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david_rhee 's review for:
The Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
I think it was Turgenev who said Dostoevsky's characters never developed and that what one sees from the start is exactly what one gets. I can see why he said that after reading The Idiot, but the strength of the cast of characters in this novel is in their interaction. The volatile ones, the buffoons, the poets, and the crazy women all came together brilliantly.
From the 4th part, Dostoevsky shifts his vantage point and tells the story as a more distant narrator who gives a lot of commentary on each character. I wonder if this is the part he wrote after his newsletter installments were discontinued (his first novels were written in parts in newsletter issues and were later collected and released in a second edition). The change definitely draws a lot of attention, but it does end up working well even if it is slightly awkward.
According to Dostoevsky's letters, he considered this work largely a failure. Anything next to Brothers Karamazov looks like a failure, but The Idiot is a very good book in its own right.
From the 4th part, Dostoevsky shifts his vantage point and tells the story as a more distant narrator who gives a lot of commentary on each character. I wonder if this is the part he wrote after his newsletter installments were discontinued (his first novels were written in parts in newsletter issues and were later collected and released in a second edition). The change definitely draws a lot of attention, but it does end up working well even if it is slightly awkward.
According to Dostoevsky's letters, he considered this work largely a failure. Anything next to Brothers Karamazov looks like a failure, but The Idiot is a very good book in its own right.