„- Dar Rogojin s-ar căsători [cu Nastasia Filippovna]?- Cred că și mîine s-ar putea căsători [zise Prințul]; s-ar căsători și, peste o săptămînă, zic eu, ar înjunghia-o” (p.40).Prințul Mișkin are toate calitățile unui om „cu desăvîrșire minunat”: inocență, franchețe, intuiție a psihologiei celor din jur, capacitate de a anticipa consecințele, bunătate, blîndețe. Din păcate, „clarviziunea” lui e luată de ceilalți în rîs. Sinceritatea lui necruțătoare îi aduce calificativul de „idiot”. Termenul „i...

This guy is on a morning train to St Petersburg. He knows nobody there. He has no money and no possessions. He’s this close to being a vagabond. But he gets in conversation with this other guy and one meeting leads to another and by ten o’clock that night – 160 pages later – he is telling a lady he never met before not to marry a guy he never met before, and then declaring his own total love for this lady.That’s right just another day in 19th century Russia, Dosto-style.If Dostoyevsky was a 21st...

Prince Lev Nicolayevich Myschkin discovered relativity in 1886.Well, actually the scientific theory of relativity wasn’t discovered until 30 years later, by Albert Einstein, but I don’t think that discovery would have been possible without the relativistic ferment that had started sweeping through Europe in the mid-19th century, with its ultimate CHRISTIAN formulation in The Idiot, in 1886.Moral chaos is so cataclysmic to conservative spectators. So much so to Prince Myschkin, in fact, that he s...

A terrific novel - very worth reading - but lacking the thrust and pleasures of BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, which is one of my favorite books. It is, perhaps, the most difficult novel to evaluate with the Goodreads star system, because it is both very, very great, and not particularly good. When the action soars - in searing, autobiographical moments, with sequences of epilepsy, fits, executions, and long social sequences - there is really nothing like it. An outdoor party scene with the (overly) noble ...

If Raskolnikov was the charismatic murderer whose side I took despite myself when he killed an old woman out of greed and broke down psychologically afterwards, Prince Myshkin is the supposedly good, childlike Christ figure whom I failed to like at all. Just do make it clear from the beginning: I liked the novel just as much as Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground, and I found it just as compulsively readable. The cast of characters is magnificent. My sole problem is the character of...

«Quería hablar a menudo, pero, la verdad, no sabía qué decir. ¿Sabe usted? En ciertos casos es mejor no decir nada».Como siempre me pasa con Dostoievski, debo decir que he disfrutado mucho la historia del Príncipe Lev Nikoláievich Mishkin, quien vuelve luego de cuatro años de un sanatario en Suiza para recuperarse... ¿adivinen de qué? si, de epilepsia, como Dostoievski, hacia Pávlovsk en Rusia. De ahí, que, a partir de su epilepsia, es considerado por todos como un idiota. Al volver a insertarse...

Prince Myshkin (whose name to the Russian ear sounds somewhat like Prince Mousy) may be considered as a disciple of quietism…“Oh, so you are a philosopher; but are you aware of any talents, of any ability whatever in yourself, of any sort by which you can earn your living? Excuse me again.”“Oh, please don’t apologise. No, I fancy I’ve no talents or special abilities; quite the contrary in fact, for I am an invalid and have not had a systematic education. As to my living, I fancy...”But those who...

رضا امیرخانی، جایی گفته بود که "اگه قرار بود نویسنده ها پیامبری داشته باشن، پیامبرشون تولستوی خواهد بود." حرف درستیه، ولی این پیامبر از داستایوسکی وحی دریافت میکنه!مناز بین رمان های داستایوسکی، بیشتر از همه عاشق "جنایت و مکافات" و بعد "ابله" هستم. در درجات بعد، قمار باز و برادران کارامازوف و همزاد و...یادم نمیره. تابستون، ماه رمضون، بعد از سحر تا نزدیکای ظهر بیدار میموندم و یه کله "ابله" میخوندم. واقعاً میخکوبم میکرد. همزمان مادرم هم میخوند و با هم راجع بهش صحبت میکردیم. تجربه ی مشترک خوبی بود.ا...

There are many reviews of this book making out that Prince Myshkin was Christ-like, a truly good man who lived for the moment. A holy idiot, or more accurately, wholly idiot indeed is what he really was. Why did they think Dostoyevsky entitled the book, The Idiot if he meant 'The Man who was Innocent and Really Good" or "The Man who was like Jesus"? The title wasn't any kind of irony, it was about an idiot.Prince Myshkin had spent years in a sanitarium for his epilepsy and returns to Russia wher...

I’ve been trying to review this book for over a week now, but I can’t. I’m struggling with something: How do I review a Russian literature classic? Better yet, how do I review a Russian literature classic without sounding like a total dumbass? (Hint: It’s probably not going to happen.)First I suppose a short plot synopsis should be in order: The Idiot portrays young, childlike Prince Myshkin, who returns to his native Russia to seek out distant relatives after he has spent several years in a Swi...