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siren224's review against another edition
5.0
ummmmm hstnaaa lmaaa akml elgoz2 eltany bs shakly w23t fe 3'ram el2meer !!!!!
siren224's review against another edition
5.0
بصراحه نهايه اتوقعتها من اول الروايه
بس منكرش انا وقعت في حب الامير شخصيه مفيش زيها
الاسوأ في الروايه دي السواد اللي في أبطالها وللاسف وافعي اوي
احيانا بعض الاشخاص مكنوش محورين بس كان بيتكلم باستفاضه عنهم علي عكس مثلا اخوات اجلايا
بس في النهايه من روائع ديستيوفسكي واحلي من الاخوه كارمازوف
بس منكرش انا وقعت في حب الامير شخصيه مفيش زيها
الاسوأ في الروايه دي السواد اللي في أبطالها وللاسف وافعي اوي
احيانا بعض الاشخاص مكنوش محورين بس كان بيتكلم باستفاضه عنهم علي عكس مثلا اخوات اجلايا
بس في النهايه من روائع ديستيوفسكي واحلي من الاخوه كارمازوف
zachf's review against another edition
dark
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
justmees's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
elizabethsuggs's review against another edition
5.0
Dostoyevsky is a superb writer, and The Idiot doesn’t disappoint! There is atheism, love, deceit, and so much more. This story became one of my favorites of his work. Highly suggest!
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"A stranger’s soul is a dark mystery—the Russian soul is a dark mystery."
"A dead man has no age."
"He promised to die in three weeks, and here he is putting on weight!"
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"A stranger’s soul is a dark mystery—the Russian soul is a dark mystery."
"A dead man has no age."
"He promised to die in three weeks, and here he is putting on weight!"
snowdropwhiskey's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
This is about a very clearly autistic man who doesn’t understand social expectations. Without that understanding the ending doesn’t make as much sense. It’s genuinely tragic.
abeeetle's review against another edition
3.0
The back of the book describes the “final scene” as “one of the most powerful in all of world literature.” I would have to disagree.
aidonz's review against another edition
4.0
Dialectics. Dostoyevsky’s severe convictions toward God’s existence, Russian nationalism, and ultimate love for fellow man vs. his sympathy for atheism, socialism, and self satisfaction. The idiot is Dostoevsky’s weakest argument out of his greater works, but it is his most honest. It’s a shrug of the shoulders. Which is a breath of fresh air after reading Demons (his most political work). Dostoevsky allows himself to explore the idiocy he saw in himself and the high society of Russia, the idiocy of empathy in an increasingly cynical world, and the idiocy of a belief in God in a world that brutally murdered The supposedly god-sent Jesus.
joshknape's review against another edition
3.0
I never finished The Idiot, getting to the end of Book III before the extreme complexity of the plot and cast, and my inability to concentrate enough to absorb them, led me to give up and read only synopses of what happened in book IV. (The ending was unexpected.)
The Idiot is an incredibly difficult novel to follow, in comparison with the other Dostoyevsky works I have read (Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov). Especially if you don't read it all at once, possibly because you tend to get distracted by other books as I do; that makes understanding the plot even harder.
The reason it's so much more difficult is because those novels are both nominally murder dramas with very small casts, but the plot of The Idiot is purely social intrigue and its cast is enormous in comparison. Simultaneously appearing characters have similar social positions, relatively similar personalities, and even similar names. One family has daughters named Aglaya, Alexandra and Adelaida; and there are a General Epanchin and a General Ivolgin. Many characters have multiple nicknames per Russian custom, and many are related to others by blood or marriage. It's a headache.
This complicated network of characters participate in an equally complicated plot, a tangled web of relationships (social, familial, personal, financial) and interactions that often involve corruption, betrayal, and callousness. If it weren't Dostoyevsky, it might be called a soap opera. Keeping track of all the characters, their relationships, and their attitudes toward Prince Myshkin takes so much concentration that I don't feel able to study Myshkin, the protagonist, as much as I want to. (The main reason I started The Idiot in the first place is because my novel in progress has a somewhat similar character, and I hoped for inspiration.)
Although the protagonist and central figure is certainly Myshkin, the character most difficult to understand is not him, Nastasya, Rogozhin, Lebedyev or anyone else; it's Aglaia, by far. (Ganya is a distant second.) Aglaia is said to be, while not saintly like Myshkin, some sort of innocent, and certainly different and separate from the corruption and intrigue of her family and the characters they interact with. But her innocence was never clear to me, especially in light of her confused and vacillating behavior toward Myshkin. She has to be the most complex character.
The Idiot could be described as "Dostoyevsky does Henry James," really--it is a plot type and a cast James could have written.
The Idiot is an incredibly difficult novel to follow, in comparison with the other Dostoyevsky works I have read (Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov). Especially if you don't read it all at once, possibly because you tend to get distracted by other books as I do; that makes understanding the plot even harder.
The reason it's so much more difficult is because those novels are both nominally murder dramas with very small casts, but the plot of The Idiot is purely social intrigue and its cast is enormous in comparison. Simultaneously appearing characters have similar social positions, relatively similar personalities, and even similar names. One family has daughters named Aglaya, Alexandra and Adelaida; and there are a General Epanchin and a General Ivolgin. Many characters have multiple nicknames per Russian custom, and many are related to others by blood or marriage. It's a headache.
This complicated network of characters participate in an equally complicated plot, a tangled web of relationships (social, familial, personal, financial) and interactions that often involve corruption, betrayal, and callousness. If it weren't Dostoyevsky, it might be called a soap opera. Keeping track of all the characters, their relationships, and their attitudes toward Prince Myshkin takes so much concentration that I don't feel able to study Myshkin, the protagonist, as much as I want to. (The main reason I started The Idiot in the first place is because my novel in progress has a somewhat similar character, and I hoped for inspiration.)
Although the protagonist and central figure is certainly Myshkin, the character most difficult to understand is not him, Nastasya, Rogozhin, Lebedyev or anyone else; it's Aglaia, by far. (Ganya is a distant second.) Aglaia is said to be, while not saintly like Myshkin, some sort of innocent, and certainly different and separate from the corruption and intrigue of her family and the characters they interact with. But her innocence was never clear to me, especially in light of her confused and vacillating behavior toward Myshkin. She has to be the most complex character.
The Idiot could be described as "Dostoyevsky does Henry James," really--it is a plot type and a cast James could have written.