The Idiot

Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky

This book took me over a year to read. It has a very minimalistic plot that I found very hard to engage with. Normally with books that I am struggling to focus on, I just stop reading them, but I am committed to reading all four of Dostoevsky’s major books, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Possessed / Demons. Finishing this book takes me to 75% progress, with just Crime and Punishment left.

The basic plot revolves around the main character (Prince Myshkin) who Dostoevsky endeavoured to write as “the perfect character”. Myshkin arrives into a high society circle of people who are very hedonistic and corrupt. Myshkin is often called an idiot by them because they think he is very naïve and unaware of how to act in society. Though he is occasionally naïve, it isn’t out of a sense of stupidity, it is because he is so pure of heart and motive, and caring/sensitive of other people that it comes across as idiotic to these selfish people.

The plot of the entire book is simply the prince trying to manage life in this new town, his relationships with various people, and love. He is in love with one lady named Nastasya who had a very hard childhood and was abused. She then lived very destructively in her older years. The prince always had pity on her and said the way she is living is not her fault, but due to her abuse as a child. The prince loved her and wanted to help fix her. But his love for her was more based in compassion. He also fell in love with another character, not out of compassion, but out of genuine interest in her. But she was fairly immature, and the two of them failed to communicate effectively due to her immaturity, and the prince’s naivety.

Only in the last twenty or so pages (of 615 total) does a particularly dramatic event happen, where Nastasya is murdered by Roghozin, which is the man she has been with even though she knows he is destructive for her.

As I am learning with Russian writers like Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, the books are less about the action or plot, and more about the characters. Both writers are often praised for their brilliant understanding of human psychology, and their deeply human characters who are complex and contradictory.

There were good moments of the book, and moments where I picked up that excellent portrayal of human psychology, but I don’t think it was worth it for me. The book dragged on too much. It has way too many characters with difficult names that made the story really difficult for me to follow because I could never remember who the name of the person I just read was, and how they related to the scene and story as a whole. It’s also possible I am just not advanced enough yet for this book, and perhaps down the road I will come to appreciate it more with a re-read. At this point, I would much rather re-read The Brothers Karamazov.