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A review by millennial_dandy
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
<b>3.5 rounded up to 4</b>
<i>"It is not my novel but my idea that I stand up for. There is a great deal in my novel that I am dissatisfied with. But then, I am its father." </i>
The above quote, included in the introduction to this edition, is Dostoevsky hitting on the head the main issue that plagues his meandering brick of a novel, The Idiot.
If you're looking for a streamlined plot, you are barking up the wrong tree.
In the introduction, it's mentioned that this novel in particular caused Dostoevsky an immense amount of trouble to put together, and states that there were multiple, multiple drafts, and that even by the 'final draft', Dostoevsky called it finished more so to meet the publication deadline than because he was satisfied with the project.
The issue appears (to me) to have been a desperate desire to convey particular ideas letting the cart go before the horse of the plot. This resulted in gorgeous monologues by various characters punctuating an otherwise uninspired and convoluted story about protagonist Prince Myshkin and the too large group of unpleasant and wretched people he interacts with in Saint Petersburg.
We do get the typical unhappy ending to be expected from Fedya, but it loses some of its potency due to the novel collapsing under its own length. The stories connected to the characters never quite seem to pull together or overlap in a satisfying way so that the novel feels like a loosely connected series of vignettes awkwardly stitched within each other rather than one cohesive narrative, lessening the impact of every story within a story.
That being said, when a given character is brought to center stage so to speak, we do get the great characterization typical of Dostoevsky. In 'Candide', Voltaire defines a writer as someone who "must know the human heart and make it speak", something Dostoevsky even at his worst pulls off with stunning accuracy, and 'The Idiot' is no exception.
Near the beginning of the novel, Prince Myshkin is asked by a young artist what he thinks she should draw next, and he tells her to paint the portrait of a man about to be executed. He then goes on to describe what he himself saw in the face of a man staring down the barrel of a firing squad (a section that must have provided Dostoevsky some catharsis to write given his own intimate knowledge of such an experience). It's haunting, it's vivid, it's visceral, and I immediately went back to read it again.
Another stand-out section that exists outside of the main plot is a nearly 20 page monologue given by a side character dying of consumption in which he rails about the wretchedness of facing such an agonizing decline and inevitable death at such a young age. Says he to a party of onlookers in scathing rebuke to Prince Myshkin's attempts to console him:
<blockquote>What sort of morality is it that demands not only your life but also the last deathrattle with which you surrender the last atom of your life, listening to the consoling words of the Prince whose Christian arguments are bound to come to the happy conclusion that, as a matter of fact, it is much better that you should die? (Christians like him always come to this conclusion: it's their favorite obsession). [...] Can't I simply be devoured without being expected to praise that which has devoured me? (pgs. 423-425)</blockquote>
This type of roiling bitterness paired with a sort of wistful longing is the thread that ultimately binds everything together, if not always perfectly.
One of Prince Myshkin's love interests, Aglaya longs for freedom but knows it is out of her reach, and the bitterness of that often gives way to wrath so intense it verges on madness but without ever fully pushing her over the edge.
Not so lucky is his other love interest, Nastasya Fillipovna, who ultimately sacrifices her sanity in the pursuit of freedom through revenge that hinges on her own self-destruction.
We see this same roiling bitterness and longing take a different form in the characters of Ganya, who suffers from "a profound and continual realization of his own mediocrity" (p.471) and the General Ivolgin, an alcoholic who tells increasingly extraordinary lies, seemingly because he wishes his life had been more interesting, and then dies after being forced to admit none of it had been true.
The only person seemingly unaffected by these emotions is Prince Myshkin, the titular 'idiot', and Dostoevsky's stand-in for Christ. The Prince is, to the reader, obviously not an 'idiot', and therein lies the irony of the title: everyone he encounters suffers because they are unable or unwilling to give up their cynicism and adopt Prince Myshkin's compassionate, gentle, and sometimes naively optimistic outlook; they would not have suffered had they been able to see the world as he did, making them the 'idiots' not to see the solution to their unhappiness.
This being Dostoevsky, much of the tension is the struggle between what he paints as the cynical coldness of atheism and the warmth of Christianity. Unlike in 'Crime and Punishment,' 'The Idiot' felt a lot less black and white, and some of the strongest moments came when a character challenged Prince Myshkin's faith. Even the conclusion is somewhat more ambiguous than I expected of him. Maybe it's because I myself am agnostic, but I did find Prince Myshkin's little sermons (especially towards the end) to be a tad silly and unpersuasive, since their potency hinges on the reader already being on board with the idea of a god, whereas arguments favoring atheism rely on arguments rather than vibes.
The reading experience of 'The Idiot' was among the most frustrating for me when it comes to his novels because when he simply let his characters speak, I couldn't put the book down, but when he tried to orchestrate soap-opera-worthy interpersonal drama, it was (pardon my French) dull as fuck, and I really couldn't have cared less about the fates of almost anyone.
This story had no business being this long, and it does make me a tad nervous going into his next (and last) large novels, but when he's good, he's really excellent, so, just as he would have wanted, I'm prepared to suffer but to be happy about it.
<i>"It is not my novel but my idea that I stand up for. There is a great deal in my novel that I am dissatisfied with. But then, I am its father." </i>
The above quote, included in the introduction to this edition, is Dostoevsky hitting on the head the main issue that plagues his meandering brick of a novel, The Idiot.
If you're looking for a streamlined plot, you are barking up the wrong tree.
In the introduction, it's mentioned that this novel in particular caused Dostoevsky an immense amount of trouble to put together, and states that there were multiple, multiple drafts, and that even by the 'final draft', Dostoevsky called it finished more so to meet the publication deadline than because he was satisfied with the project.
The issue appears (to me) to have been a desperate desire to convey particular ideas letting the cart go before the horse of the plot. This resulted in gorgeous monologues by various characters punctuating an otherwise uninspired and convoluted story about protagonist Prince Myshkin and the too large group of unpleasant and wretched people he interacts with in Saint Petersburg.
We do get the typical unhappy ending to be expected from Fedya, but it loses some of its potency due to the novel collapsing under its own length. The stories connected to the characters never quite seem to pull together or overlap in a satisfying way so that the novel feels like a loosely connected series of vignettes awkwardly stitched within each other rather than one cohesive narrative, lessening the impact of every story within a story.
That being said, when a given character is brought to center stage so to speak, we do get the great characterization typical of Dostoevsky. In 'Candide', Voltaire defines a writer as someone who "must know the human heart and make it speak", something Dostoevsky even at his worst pulls off with stunning accuracy, and 'The Idiot' is no exception.
Near the beginning of the novel, Prince Myshkin is asked by a young artist what he thinks she should draw next, and he tells her to paint the portrait of a man about to be executed. He then goes on to describe what he himself saw in the face of a man staring down the barrel of a firing squad (a section that must have provided Dostoevsky some catharsis to write given his own intimate knowledge of such an experience). It's haunting, it's vivid, it's visceral, and I immediately went back to read it again.
Another stand-out section that exists outside of the main plot is a nearly 20 page monologue given by a side character dying of consumption in which he rails about the wretchedness of facing such an agonizing decline and inevitable death at such a young age. Says he to a party of onlookers in scathing rebuke to Prince Myshkin's attempts to console him:
<blockquote>What sort of morality is it that demands not only your life but also the last deathrattle with which you surrender the last atom of your life, listening to the consoling words of the Prince whose Christian arguments are bound to come to the happy conclusion that, as a matter of fact, it is much better that you should die? (Christians like him always come to this conclusion: it's their favorite obsession). [...] Can't I simply be devoured without being expected to praise that which has devoured me? (pgs. 423-425)</blockquote>
This type of roiling bitterness paired with a sort of wistful longing is the thread that ultimately binds everything together, if not always perfectly.
One of Prince Myshkin's love interests, Aglaya longs for freedom but knows it is out of her reach, and the bitterness of that often gives way to wrath so intense it verges on madness but without ever fully pushing her over the edge.
Not so lucky is his other love interest, Nastasya Fillipovna, who ultimately sacrifices her sanity in the pursuit of freedom through revenge that hinges on her own self-destruction.
We see this same roiling bitterness and longing take a different form in the characters of Ganya, who suffers from "a profound and continual realization of his own mediocrity" (p.471) and the General Ivolgin, an alcoholic who tells increasingly extraordinary lies, seemingly because he wishes his life had been more interesting, and then dies after being forced to admit none of it had been true.
The only person seemingly unaffected by these emotions is Prince Myshkin, the titular 'idiot', and Dostoevsky's stand-in for Christ. The Prince is, to the reader, obviously not an 'idiot', and therein lies the irony of the title: everyone he encounters suffers because they are unable or unwilling to give up their cynicism and adopt Prince Myshkin's compassionate, gentle, and sometimes naively optimistic outlook; they would not have suffered had they been able to see the world as he did, making them the 'idiots' not to see the solution to their unhappiness.
This being Dostoevsky, much of the tension is the struggle between what he paints as the cynical coldness of atheism and the warmth of Christianity. Unlike in 'Crime and Punishment,' 'The Idiot' felt a lot less black and white, and some of the strongest moments came when a character challenged Prince Myshkin's faith. Even the conclusion is somewhat more ambiguous than I expected of him. Maybe it's because I myself am agnostic, but I did find Prince Myshkin's little sermons (especially towards the end) to be a tad silly and unpersuasive, since their potency hinges on the reader already being on board with the idea of a god, whereas arguments favoring atheism rely on arguments rather than vibes.
The reading experience of 'The Idiot' was among the most frustrating for me when it comes to his novels because when he simply let his characters speak, I couldn't put the book down, but when he tried to orchestrate soap-opera-worthy interpersonal drama, it was (pardon my French) dull as fuck, and I really couldn't have cared less about the fates of almost anyone.
This story had no business being this long, and it does make me a tad nervous going into his next (and last) large novels, but when he's good, he's really excellent, so, just as he would have wanted, I'm prepared to suffer but to be happy about it.