Goodreads | The Idiot (Modern Library Classics)

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Similarities between pre-communist Russia and contemporary USA	1	11	06/01/2008 03:05PM

Martine rated it:

(review of isbn 014044792X)

09/08/08

bookshelves: continental-european, nineteenth-century, psychological-drama, russian

Read in August, 2008

recommends it for: people who like long dialogue and larger-than-life characters

Are there countries in the world which are more likely to produce depressing literature than others? If so, Russia must be pretty much top of the list. I have yet to read a Russian novel which ends well for all the protagonists. I can only think of a few in which things end well for even a few of the protagonists. And Dostoyevsky of course loves his tragedies. The Idiot is one of them. While it's not as tragic as, say, Crime and Punishment, nearly all of its protagonists come to a ...more Are there countries in the world which are more likely to produce depressing literature than others? If so, Russia must be pretty much top of the list. I have yet to read a Russian novel which ends well for all the protagonists. I can only think of a few in which things end well for even a few of the protagonists. And Dostoyevsky of course loves his tragedies. The Idiot is one of them. While it's not as tragic as, say, Crime and Punishment, nearly all of its protagonists come to a sticky end, and as always, they meet plenty of drama and intrigue on their way there. And it's all classical Russian drama and intrigue, which is to say it's full of passion, obsession, sudden mood swings, tantrums and hysterical fits. In short, The Idiot is a book full of histrionics, but I love it, because for one thing, there's something grand about all those huge emotions, and for another, Dostoyevsky is such a good writer that he gets away with making his characters behave like Greek gods. Every time I read a book of his, I come away wishing he had written his own version of Greek mythology. I'm sure it would have been an astonishing read.

As for the book at hand, it's a book about society -- more specifically, about a modern society that is so corrupt and materialistic that a good man simply cannot survive in it. In The Idiot, that good man is Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin, who has spent most of his life in a Swiss hospital because of his epileptic fits, and now returns to the country of his youth. Although many people call him an idiot, Myshkin is not actually stupid; he is just innocent and naïve, and likely to forgive those who have trespassed against him as he is sure they meant no harm. Needless to say, there are those who dismiss him as an inconsequential figure or try to take advantage of him, but he also wins over a lot of people with his innate goodness and refusal to think ill of others. He's a Christ-like figure, but was Christ allowed to live in the society he lived in? He wasn't, and neither, sadly enough, is Myshkin, one of Dostoyevsky's more likeable protagonists. Because Russia, to which Dostoyevsky devotes some choice paragraphs, is too jaded for people like him -- too corrupt and too, well, Russian.

But The Idiot is not just a novel about a corrupt society. Ultimately (and this is probably why I like it so much) it's about love. About the different ways in which people love each other. About loving out of pity. About loving against reason. About mad, obsessive, possessive love. About angry love. About humiliating love. About corrupting love and the fear of love. About the things people do for love, the mistakes they make in the name of love, and the love they simply fail to notice because their eyes are directed elsewhere. At the heart of the book is a fascinating love triangle (or is it a quadrangle? or even a pentagon?), which makes it incredibly romantic despite all the ugly stuff that is going on at the same time. It doesn't have a happy-ever-after ending, but there's something terrifically grand and romantic about the ways in which the various lovers end, and I like that. It's realism with a dose of Romanticism with a capital R, and it works.

As always, Dostoyevsky's characterisation is superb. His naïve hero is pitched against a fabulous cast of sophisticated nobles, desperate wannabes, highly strung concubines, passionate schoolgirls, mad stalkers, dramatic nihilists, and so on. Many of the characters are larger than life, yet you somehow believe them, because let's face it, Russia is the kind place that could spawn these people, isn't it? By and large, the characters are well drawn, and if many of them are either unsympathetic or a tad capricious, so be it. There is enough passion, grandstanding and back-stabbing going on between them to keep things interesting, and plenty of twisted love, too.

The only thing I dislike about Dostoyevsky (and the one reason why I'm not giving The Idiot five stars) is his tendency to go off on tangents just when something exciting is about to happen. In The Idiot, he relates the events of an evening, tells us that the hero will have a secret and obviously important meeting with the girl he loves in the morning, and then, rather than relating the events of the next morning in the next chapter, proceeds to spend four chapters (some sixty pages altogether) telling the reader what happens at the Prince's house late at night, none of which has anything to do with the upcoming meeting with the girl. I'm sure I'm not the only reader who felt cheated there. Other than the tangents, though, Dostoyevsky is a superb writer, and The Idiot is as fine an example of classic Russian literature as you're likely to find anywhere (provided you like long dialogue and slightly mad characters). I'd give it 4.5 stars if I could, but in the absence of half stars, four will have to do.

(And for those of you who care about translations: I read the Bantam version by Constance Garnett and was quite happy with it.)...less

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8 comments

Stephen rated it:

02/13/08

bookshelves: classic

Read in June, 2004

"The Chief idea of the novel is to portray the positively good man." This object Dostoyevsky has achieved in his 1869 novel The Idiot. It is the story of an invalid, sheltered in childhood, entering high society for the first time. His innocence leads him through fantasy, love, hatred, wealth, jealousy, and all the other attributes of earthly life?especially that life of the elite.

Though almost devoid of plot, the drama reads well and coherently (much more so than Brothers Karamazov ...more "The Chief idea of the novel is to portray the positively good man." This object Dostoyevsky has achieved in his 1869 novel The Idiot. It is the story of an invalid, sheltered in childhood, entering high society for the first time. His innocence leads him through fantasy, love, hatred, wealth, jealousy, and all the other attributes of earthly life?especially that life of the elite.

Though almost devoid of plot, the drama reads well and coherently (much more so than Brothers Karamazov or Notes from the Underground). Dostoyevsky's psychological talents are in full force, but the work is far less tragic than Crime and Punishment and almost uplifting compared to that novel and Notes. Thankfully the characters are less shrill and obnoxious than the Karamzov's. These are the only works of his I can speak of; of the four, this novel bears the greatest resemblance to Tolstoy's works, though there is no confusing the two. If you enjoy classic foreign literature, I recommend The Idiot to you.

Our hero, Prince Myshkin, is a truly sympathetic figure. And while I don't intend to compare myself, I dare say even empathetic (as was Raskolnikov!) He bumbles, stumbles, and thinks too much for these people. He is a candle that may flare up and burn you when you get near, but his wick is all too short.

At one point a companion suggest that the Prince may not know what love is. But I believe this is a primary element of the story—that he better than all knows what love is, if not intellectually than emotionally and spiritually. He simply does not know what to do with it. His love is like a rainbow, seen diffracted in many aspects but at its core pure and unsullied, as no others could possibly understand.

About the novel Dostoyevsky continues:

"There is nothing in the world more difficult to do, and especially now. All writers... who have tried to portray the positively good man have always failed... The good is an ideal, but this ideal, both ours and that of civilized Europe, is still far from having been worked out. There is only one positively good man in the world—Christ.”

Myshkin is certainly not perfect, but I do believe Dostoyevsky has made the most “positively good” man of society that anyone could envision. Thus I was forced to keep turning the pages, bewildered along with Myshkin, taken in by the intrigues around him, and anxious to see how the thing would play out. As for the ending—well, from the four novels I've read thus far, wrapping up seems to be Dostoyevksy's chief failing....less

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