Take a photo of a barcode or cover
glendonrfrank 's review for:
The Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
It's incredibly difficult to write a proper Christ figure, and Myshkin's kind of slippery characterization is a good example of that. I don't know how telling it is that I found Natasya Filippovna a far more interesting and exciting character, but I was far more invested in whatever she had going on than Myshkin. The Prince is noble and good-hearted, but his "holy fool" qualities regularly result in disaster for himself and the people around him. His Christ-like nature appears on the whole more harmful than helpful, bringing out people's worst more often than their best. Towards the end it felt like perhaps things were culminating at last and that Myshkin's light would at last refract upon his desolate world, but that's not what we get. I guess I kept expecting it to turn towards hopeful repentance and restoration, but it simply continues to fall into the darkness of the world the story inhabits.
In a lot of ways, I was expecting The Brothers Karamazov. Alyosha feels like a clear development of the ideas present in Myshkin (and the same could be said of Natasya for Katerina, Kolya and Ippolit for Ilyusha, and so on.), but where Alyosha feels like he's having some effect in the story and the characters around him, Myshkin largely serves as a mirror for everyone's cruelty. I'm just not that attached to such a passive character, and maybe I'm not supposed to be? I kept waiting for the philosophical richness of The Brothers Karamazov, and though it appears in flashes, it's never quite the focus here. Dostoyevsky rarely enters the minds of the supporting cast with that same force. Myshkin doesn't seem to stand for anything, he wavers on nearly every issue and is desperate to please. He doesn't read as Christ-like so much as he reads as entirely devoid of self. The "powerful" ending didn't really move me because it felt so cerebral and disconnected from Myshkin's actions. But maybe that's part of it, too. These almost elemental forces of innocence, evil, and tragic failure crashing together in a room.
I'm kind of figuring out this book as I write this review. Looking at the whole, I think I can see what Dostoyevsky was doing, and I do respect it. It's much more tragic than I was expecting when I started, like opening up Romeo and Juliet but expecting Much Ado About Nothing. I don't think it's my favourite of Dostoyevsky's works, but it's one I'm going to have to continue chewing on.
In a lot of ways, I was expecting The Brothers Karamazov. Alyosha feels like a clear development of the ideas present in Myshkin (and the same could be said of Natasya for Katerina, Kolya and Ippolit for Ilyusha, and so on.), but where Alyosha feels like he's having some effect in the story and the characters around him, Myshkin largely serves as a mirror for everyone's cruelty. I'm just not that attached to such a passive character, and maybe I'm not supposed to be? I kept waiting for the philosophical richness of The Brothers Karamazov, and though it appears in flashes, it's never quite the focus here. Dostoyevsky rarely enters the minds of the supporting cast with that same force. Myshkin doesn't seem to stand for anything, he wavers on nearly every issue and is desperate to please. He doesn't read as Christ-like so much as he reads as entirely devoid of self. The "powerful" ending didn't really move me because it felt so cerebral and disconnected from Myshkin's actions. But maybe that's part of it, too. These almost elemental forces of innocence, evil, and tragic failure crashing together in a room.
I'm kind of figuring out this book as I write this review. Looking at the whole, I think I can see what Dostoyevsky was doing, and I do respect it. It's much more tragic than I was expecting when I started, like opening up Romeo and Juliet but expecting Much Ado About Nothing. I don't think it's my favourite of Dostoyevsky's works, but it's one I'm going to have to continue chewing on.