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The Idiot (Bantam Classic)

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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.

I admit it upfront- Fyodor Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot' was a difficult read.

Immediately following this I would like to add that it is not the author's fault that this is the case. Nor is it the translators place to be blamed (Constance Garnett does a wonderful job, as always- her translations from Russian are highly recommended; note: this review refers to Bantams first printing of this novel). I think that if one was to assess where to place the blame for the level of difficulty of this masterpiece (and it is indeed to be justifiably found in that category), one would be hard-pressed to find a good source.

The difficulty in reading a book like 'The Idiot' and then trying to locate the problems in it are that the so-called 'problems' are really not problems at all; the things that I would complain about in Dostoevsky's novel are missing entirely in other works, leaving me to almost feel ashamed to even point out that they exist here.

What I'm getting at is this...'The Idiot' is TOO chock-full of ideas for its own good. Every time you turn the page there is another idea being tossed at you, usually in the form of a diatribe, a dissertation, an 'explanation', a monologue, or a rant and rave between characters. There is the invalid Ippolit's explanation of his worldview and how he despises all those around him who are so full of life; I could go on and on about the difficulties raised by this single character, about the contradictions expressed in his realization and simultaneous denial of his mortality and how it has raised in him a profound loneliness and desire to hate all those around him- he reaches out, then lashes out. Or perhaps I could talk about Myshkin's rant towards the end of the novel, a monologue that discusses at length how the Russian aristocracy could survive and be relevant in a new age, a rant that is timeless in its appeal to those who sit in power and misuse it, not even realizing that they have passed their prime and are of no use to society any longer.

But I'm going to forgo those details (and there are tons more) and instead focus on why you should read this novel and why it should be considered a classic. Its very simple- amongst all the deluge of ideas that the author is tossing at you lay two timeless concepts.

One of those ideas is that a good man cannot exist in society without being broken- this is a running theme throughout the book, one that personifies itself in the shy and irrevocably kind-hearted Prince Myshkin (our novels 'Idiot'). Make no mistake that Myshkin's life is a rough parallel to Jesus Christ's and that the simple earnestness and naive trustfulness offered to others by the character, along with his undoubted willingness to forgive the mistakes and betrayals made by those around him (as is too continually relied upon by other characters in the work), is a direct reflection of what the author must have considered Christian values. The author, in presenting this to the audience, is condemning all of mankind as being continuously unable to accept those who can do the most good in their midst. He successfully paints his `beautiful person' (which is the intent of the novel, according to the back) and then brings him to ruin in a society that is fraught with the perils of egoism.

Also in this tangle comes the other idea (the one which must have caused people to encourage Dostoevsky to others on the basis of being a 'psychologist')- it is that people will always do that which is most to their ruin because they are afraid of happiness. Nastasya Filippovna is the embodiment of this, tossing aside (in one of the most unforgettable scenes in all of literature) the one chance she has at the life she has always wanted because she is unable to accept that it could really be happening to her. But this is not the only case that the author presents this idea to us- it can also be found in the continued 'loving ridicules' of the youngest Epanchin daughter, in the continued betrayals of Lebedyev, in the rejection by the aristocrats of Myshkin's ideas, ideas that would save them and bring them renown, and it can be found in even the smallest of characters in the story...in Kolya (who ignores his family problems so as to not have to deal with them), in general Ivolgin (who continues to want the one thing that would harm him most of all), in Rogozhin (a force of nature who wishes for something only so that he can destroy it)...the list goes on and on...

The problem in trying to write this review for Amazon is that there is too much ground to cover in a short snippet; I can simply try to toss out the gist of what I read, the grandeur or the novel, the unimaginable scope...and hope that some of what I experienced has an impact on you, the potential reader, enough to encourage you to want to go out and read it yourself.

Bottom line: learn the definition of `nihilist' from Turgenov, then read this, an authors scathing response to that thought-process.

-LP

Definitely a book worth reading. However, NOT in this translation by Eva Martin*. Forget all the unusual transliterations; these are just details that have changed over the years: Muishkin is now Myshkin, Rogojin is now Rogozhin. A bit distracting but you can adapt to it. But the translation is very stilted, leaning toward a British reader of maybe 80 years ago. I felt like I was groping for the flavor of the Russian on every page. There are multiple typos in this Kindle Edition as well. Again, you can adjust. And the price is right. But you do get what you pay for. Anyone who wants to read this book seriously -- and it is worth reading seriously -- should consider handing over some cash for a modern translation; it will be worth it.

*Folks, a peek inside this book on the Amazon site indicates the translator was Constance Garnet. But the book as downloaded to my Kindle gives the translation credit to Eva Martin. So I have to admit I don't know *who* made this stilted translation, only that I don't like it.

My comments and review are here based solely on the translation work of Constance Garnett, not the actual text behind it.

I found this translation so stilted as to be almost unreadable. This problem was greatest in the short utterances of some of the charcters. They would respond to what the main character of that portion was saying, but I generally had no sense of what those responses meant.

My guess is that Ms. Garnett, in her attempt to stay faithful to the Russian, stayed away from using English idiom, but this sadly resulted in severe loss of clarity. I would recommend that potential readers look for a more modern translation.

Dostoevsky tells the story of a simple young man, honest and pure of heart, caught up in the social morass of late 19th century Russia. Prince Myshkin struggles to maintain his beautiful soul amid the decadence swirling around him. Filled with absolutely compelling insight into both the potentially ascertainable heights and horrific depths of how humans treat each other. After reading this, call me an idiot any time.

The Idiot is Prince Myshkin, a twenty-something man who returns to Russia after spending time in Switzerland, where he was treated for epilepsy. Myshkin is the embodiment of pure goodness (He is deemed an idiot both for his epileptic fits and his lack of social graces.) and makes an immediate impression on the wealthy family he calls on upon arriving in Petersburg. He chooses the Yepanchin's because the matriarch, Lizaveta Prokofyevna is a distant relative. Though at first on guard to the prince's overtures, they are enchanted by his innocence and honesty and eventually welcome him into their lives.

The Yepanchin's youngest and most beautiful daughter Aglaya is the first of two women to form a romantic complication for the prince. The other is Nastasya Filippnova, a former mistress of an older wealthy man, Totski, who has offered her 75,000 rubles to marry General Yepanchin's young protégé , Ganya Ardalyonovich. The prince understands that Ganya doesn't love her and advises Nastasya to not marry him, offering her his own hand instead after disclosing that he has just inherited a large sum of money. But, filled with so much self-loathing and unwilling to ruin the prince's life, Nastasya instead runs off with the dark and menacing Rogozhin, who has himself offered her 100,000 rubles for her hand.

From there, there is much interaction between the characters, with Nastasya going back and forth between Rogozhin and the prince, and the prince cementing his relationship with the Yepanchin's, especially Aglaya, and mixing it up with his nemesis, Rogozhin. (Tthe pair form a thinly disguised metaphor for good versus evil, light versus dark.) Many (too many) characters are introduced, including a group of young nihilists who try to extort money from the newly wealthy prince. All the while Dostoyevsky shows in different ways the conflict and confusion inherent in introducing such a pure-hearted man into a dark and often brutal society. The prince is much given to histrionics and grandiloquent expressions of emotion, all of which baffles everyone around him. There is a mixture of respect and disdain for the prince. And while this ambivalence is an artistically satisfying respnse to the circumstances, I think it hampers the story a little.

For example, the prince has trouble understanding the intentions of the two women who love him, and the reader would be forgiven for feeling the same. It often seems that Aglaya hates the prince, or at the very least, finds him as nothing more than a humorous distraction. She's constantly mocking him. The reader has to trust her mother and sisters when they assure us that this indicates her love for the prince. As for Nastasya, she's so infrequently depicted in the novel that we can't tell what she really wants either. It's no wonder the prince is so confused.

The prince's character is another weakness. He's too good. He represents both Christ with his forgiving and understanding love, as well as the child in man, with his simple view of the world. Besides being unrealistic, these traits paradoxically make him unsympathetic as a character. When he makes the mistake of choosing love out of pity (or Christian love) over romantic love, we don't care. Or if we do, it's because we think he really is an idiot. He's almost autistic in his behavior, and it's hard to care what happens to him in the end, an ending that can't be good. If I were to describe this book in one sentence, I'd say The Idiot is a French or British social novel clouded with the darkness of the Russian psyche.

Still, though this isn't Dostoyevsky best, it's worth a read. No one gets into the human mind like he does, and while this experiment of his wasn't a complete success, (he too thought it a failure) it is loaded with the usual Dostoyevskian observations about life and the Russia of his times. (A few observations also show that those times weren't as far removed from our times as one might think.)

As far as the Kindle version, this is the Eva Martin translation, which isn't one of the better known translations. Still, it seems decent enough. And besides the usual occasional typo to be expected with the free Kindle books, the text is fine.

Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky on my iPad for free!!!! I probably never would have bought the book and lugged it around....and I hate glare and bad lighting and a heavy tome in bed...
Now, I am finally reading all the books I had meant to...because they are always available, always bookmarked, always lit well, and free!
the Idiot contains seeds of Dostoyevsky's own terror at the hands of his jailers and faux executioners. imported into the protagonist's story, this exacerbates the title character's oddness. This was deeply affecting, powerfully memorable, and a compelling read!

Chapter Four in Part Four of The Idiot is far and away my favourite chapter so far in this curiously riveting novel. Baggy my eye! It's hard enough not to admire Prince Myshkin throughout the book, harder still not to be deeply impressed with Dostoevsky's spiritual and psychological insight, but here in this late chapter, after his shrewd and heartbreaking chat with the unfortunate Ivolgin, that hapless and helpless old remembrancer, Myshkin and indeed his crafty creator shine like bleeding beacons. Everything suddenly snaps into focus for a magic moment and the writing turns memorable and stupendous. Fact and fiction fight it out here in the cleverest fashion--Fyodor firing on all four cylinders can make your head literally buzz with pleasure. An aside: Nuts to Nabokov. Back to Chapter Four, Part Four: Retired general Ardalion Alexandrovitch Ivolgin is an aged rascal and bounder with a deep-seated penchant for the pork pie, a particularly sorry sort of sad sack, and his tall tale of being a page-in-waiting to Napoleon in Moscow in 1812 captivates Myshkin in a way that truly delights the delusional general--Ivolgin's so exhilarated by the effect his pathological mendacity has on poor, patient Myshkin he fairly rushes out of the house. Then there's this paragraph which I want to copy out in full coz it caused both my eyebrows to shoot upwards in blitzed jubilation:

"He went out quickly, covering his face with his hands. Myshkin could not doubt the genuineness of his emotion. He realised too that the old man had gone away enraptured at his success; yet he had a misgiving that he was one of that class of liars with whom lying has become a blinding passion, though at the very acme of their intoxication they secretly suspect that they are not believed, and that they cannot be believed. In his present position the old man might be overwhelmed with shame when he returned to the reality of things. He might suspect Myshkin of too great a compassion for him and feel insulted. 'Haven't I made it worse by leading him on to such flights?' Myshkin wondered uneasily, and suddenly he could not restrain himself, and laughed violently for ten minutes. He was nearly beginning to reproach himself for his laughter, but at once realised that he had nothing to reproach himself with, since he had an infinite pity for the general."


This wonderful chapter ends on a stunning stroke of bad luck but honestly for anyone fortunate enough to have ever laughed violently for ten minutes the passage above is just plain priceless beyond any good measure: in short, the teeniest and rarest glimpse into the full and funny humanity of Prince Myshkin, a right original White Russian. The quote's from the translation by Constance Garnett, by the way, which I would defend simply by saying it didn't bother me nor impede my progress one tiny little bit. Whatever the translation though, here's more or less my final word: The Idiot might not be Karamazov exactly but for me at least it's very nearly close enough.

Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot is a difficulty book for the ordinary person, not versed in Russian history or culture, to appreciate. That is so for several reasons. Much like Eliot's Middlemarch, Dostoevsky is interested in examining Russian culture at a particular time in history, namely Russia in the years after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. For Dostoevsky this period in Russian history was one of declining values where wealth, power and sexual conquest replaced the positive values of the Christian faith. Thus the book is driven more by ideas than plot. At times it seems there is no plot; the characters meet, often in drunken revelry, and talk and talk and talk--heatedly and at odds with each other. Zany things happen and the reader wonders just what is the point of all this seeming tomfoolery.

Dostoevsky's point may be summed up in the scene starting on page 419 in which Lebedyev, a disreputable character in the book who claims to have a deep knowledge of religious history, relates an alleged story from the 12 century of a man who, because of the famines of that time, ate people, specifically, "sixty monks and a few infant laymen, a matter of six, but no more." Moreover, Lebedyev alleges, "It is perfectly comprehensible and natural." The others in the group respond in shock and disbelief. One claims that the reason for eating ecclesiastics instead of laymen is that the former were fat from the easy life they led as compared to the harsh realities faced by ordinary people. In the end Lebedeyev states, the man gave himself up to the clergy and the authorities out of a sense of guilt, despite the knowledge that he would be subjected to horrendous tortures. He adds that morality in those times was better than the present in which "there is more wealth, but less strength. There is no uniting idea; everything has grown softer, everything is limp, and everyone is limp!" Indeed, Dostoevsky fills the book with "limp" characters--flawed in many respects and a sense of hopelessness pervades their actions.

The novel begins with the protagonist, Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin, a young man plagued by illness, returning to Russia (Petersburg) after spending some years in Switzerland. Myshkin is referred to as an "idiot," but a better term might be "innocent and naïve." At this point he is poor with literally only the clothes on his back and a small bundle. Having no acquaintances in Russia he goes to the home of a woman he may be related to and her family. The Epanchins include the father, a retired general who is somewhat of a reprobate, the mother, an excitable, emotional strong willed woman, and their three marriageable daughters. A second family, the Ivolgins, is also featured in the novel, as well as a small host of other characters, particularly a mysterious woman, Nastasya Filippovna. The Prince (as he is called) quickly ingratiates himself with these characters although their relationship swings greatly over time.

The book is divided into four parts. The first is, in my view, the most interesting as the idealistic Prince meets the various characters who respond in zany and often humorous fashion. But at the end of this part the Prince inherits a large sum of money and his relations with the characters changes. He develops an emotional attachment to Nastasya Filippovna and even proposes to marry her. He claims not to love her, but rather to pity her. The Prince also comes to love the youngest of the Epanchin daughters, Aglaia, a beautiful but haughty girl. But the remainder of the book degenerates into wild emotional discussions among clearly flawed and troubled characters who need a protagonist more like Nurse Ratched from Ken Kesey's book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, than the ineffectual Prince Myshkin, who in the end turns out to be as troubled as the other characters, if not more so. My own judgment is that the writing reflects Dostoevsky's own troubled mind and body. One or two of these highly charged discussions would have made Dostoevsky's point about the degeneration of Russian society at that time, but the book becomes tedious when they are extended over almost 700 pages.

I give the book three stars because it has both positive and negative qualities. People interested in Russia may find it enlightening, others will be bored. Those not versed in Russian names may also find it difficult to follow who is saying or doing what. Thus it would be a good idea for such people to learn how Russians refer to each other before tackling the book.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

Dostoyevsky wrote The Idiot during his sojourn in Europe (1867-71) where he had fled to escape his creditors. His obsession with gambling and the powerful impression made on him by Hans Holbein's figure of Christ taken from the cross are key motifs in the novel, which is dominated by the contrasting themes of acquisitiveness and Christian charity. Prince Myshkin, the Idiot and central figure, like his author, returns to Russia after four years in `civilised' Europe, where he has suffered poverty and epileptic fits. It is these seizures, as well as his childlike innocence that have led to him being dubbed `the idiot' by most of his fellow citizens. In a novel of over 600 closely packed pages and crammed with up to a hundred characters, the Prince is the sole touchstone of goodness. His frankness and innocence are seen by many as stupidity. He is even accused of vice and cunning when being simply disarmingly honest. He is often used as a pawn by calculating figures, such as the `villain' Rogozhin and the beautiful `fallen' woman, Nastasya Filippovna. To the Prince these are desperately unhappy people whom he seeks to rescue, but without success. He is trapped between two equally beautiful and impulsive young women, Nastasya Filippovna (full name used throughout) and Aglaya Yepanchin, the youngest of General Yepanchin's three unmarried daughters. The Prince, who confesses love and seems to have proposed marriage to both, is torn between their needs and his own need to save them from their darker selves. Both women have several suitors, some offering respectable futures, others desperate passion. Myshkin moves tortuously between both, giving advice, chasing after them, offering his disinterested love, yet in his heart knowing that he is a hopelessly laughable suitor.

Behind the love stories there are several recurrent themes that continually resurface, most notably the position of Russia in Europe - what it means to be a true Russian in a continent where the natives are seen as backward and uncivilised peasants. Tolstoy, too, was much concerned with this question, although to Dostoyevsky both he and Turgenev (with whom he quarrelled when in Europe) were contaminated by French and German influences. In fact the Prince, just before the onset of one of his epileptic seizures, uncharacteristically breaks silence, bursting out with a long tirade, inveighing against nihilists, Jews, atheists and the Catholic Church, much to the embarrassment of his hosts, the Yepanchins, who are, with other notables, about to celebrate his engagement to Aglaya, their youngest daughter. In other scenes, long speeches on legal, commercial, political and spiritual matters are given by others, but in these the Prince is either absent or remains quiescent. And of course there are always `the woman question' and the land ownership question, together with a sense of a decline in spiritual values.

I am not sure whether the modern reader will appreciate the rather old-fashioned narrative modes that Dostoyevsky employs in this novel. There are constant asides to the reader, telling us for example that `the motives of human actions are usually infinitely more complex and varied than we are apt to explain them afterwards, and can rarely be defined with certainty.' One is a little reminded of George Eliot, the Wise Woman who couldn't resist pointing a moral to adorn a tale. Then there is the position of the narrator himself, who confesses to being often absent at crucial times and being reduced to interpreting gossip or making speculation as to what might have happened. Chapter 9 of Part Four, for instance, begins with a Fielding-like introduction, putting the reader in the picture with `A fortnight has passed since the events described in the last chapter, and the position of the characters of our story had changed so much that we find it extremely difficult to continue without certain explanations. Yet we feel that we have to confine ourselves to a bare statement of facts, if possible, without any special explanations, and for a very simple reason: because we ourselves find it difficult in many instances to explain what took place ...' The digression continues and the reader waits impatiently. Of course the delaying tactic is a novelist's stock-in-trade, but Dostoyevsky, in this novel at least, occasionally oversteps the bounds of decency. Much of the `action' indeed is told through unreliable gossips or malicious liars. Myshkin goes missing for long periods and we are constantly given letters of distraught repentance, passionate love and regret (often false). Yes, our narrator, as he explained above, has a miserable time getting to the facts behind appearance and conjecture.

But these are perhaps minor quibbles in what is for the most part an intriguing and surprisingly convincing tale of a basically good and honest man in a nest of vipers. We have here again the solitary soul, the alienated Underground Man, but now resurfaced in the world of high society. The absorbed reader follows Prince Myshkin's encounters with drunks, braggarts, liars, deceivers, gamblers, lechers and murderers, from the streets of Petersburg to the country estate of Pavlovsk. Although the novel climaxes with a terrible murder, it is a less dark novel than the author's earlier Crime and Punishment - in fact it is at times extremely funny, for example when the sisters collapse with laughter over the Prince's revelation on seeing the donkey (ie himself) after a dream - but the theme of redemption through Christian suffering is paramount. Prince Myshkin embodies Christian values, but without being in the least evangelical or doctrinaire. He is able to laugh at himself and his foolishness - for he is often gauche and embarrassed in company - even managing, in spite of dire warnings, to break his hostess's precious Chinese vase in the exuberant outburst noted above. This is indeed a remarkable portrayal: - a Christ-like figure with no dignity and a keen sense of humour.