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39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dostoevsky, the great Russian social commentator, January 23, 2001
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.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dostoevsky overwhelms with his talent, December 18, 2005
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
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Reader's Dilemma, September 15, 2001
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.
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