The Idiot - Part 3

[Silver]

Sorry about the delay but I have been out sick, thank you for your patience.

Here you may discuss Part 3 of The Idiot. Please be aware if you have not finished this section spoilers may be posted here.

[Geoffrey]

I must say I`m intrigued as to why Natasha made those spurious charges against her attempted betrothed. There are mysteries and more mysteries in this novel that rival an Agathie Christie. D. holds back on so much information that he has us wondering what is really going on, in the same state of confusion as Alexandria`s father. Sorry, but the names don`t come to me.

Then there`s the loss of a million rubles and their owner`s corpse. Are we entering a murder mystery here?
Was this Rogozhin`s doing?

[Renee]

Glad to have you back, Silver. Hope you're feeling better. :)

[Renee]

I like the way this section opens with Lizabeta Prokefievna's very human concerns for her daughters. I worry about her, though, as I do, Myshkin and Agalya. All three have expressed very deep feeling and concern for others and a certain level of optimism in their ability to influence the future for the better. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot going on that is hidden and also high emotion that makes people illogical, often to themselves as well as others.

I can't decide what to make of Evgenie Pavlovitch. Sometimes he seems like a pretty decent guy, but I think Nastasia Filipovna really does know something about him. I suspect that she's trying to protect Agalya in her way by dropping hints that he is not what he seems. If this is true, then why not just come out and say it? Perhaps, she feels she won't be believed, because of who she is.

[Renee]

Also, what became of the duel. I was really worried for a while, since Myshkin learns about firearms from Agalya!!! Perhaps it is still to come in Part Four.

[Renee]

p. s. I can't get a handle on the narrator. Third person omniscient? But then there's so much that's hidden. I don't know enough about Russian Lit or Dostoyevsky, but there's something about it that bothers me. Am I just being picky? Or obtuse?

[Silver]

Renee wrote: "Glad to have you back, Silver. Hope you're feeling better. :)"

Thank you, I am getting there. At lieast I am semi-funtional right now.

[Cleo]

Renee wrote: "Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot going on that is hidden and also high emotion that makes people illogical, often to themselves as well as others.
…"

I'm a little confused by the high emotion. I know it's used as a device to cover/confuse things, but I've encountered it in other Russian novels, so I'm not sure if it is partly used as a device and partly a cultural norm. Or is it a favourite device of many Russian writers?

I really enjoyed Part I but Part II and III have become more murky. I'm not quite sure where D is going …..?? I am only about half way through Part III though, so I perhaps should wait and see. I hope it all comes together in the end and I can just say, WOW!

[Geoffrey]

It`s a mystery,intentionally so. D is confusing us, yes,but with a purpose.

[Zulfiya]

There is definitely a mystery in the novel, but not the mystery in a conventional sense of the word. It is the mystery of a human soul.

In this novel, D. populates the fictional space with people as extreme as Rogozhin and Nastasya Filippovna and as grey and ordinary as any other people we meet in our life. The first two have an amazing ability to see Myshkin for what he is, even though she is a fallen woman, and Rogozhin is a very dangerous man. It seems like these two have this alienness in them, and they are able to see the same otherworldliness in Myshkin.

We all agree, that Myshkin is a Christi-like figure, a certain secular Christ, a mundane one, the one who portrayed in the painting by Holbein, but either people seem not to notice him or consider him slightly crazy or his Christ-like charisma does not seem to be working as it does not change people for the better.
D. was a converted Christian, but his outlook on Christianity seems to be bleak. Christ is not divine, people do not see this Christ, who is viewed as an idiot, and he does not change people for the better because they still worry about their small mundane problems. Maybe, even the humanity is beyond redemption with the only exception of the two hypersensitive people: a fallen woman Nastasya and a life-gambler Rogozhin.

[Zulfiya]

Renee wrote: "p. s. I can't get a handle on the narrator. Third person omniscient? But then there's so much that's hidden. I don't know enough about Russian Lit or Dostoyevsky, but there's something about it tha..."

A good point, Renee, but the whole idea of mysticism will be destroyed in the novel if the narrator knows everything. I am not even sure that D. knew all the answers to the question. After all, we are dealing with Christ (a literary stretch from a self-confessed agnostic:-)) or a Christi-like figure, so there should be some mystery hiding behind the conventional narrator, IMHO.

[Zulfiya]

Cleo wrote: "Or is it a favourite device of many Russian writers?"

From my personal experience, there are a lot of emotional people in Russia, and D. seems to like these emotional extremists, but the same is true about Gogol and Bulgakov. They enjoyed showing emotional extremism and affectation.

Turgenev, on the other hand, was a very pro-Western guy and his emotional modality is slightly reserved.

Tolstoy's modality is also reserved because his life philosophy was pro-Orthodox Slavic Christianity that is very solemn, solid, and slow in its emotional expression. His only European feminine characters always end badly. Elen Kurakina from War and Peace is portrayed as an active, vibrant, social slut who decides to convert into Catholicism and dies during the Napoleon invasion. Anna Karenina is also a European-type of a woman, and she also finds herself beyond redemption and is 'killed' by Tolstoy.

D., conversely, liked emotional people, unstable people, borderline cases who are willing to sacrifice everything, but can also cause great harm and hurt people around them.

Surprisingly, all these people, very diverse in their emotional expressions, are true types.

[Cleo]

Zulfiya wrote: "From my personal experience, there are a lot of emotional people in Russia, and D. seems to like these emotional extremists, but the same is true about Gogol and Bulgakov. They enjoyed showing emotional extremism and affectation.
…"


Thanks, Zulfiya. This really helps me gain greater understanding, not only with this book but with other Russian lit. I can tell it is going to take a little time to get the rhythm of Dostoyevsky. Tolstoy, I have not found a problem as yet. I'm reading Fathers and Sons later this year and now I'm really looking forward to it based on your description of Turgenev.

[Zulfiya]

Surprisingly, I have always found D's characters and Gogol's and Bulgakov's characters more likeable than Tolstoy's, Leskov's, or even Turgenev's. I think despite their manner to wear their emotions on the sleeve, they are understood by the majority of readers. In that sense, D. is a true humanist (and I am not talking about religion or spiritualism). His characters are universally human, and even though they are quite quirky for a Western mind, they are still not truly alien and very likeable.

Even Rogozhin, who is a a character virtually torn apart by the tide and ebb of human goodness and human darkness, was powerful enough to find his literary extensions in characters of William Golding. They are definitely more subdued emotionally, but the same antagonism of Light and Darkness determines them.

[Geoffrey]

As for Rogozhin, one of Hippolyte.s comments on his character sums up much

Mr. Rogozhin...though he took little interest in what did not concern him directly."
chapter 6 part 3.

So R. is essentially self-centered to an extent far exceeding the other characters. This is his mighty failing, his grossest human weakness...the making of his stature as the antagonist in the novel.

Only a little before that H. writes

"Mr. R. must forgive me that expression and blame it on a bad writer....."

I am curious as to whether this has a double meaning as D. is the one who is writing Hippolyte`s words....is this D. at his most Christian humbleness, a self-effacing subtle confession at his own "limitations" as a writer. If so, the modesty would be perceived as false and only an attempt to score points in Heaven.