2.23k reviews for:

The Idiot

Fyodor Dostoevsky

4.04 AVERAGE

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
dark emotional sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I picked up this book in an airport bookstore and have been trying to get though it for more than two months. While I appreciate the novel and it’s historical significance it was a huge drag and I wish that the airport bookstore had Crime and Punishment instead. Nothing interesting happened for most of this novel until the last 20 pages. I respect it but I will never read it again.
dark emotional reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I would read this 19th century novel only for Prince Myshkin the so-called "Idiot", a 'holy fool', and Nastasya Filippovna, a complex, piteous, feisty, worshipped, orphaned, tormented & tragic woman of great beauty who was brought up to be a kept mistress. Aside from Nastasya Filippovna, the beauty of the book is reading how Myshkin navigates around his own sense of divided love, between Nastasya and Aglaya and how he contends with the greed and ambition of others.
His thoughts on death, execution, infidelity, insanity, the profound depths of mentality, of dread and fear, are all presented in the unravelling of this tragic tale set amongst a small group of individuals in St Petersburg in the mid-19th century (I read one review online calling it the 'Real housewives of St Petersburg').
Written in instalments, the intricate plots, the love triangles, the tragic love story intensifies as the narrative continues. But essentially, I really chose this book, for Myshkin's soul-searching soliloquies, his internal dialogues in which you sense you can hear the voice of Dostoevsky. One of the most fascinating passages I remember, is a description of the moments before Myshkin has an epileptic fit, it is a luminous insight into Dostoevsky's own epilepsy, if not his own creative process.

fav thing in the world is when dostoevsky characters just start lying
dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes