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One of the more puzzling literary experiences I have ever had. I was delighted by Part 1, in which most of the major characters are introduced and some foundations laid. The characters are quirky and delightful, the relationships complex and intriguing. From there, though, The Idiot bumps bafflingly off the rails, and I found the book an irritating and often flatly boring slog. The characters are all manically inconsistent, subject to whiplash-inducing mood swings that grind the story to a halt - how can any scene advance the story when its principals careen from devotion to hatred and back again several times before the scene is through? Most of the characters indulge in long, incoherent, and internally inconsistent rants on this or that. It's tiresome, endless nonsensical babble without any point that I am able to discern. I am left feeling rather stupid, as I'm clearly missing something profound that makes so many consider this book a psychologically insightful classic.
There are also narrative choices that I find equally baffling. For instance, the relationship between Myshkin and Nastasya Filippovna is central, driving nearly every decision Myshkin makes and coloring every other relationship he has in the book. Yet Dostoevsky hardly ever shows us the two of them together; most of the time they spend together is in the six months that are elided and only obliquely summarized in a rapid info-dump at the beginning of Part 2. As a result we know virtually nothing about this crucially central relationship. As a matter of craft, I cannot understand why someone would write a novel this way. I just don't get it.
There are also narrative choices that I find equally baffling. For instance, the relationship between Myshkin and Nastasya Filippovna is central, driving nearly every decision Myshkin makes and coloring every other relationship he has in the book. Yet Dostoevsky hardly ever shows us the two of them together; most of the time they spend together is in the six months that are elided and only obliquely summarized in a rapid info-dump at the beginning of Part 2. As a result we know virtually nothing about this crucially central relationship. As a matter of craft, I cannot understand why someone would write a novel this way. I just don't get it.