The Idiot

I am now fully convinced that the reading of Dostoyevsky is best appreciated in the there-after, instead of the present-time. That said, this novel is a melodramatic and overzealous pairings and sparings among a large (although extremely well developed) set of characters---"frenemies," if you will....ugh. However, it is the complexities in trying to...more

I am now fully convinced that the reading of Dostoyevsky is best appreciated in the there-after, instead of the present-time. That said, this novel is a melodramatic and overzealous pairings and sparings among a large (although extremely well developed) set of characters---"frenemies," if you will....ugh. However, it is the complexities in trying to decipher Dostoyevsky's symbolizism of the "idiot" (who is one really, why, how, and for what purpose in society) that one gets the shocking breadth of this immense work in the there-after.   hide

This book is unputdownable. I first read it over easter and was infuriated that people kept wanting to interrupt me and talk to me. The story is moving, and the protagonist as like able as the other characters are not. What sort of society has no room for a well-meaning idiot?

Dostoevsky's attempt to portray the "good" man and society's effect on him. Myshkin ends up being outside society, unable to relate to its triviality.

I think this was the most boring book I have ever read in my entire life. The plot was soooo slow, the psychological analyses so naive and so self - centered, the situations so unreal and unconvincing.... How on earth is this considered a masterpiece of world literature? I read it after Dickens' "Bleak House" and the difference was striking. Sorry, but I find "the...more

I think this was the most boring book I have ever read in my entire life. The plot was soooo slow, the psychological analyses so naive and so self - centered, the situations so unreal and unconvincing.... How on earth is this considered a masterpiece of world literature? I read it after Dickens' "Bleak House" and the difference was striking. Sorry, but I find "the Idiot" a badly- written book, and extremely overrated.   hide