Fyodor Dostoevsky - Idiot

[Veva]

Hi, I am currently reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's Idiot and I would really like to know what do u think of it....

[Kafka's Crow]

My teacher rated it higher than even The Brothers Karamazov. I think this one is Dostoevsky's second best. I want to re-read it, read it 18 years ago (do I feel old? Hell, yes!)

I found it a bit slow-paced, specially when compared to Crime and Punishment and even Karamazov but it deals with my favorite Dostoevskian theme, the plight of a good man in an evil society. A very, very rewarding read indeed.

[kelby_lake]

Poor Myshkin!

[lyamshin]

An incredibly difficult book to read. It's three different books, not just though plotline, but mainly because the main character has a different personality in each one. I would applaud you for making the effort, though.

[johann cruyff]

It's one of Dostoevsky's slowest novels(some may even say,his most boring one),but I really liked it,even though I may not have been ready for it back when I read it,three years ago. Come to think of it now,it ranks amongst the very best of Dostoevsky's works in my opinion.

[Gladys]

'The Idiot' is one of those wonderful books that impels you to ponder, days and weeks after finishing. I found 'The Idiot' complex but spectacularly unified in that, on long reflection, almost everything makes exquisite sense. And 'exquisite' is no exaggeration because Dostoevsky tells the story with so light a touch that the reader is enchanted by every page.

Years ago I adored 'Brothers Karamazov' and this book is as good or better. So much of the poignantly human is packed into a smaller book.

I’m a third way through ‘Crime and Punishment’ and feel as though I have been tortured. Unlike the breezy Myshkin, Raskalnikov is a lead weight around my neck.

[Trystan]

The Idiot is a beautiful book. There are books which I really enjoy and there are books that I feel are "OK". I do not fit the idiot into either of these categories .. . for it is so well written, so well characterised and has possibly the most likable character in fiction: P. Myshkin, a real Christ-like figure destroyed in an evil world. I loved the book so much, I was unable to put it down (I should've been studying!). Reading it was just great. A real classic.

I have read about half (had to drop because I needed to read other things) of "Crime and Punishment" and it was great, but it didn't have the magic of The Idiot (though I will reserve judgment until I read it again). If it's true that Karamazov is the best, I look forward it!

[Gladys]

Originally Posted by Trystan

P. Myshkin, a real Christ-like figure destroyed in an evil world

Destroyed? I'm not so sure.

There seems something of a resurrection, if we are to believe Vera Lebedev, Lizabetha Prokofievna and the skeptical playboy Evgenie Pavlovitch, in the closing paragraphs of 'The Idiot'.

[Loike]

I liked The Idiot but much preferred The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment. Having said that, though, those two are my favourite novels anyway, so I'm bound to say I prefer them. *Oh, sweet bias!* The Idiot is a very rewarding read, although a little difficult at times, as I think a previous member has commented. Myshkin is lovely, but again Alyosha is, in my opinion, far more lovely. It's definitely worth reading, anyway. . xx

[jkohn]

Greetings and hello. This is my first post.

The Idiot is the first and only novel I've read by Dostoevsky so far. I agree with alot of the sentiments here that it is a tough book to get through largely in part to its complexity, not neccessarily because it bogs down which it does a bit but I dont mind a good bogging. I fell in love with alot of the characters in this book, even if some seem a little underdeveloped. Overall I think its a perfect account of what greed and jealousy can drive people to when presented with a completely exploitable and un-selfish outlet (The Prince) who would happily help anyone. With that in mind I present this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB60OaNT6VA

[Jozanny]

Originally Posted by jkohn

Greetings and hello. This is my first post.

The Idiot is the first and only novel I've read by Dostoevsky so far. I agree with alot of the sentiments here that it is a tough book to get through largely in part to its complexity, not neccessarily because it bogs down which it does a bit but I dont mind a good bogging. I fell in love with alot of the characters in this book, even if some seem a little underdeveloped. Overall I think its a perfect account of what greed and jealousy can drive people to when presented with a completely exploitable and un-selfish outlet (The Prince) who would happily help anyone. With that in mind I present this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB60OaNT6VA

I just finished the Project Gutenberg plain text version, and I think I've had enough Dostoevsky to last me awhile. What kills this novel is its terrible structure; it makes Crime and Punishment look virtually Shakespearean by comparison, and in my estimation, Parfen and Nastassya have so much potential to be more complex foils than Dostoevsky gives them room for; instead Hippolite runs around like an ill-controlled Caliban.

Huh! If Dostoevsky's structure was meant to reflect the mental hysteria so prevalent in the major characters, it simply and utterly falls short.

[Gladys]

Originally Posted by Jozanny

If Dostoevsky's structure was meant to reflect the mental hysteria so prevalent in the major characters, it simply and utterly falls short.

Having just read the straight-jacket of Crime and Punishment, I much prefer the joy, breezy humor and real-life complexity of 'The Idiot'. Its structure gives insight into the field of vision available to Myshkin and others. One only understands so much about people: Parfen and Nastassya are as vivid as your imagination makes them, and frenetic Hippolites do exist.

'The Idiot' is a bit like Picasso's Guernica in structure, scope and quality.

[Jozanny]

Originally Posted by Gladys

Having just read the straight-jacket of Crime and Punishment, I much prefer the joy, breezy humor and real-life complexity of 'The Idiot'. Its structure gives insight into the field of vision available to Myshkin and others. One only understands so much about people: Parfen and Nastassya are as vivid as your imagination makes them, and frenetic Hippolites do exist.

'The Idiot' is a bit like Picasso's Guernica in structure, scope and quality.

I do not think the comparison to Picasso holds, because Picasso knew what he was doing with form in its challenge to representational accuracy. When Dostoevsky takes the time to critique himself in his own novel by saying he lets Hippolite get away from him, then that is when I begin to think that the application of the superlative--in terms of The Idiot being his best work, is problematic.

I am too Jamesian to offer an apologia for such sloppiness; if one wants to play a fools game with the reader, that's fine. Farce is a form, and there is Tristram Shandy, which sustains itself remarkably, and defines post-modernism before the movement existed, but to me The Idiot never finds its balance, doesn't know what it is, and the fact that its narrative is disjointed in no way reinforces the Prince's indecisiveness.

I will add this however: I have read a lot of Dostoevsky, and I'm too saturated with him not to feel frustrated with how heavy handed he is, how cliched his criminals and their mental states are. Time to move on to other voices.

[Gladys]

Originally Posted by Jozanny

…he lets Hippolite get away from him

Perhaps. But isn't the tolerance and beneficence of the prince magnified, to divine levels, as result? Here is Picasso magic.

Originally Posted by Jozanny

The Idiot never finds its balance, doesn't know what it is, and the fact that its narrative is disjointed in no way reinforces the Prince's indecisiveness

Lack of balance is almost implicit in the book's title, and is true of all characters apart from the prince. An instance is the unanimous about-face in attitude by the guests at the house of General Yepanchin, where the prince confronts the Nihilists.

But you say that the prince is indecisive? No way. Never. He hesitates not through indecision, but in boundless compassion, in love. While 'heavy handed' may apply to 'Crime and Punishment', for me, 'The Idiot' dances bathed in flickering sunbeams.

[AdrianLeverkuhn]

In defense of Fyodor I will quote Ms. Woolf

"The novels of Dostoevsky are seething whirlpools, gyrating sandstorms, waterspouts which hiss and boil and suck us in. They are composed purely and wholly of the stuff of the soul. Against our wills we are drawn in, whirled round, blinded, suffocated, and at the same time filled with a giddy rapture."

I'm not a student of literature so I can't really follow or understand much of the criticism in this thread but I can certainly understand where Virgina Woolf was coming from since that is exactly how I feel when reading F.D.