a collapsing of time - creating an oceanic experience similar to the eppolectic fit.q It is also a stand in for the living life in the shadow of the unknown.
Irrationality and the Freedom from reason and compassion. The novel is filled with characters, believers, sensualist, sinners, atheists, nihilist and conservatives, rationalists and those driven by faith. The rationalists are confined by reason, the Christ like figures of compassion by faith. Harkening back to notes from the
Underground, the only freedom comes from the irrational. Myshkin’s knocking over the vase at the penultimate scene
fulfilled prophecy precisely what was so thrilling. In this thought he would have been unable to explain to himself. He felt only that he was struck to the heart and he stood in fear that was almost mystical. Another Moment in everything before him seemed to expand instead of horror there was light joy rapture. His breath was taken away and but the moment passed thank God. It was not that he caught his breath and looked around.”
Redemption through suffering. A classic Dostoevsky motif is fleshed out in the Idiot. There is a redemptive power in the character’s choosing their humiliation. Yes, it’s is pride that makes Natasha choose to be seen as a fallen women instead of accepting the Prince’s pity. And to throw herself to Lebevach when she knew the potential for murder.
Do you despise me very much now? What for for having suffered and for suffering more than we? Norbert for being unworthy of my suffering.
Uncertainty. The Brothers Karamozov is “who dun it” murder mystery. And making moral judgements without knowledge is a major theme of that novel. But uncertainty is a theme of the Idiot. The mystery starts with the Narrator who knows something’s but not others.
The Prince’s origins are unknown.
Reading Dostoevesky Post Ukraine Invasion
I love the Russian writers - Chekov, Tolstoy, and especially Dostoevesky. They have shaped my thinking as much as anything else, and I come back to them over and over. But i’ve not read any since the Russian invation. It just felt gross to read somethig extolling russian exceptionalism. Yet, I missed them and I turned to my favorate. Doestoevesky is an odd choice to start, whose great sympathy with the lives of ordinary Russians too often turns to Russian chauvanism and anti-Eurpopean bigatry. That is on display here (see the Prince’s one rant - again catholosims being worse than atheism. There is no way to put these problems aside. But Dostoevesky has always had a universal appeal for good reason. His ability to put ideas into the play of actual lives, to plumb the secrets of the psyche while still enteraining are unparrelled in our Wester tradition. The Idiot is not the finest example of this, with it’s chauvansim, change of direction 1/3 of the way through, and unsure conclusion. Yet, is would stand as a crowning achievement for nearly any other author.
marc129's review against another edition
3.0
The first 100 pages are very interesting and smartly written. But then, an almost inextricable myriad of events, intrigues and conversations make this novel a very difficult read. Of course, the character of prince Mysjkin, a kind of Christ or Don Quichote, is very appealing. As always with Dostoyevsky it contains flashes of genius, and you cannot have but sympathy with Mysjkin. But as a novel, it's one of the lesser works of D.
debrabrinckley's review against another edition
1.0
Well, this was my second foray into classic Russian literature, and I have come to the conclusion that I am simply not a fan. I concede that I must not have sufficient context of Russian culture and history to make much sense of Russian writing. Both this novel and Anna Karenina felt like they belonged in a philosophy class not a literature one. The writing in these classical works was much more about moral philosophy than it was about character development or the telling of a good story. I will not be attempting any more. I will stick with my British and French classicists.