The Idiot (Classic Fiction)

Rating:
Summary: A dark, tumultuous, complex work--one of D's greatest.
Review: Dostoevsky, that great tortured and feverish soul, wrote this novel after the onslaught of the Nihilists in Russian arts and letters. He felt he was waging a war against the crude and unfeeling Western materialism of the day; he was battling what he saw as a holy war. While authors like Turgenev and Tolstoy regarded the expanding West with (fairly) open arms, Dostoevsky feared it would cause a religious crisis, where faith in Christ was extinguished and ignorance, vanity, and greed would overcome.

This is a towering, exciting novel--perhaps not as great as "Crime & Punishment" or "Brothers Karamazov"--it contains some of his most penetrating insights into religious faith, human compassion, despair, and insanity. Prince Myshkin is of course one of literature's great characters, a Christ-like young man caught up in the treachery of the aristocratic lives of the Yepanchins. The other two main characters, Rogozhin and Nastasya Filippovna, along with Myshkin, form a powerful triangle that, despite their being "off-stage" for much of the novel, drive this novel to its tragic, unavoidable climax.

I do not, however, recommend this book to first time Dostoevsky readers; that should be "Notes from Underground" or "Crime and Punishment." The ideas Dostoevsky explores here need some context and understanding; they may leave the inexperienced reader a bit confused. At least that was my experience! After understanding him and his concerns, this novel cracked wide open. It is a darkly spiritual work, as are all of his; it is also quite disturbing. When young Ippolit describes the Hans Holbein painting "Christ in the Tomb" that adorns the cover of the Oxford edition, we see into the darkest reaches of despair and hopelessness. Indeed, the painting is a Christ that is unresurrected, one that is rotting flesh and cannot, in Dostoevsky's scenario, save humankind. This thought terrifies Rogozhin, Myshkin... and Dostoevsky himself.

What a stunning achievement this work is. I am in awe of it. Simply: Read it.

Rating:
Summary: By far, the best book I've read
Review: Dostoyevsky is the master of the art of creating the character. All his characters have a distinct personality, each of them behaving in a certain way, until you truly feel for those characters. But in The Idiot, things are different. You see the corruption of the people through the eyes of the innocent and loveable Prince Myshkin. But Myshkin is seen as an 'Idiot' because of his true kindness. Only the strong can survive in this world, or so it seems. The character of Hippolite is also a truly great character, as well as Rogozhin. Not a word should ever be changed from this awesome novel. Read it, change your view on life.

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Summary: Dostoevsky, the great Russian social commentator
Review: Having read "Crime and Punishment" fifteen years ago, I was prepared for Dostoevsky's commentary on the social and materialistic qualities of the Russian middle class of the 19th Century. "The Idiot" has a slower pace but a surprise ending which makes reading it well worth the effort.

The novel begins with three strangers in a train en route to Petersburg. A young man named Prince Myshkin is returning from a Swiss sanatorium where he has been treated for the past few years for some malady similar to epilepsy. He meets a roguish young man named Rogozhin, who has an unhealthy obsession with a beautiful young woman named Nastasya Filippovna, and a nosy government official named Lebedyev, who figures prominently throughout the novel.

Upon arriving in Petersburg, Myshkin acquaints himself with many of the citizens and eventually meets, and is infatuated by, Nastasya. She is pushy, fickle, and impetuous, and bounces from fiance to fiance like a fortune hunter. Her irresistibility and psychological stronghold on the men in her life leads to her downfall.

The basis of the novel is that Myshkin is not bright, has not had much education, and traverses society with a mentality of simplistic innocence. When speaking his opinion, he struggles to articulate himself with Charlie Brown-like stammering and wishy-washiness. For this reason, people consider him an idiot, but he is a good, honest, sympathetic, and gracious person. When he comes into a large inheritance, he is blackmailed by a man who claims to be the illegitimate son of Myshkin's benefactor; but when the man's story is debunked, Myshkin befriends rather than chastises the culprit and his accomplices. Myshkin also falls in love with and becomes betrothed to a giddy girl named Aglaia, who uses his ingenuousness as a foil for her jokes and sarcasm, despite his undying devotion to her.

The novel seems to say that a saintly man, making his way in a society that is concerned with materialism and cutthroat avarice, will be considered a childish idiot for valuing honesty, kindness, and the simple things in life. Like I said, the ending is a shocker and sends a plaintive message, that in a crazy world, a sanatorium is the only place for a saint.

Rating:
Summary: Don't trust Society!
Review: I always write my thoughts on the literature after it comes to its conclusion. It is a worthwhile practice and it may, perhaps, benefit you. For the Idiot: Nice guys do indeed finish last! (As one reviewer has already contributed) Again, suffering in apparent in this Dostoevsky novel. Prince Myshkin suffers by actually having qualities which we think would be blessings - actual intelligence and honest kindness. Myshkin starts our story as an "idiot," and he makes the journey to Russia (or Society with all it's evils and negatives - ego's that are impossible for one to actually be satisfied with, unrequited love, pride, greed, etc.,). And the story ends with Myshkin dying in the same Society of people, yet geographically he's in Europe. Nevertheless, he starts as an "idiot" and ends as an "idiot." He is Christ-like in that 1.)he is the sacrafice for acquantinces like Mrs. Epanchin, so that they may see the negatives of their Society 2.) He dies young as Christ did. Christ came to Earth to save but then he went to Heaven---Myshkin came to save a certain Russian society but he did his "leaving" elsewhere (Europe). This is a wonderful read and I know I'm not the best reviewer, but sharing comments on books is productive, as is reading them - flipping the T.V. remote is not. Carpe Diem.

Rating:
Summary: A beauty of a book ...always timely
Review: I read this book for the first time when I was 15 or 16, and promptly declared it my favorite book. When I read it again in my 30s, it rang even more true. The society in this book is not so different from ours, obsessed with money, beauty, social standing, celebrity, and so forth. People are restless, flawed, seeking peace, while at the same time self-hating, self-destructive, and seeking out danger. What happens to this perfectly good, loving, honest human being, Myshkin, comes to seem inevitable given what we know about human nature, then and now.

Rating:
Summary: The Real Idiot, Stand UP
Review: The Idiot, when I first read it years ago, seemed nothing less than the Christ sacrifice re-enacted, relocated to a spritually corrupt Russian upper class society, representing our contaminated world. Prince Myshkin, (the title in Russia is not 'royal,') immediately suggested Prince of Peace, the Saviour.
Years later when I reread the book, that interpretation was also true, but insufficent to the dense story.

This time around, the Idiot, was funnier, less seriously driven by a divinely sparked moral perfection. Holiness takes a lampooning, along with the canon of social superiority, and those that would be servitors of justice. (Hadn't FD afterall, been imprisoned by their likes?)

The Idiot, it suddenly leaped out to me, is none other than the author, condemned like Myshkin by a malfunctioning switch in the brain. Epilepsy in a severely religious world, was imbued with the evil/spirit blame factor, and implied weakness as well. Moreover, Dostoevski, carried what he undoubtedly felt as a moral failure within himself, a compulsive gambler lives in chronic, progressive despair. Hadn't he, as Myshkin, committed himself to a way of righteousness, only to fail to resolve or improve the sufferings of his fellows? How often, would you imagine, he, like other addicts willed to quit, and could not stop? The moral choice to be compassionate, in an almost Buddhist sense, is correct, but will not be repaid in any betterment to the giver or the receiver. Prince Myshkin was good, compulsively so. He was also a buffoon, exploited by immoral others, and condemned by an impaired mind. Righteousness, is insufficent for liberating our lower order, deficient bodies.

Funny? Yes, the matriarch, of a pre-feminist culture, is the comic relief of an otherwise heavy and often inscrutable, long novel. The pecadillos of the 'respectable' gentlemen, immobilized by greed and sexual desire, the various flopped attempts at love, and friendship, serve comic purpose. There are many, many gambles, and a non-stop game of roulette/life.

The only other gambler aka Idiot, is of course, God. Dostoyevski's intense relgious ambivalence and inevitable return to faith is also a crap shoot- maybe the greatest of all. Is there, or isn't there, take a chance. God bet on the world, then sent his son to redeem us, was that a win? God bet the jack of hearts, was it an ace that took the pot?

In Karamazov, the holiest man, in death, left an unbearable stench, the last scene in the Idiot, also involves a similar image. Are we again, confronting holiness in the sense of foul?
The Idiot, is one of the finest novels in history, many would say the finest. It is incomplete and uncertain, as any human creation must be.