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The Idiot
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Diane
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1. How did you experience the book? Were you engaged immediately, or did it take you a while to "get into it"? How did you feel reading it—amused, sad, disturbed, confused, bored…?
2. Assess the character of Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin.
3. Assess the character of Parfyon Semyonych Rogozhin.
4. Assess the character of Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin.
5. Assess the character of Nastasya Filippovna Barashkov.
6. What role does Fate play in The Idiot?
7. Looking at the world Dostoevsky portrays within the novel, whose vision of this world—Hippolite's or Myshkin's—seems more accurate? Does your answer change if we change the focus from Dostoevsky's world to the world you live in?
8. Does beauty save the world in the novel as Prince Myshkin suggests?
9. Philosophically, what comments does Dostoevsky seem to be making about the nature of innocence, especially when it comes into contact with hypocrisy and evil?
10. Is the ending satisfying? If so, why? If not, why not...and how would you change it?
11. What passages strike you as insightful, even profound? Perhaps a bit of dialog that's funny or poignant or that encapsulates a character? Maybe there's a particular comment that states the book's thematic concerns?
Looking forward to get started, but waiting for my book to arrive. I want the Pevear & Volonsky translation, and it proved a bit difficult to get hold of. It's all McDuff in the bookshops and Garnett in the ebooks. But I found a copy and it should be here in about a week. Which translation is everyone else reading? Anyone reading in another language than English?
My copy of the book arrived already. They were super fast! The seller's idea of what constitutes "very good" condition differs a bit from mine, but I'd rate it as good enough and it was at least the right translation. Now I just need to decide how to juggle The Idiot with The Tale of Genji and all the other books I mean to read!
I am enjoying The Idiot, although I'm only on chapter 4 (reading the McDuff translation). I'm finding it easier to read than I anticipated (and FAR more enjoyable than The Circle). The chapters are short, so one a day is pretty easy, and that would get us finished in 50 days, far ahead of schedule. I'm finding that 4-5 pages of Genji and a chapter of Idiot is about an hour a day, and so far manageable. Good luck Leni :)
I've finished part one, and it's very theatrical isn't it? It's like every scene is the most dramatic part of an Ibsen play. I might need to catch my breath a bit before part 2!
Leni wrote: "I've finished part one, and it's very theatrical isn't it? It's like every scene is the most dramatic part of an Ibsen play. I might need to catch my breath a bit before part 2!"Wow -- you are whipping through this! I hope to catch up to you by this weekend. :)
Yes, Leni, the first part is very much like reading a play. The narrator is hardly apparent and the interactions between the characters carry the plot. I am enjoying reading this. Of course, I am having my usual difficulty with Russian names but the number of characters is relatively small so far which helps. I am about a third of the way through and the contrast between the characters is really keeping my interest. I am a bit confused about what Nastasya Filipovna is up to. I would prefer she not be mentally ill and yet that is what the other characters attribute her mercurial actions to.
I am about to finish the first book (out of three in my edition) and enjoy it so very much. I couldn't wait for things to continue two nights in a row and did not go to bed until very late...I love Count Mishkin, but I am still uncertain about Nastasia Filipovna. There is quite a pronounced difference between “an idiot” on the one side contrasting corrupted, evil and low morality of almost everybody else on the other side, which is not typical for all other works of Dostoyevsky I read before. I am looking forward to continuing reading tonight.
I just finished Books 2 and 3 (out of a total of 4 in my edition). These sections were much different than the initial Book now that most of the characters have been introduced and we are seeing Dostoevsky work out his themes of the compassionate and rather naive man (Prince Myshkin) surrounded by a world of passions, egos, and greed. The class systems based on gender and wealth are being investigated and there is also an emphasis on the role of nihilism and Christianity in pre-revolutionary Russia. Also, with the story of Ippolit (almost a case study) we have a focus on what it means to live knowing your will die theme. All very interesting and I am enjoying the read very much. I am still troubled by the role of Nastasia and now of Aglaya. They are both strong willed women with their own minds and it looks as if they will continue to suffer for that.
1. How did you experience the book? Were you engaged immediately, or did it take you a while to "get into it"? How did you feel reading it—amused, sad, disturbed, confused, bored…? I was almost immediately engaged. I thought I would find it difficult to read, but the style of writing is pretty straight-forward, as is the plot. The most difficult thing was to keep track of all the Russian names, as every character seemed to have five different terms of address, what with full names, titles, nicknames, etc. I got very bored in Book III, when Lebedev goes off on some tangents about railways, cannibalism, etc., and Hippolite reads his lengthy essay (a boredom shared by several characters). Part IV goes off onto tangents about the Ardalionych family including a long chapter where the general tells fibs about his relationship with Napolean. I was much more interested when there was an actual plot, but this is in my nature.
2. Assess the character of Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin.
Early on in the book, he muses that he might once have been an idiot when he was ill, but he isn’t anymore. In fact, he even recognizes that he’s intelligent. He may be a kind of “social idiot” because he is so pure and innocent and believes the best of people. In Part 4, chapter 6 for example, he attends the party at Princess Belokonskaya’s, he takes the company to be “the purest gold,” and assumes they are all the best of friends with the Yepanchins, whereas they are all simply snobby aristocrats.
3. Assess the character of Parfyon Semyonych Rogozhin.
He is crude, spoiled, and nouveau riche. Nastasya tells him, “That’s the muzhik [peasant] in you,” when he is trying to “buy her” from Ganya. Later on, it becomes clear that he is an abusive psychotic, something Nastasya seems to intuit, which is what attracts her. She wants him to “punish” and even kill her.
4. Assess the character of Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin.
She is the most beautiful of the daughters and at first she seems smart because she knows Ganya is trying to make her believe he’s in love with her. I loved her note to him: “I do not bargain.” However, later she simply comes off as a confused girl, torturing poor Myshkin because she can’t decide whether or not she loves him. She boasts about having read risqué books and thinks this makes her knowledgeable about the world, and she claims she wants to run away and see the world and do something important, like teaching, but her true snobby, spoiled-brat nature comes out in her meeting with Nastasya. It is fitting that she falls for a con artist.
5. Assess the character of Nastasya Filippovna Barashkov.
When we hear about her second-hand (or is it third), she seems cold, calculating, vengeful. When we actually “meet” her, it’s clear that she is conflicted, and as the book progresses, she seems increasingly unhinged. She loathes Rogozhin but agrees to marry him, and not just because of his money. She wants to punish or humiliate herself and perhaps even commit a kind of suicide (knowing that he will likely kill her). She doesn’t believe she is worthy of Myshkin but cannot simply let him go (in this way, she acts a lot like Aglaya, albeit for different reasons).
6. What role does Fate play in The Idiot?
I’m not sure about this – there weren’t a lot of chance occurrences or coincidences. The “fate” of the characters seemed more determined by the choices they made, most of them bad decisions.
7. Looking at the world Dostoevsky portrays within the novel, whose vision of this world—Hippolite’s or Myshkin’s—seems more accurate? Does your answer change if we change the focus from Dostoevsky's world to the world you live in?
I’m not sure what Hippolite’s vision of the world is. He knows he is dying and is jealous of everyone who is not ill, but at the same time, he’s a nihilist, so he shouldn’t believe that life is worth living. He is just a boy and therefore as confused and immature as Aglaya. Myshkin is grateful to be “cured” and to be out of the asylum and in the real world. A lot of the discussion of religion and philosophy went above my head, but I do recall in Part 2, ch. 4, his first real discussion of faith, inspired by a reproduction of a painting by Hans Holbein of Christ’s body. Myshkin tells several anecdotes about faith, concluding with one about a peasant woman, who understands God best, as a father/creator.
8. Does beauty save the world in the novel as Prince Myshkin suggests?
I don’t think anything “saves the world,” insofar as the book is a tragedy. Myshkin tries to save at least some of the world by marrying Nastasya, but this gesture is even doomed to fail.
9. Philosophically, what comments does Dostoevsky seem to be making about the nature of innocence, especially when it comes into contact with hypocrisy and evil?
See above comments
10. Is the ending satisfying? If so, why? If not, why not...and how would you change it?
I found it totally satisfying and inevitable. Myshkin circles back around to where he came from and while this is tragic, it is understandable – he is “too good” for the world.
11. What passages strike you as insightful, even profound? Perhaps a bit of dialog that's funny or poignant or that encapsulates a character? Maybe there's a particular comment that states the book's thematic concerns?
First and foremost, there is this: “[He] was, as they say, in the very prime of life, fifty-six and not a day more, which is of course a flourishing age, an age when real life truly begins.” I just turned 56, so I found this very encouraging :)
As a chronic over-spender, I appreciated this: “…[he] was particularly lavish with the money he spent on her; at that time he still had hopes of winning her love, and thought he could seduce her mainly by comfort and luxury, knowing how easily, knowing how easily the habits of luxury are acquired and how difficult it is later to give them up, when luxury gradually turns into necessity.”
But this was my favorite line: “The most vile and hateful thing about money is that it even imparts talent.”
1. How did you experience the book? Were you engaged immediately, or did it take you a while to "get into it"? How did you feel reading it—amused, sad, disturbed, confused, bored…?I was totally engaged from the beginning although slightly confused about the themes that Dostoevsky was building in introducing his characters. I also had to keep a character list to keep the Russia names straight.
2. Assess the character of Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin.
The Prince represents compassion, innocence, tolerance and forgiveness. He also has a veneration for beauty. In short he is a bit of a Christ like figure but he is not street smart, in today's vernacular. He is not able to read the subtle societal clues that the people use to navigate through their manipulations and because of that he is often not able to understand what is happening around him nor is he able to understand what is wanted of him.
3. Assess the character of Parfyon Semyonych Rogozhin.
Rogozhin is driven by passion to the extent that it overrides his reason and his ability to care for others. He has newly acquired wealth which he does not use wisely or well and he generally projects a crudeness that stands quite opposite to The Prince's natural refinement.
4. Assess the character of Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin.
As the youngest daughter, Aglaya acts out against the restrictions placed on her by her family. She is spoiled but has a beauty and an innocence that, although not pure, is capable of loving The Prince even while understanding his limitations. However, she is not capable of carrying that love through to loving him without conditions. Ultimately she makes bad decisions.
5. Assess the character of Nastasya Filippovna Barashkov.
Nastasya is a very interesting character although strangely Dostoevsky does not develop her past a certain point. She is a victim who refuses to act the part and instead flaunts her beauty and her scandalous manipulations to the world. Unlike the Prince, she is capable of seeing the world for what it is but ignores much of what the world demands of her. She is believed to be "mad", but at that time madness was not entirely a medical condition. She does try very hard to not hurt The Prince by leaving him, knowing she will ultimately hurt him more by being with him than by being away from him. However, she is always pulled back by his empathy even though it hurts both him and herself.
6. What role does Fate play in The Idiot?
Dostoevsky works through a dialogue between predestination and free will. For example, he uses disease to address the concept of fate as it is something that Myshkin and Hippolite have no control over and it defines how they are able to live their lives. Both Rogozhin and Nastasya voice their belief in how their fate was predetermined by others and not by themselves although they both go on to make tragic decisions that are entirely within their control. Ultimately, it seems to me, that Dostoevsky leans toward a belief that even within a tightly predetermined world, individuals have the ability to make choices for themselves that influence if not entirely determine their fate.
7. Looking at the world Dostoevsky portrays within the novel, whose vision of this world—Hippolite's or Myshkin's—seems more accurate? Does your answer change if we change the focus from Dostoevsky's world to the world you live in?
Hippolite was a nihilist and I do not believe in nihilism in Dostoevsky's world or my own. However, that does not leave me believing in Myshkin's world view either. Myshkin believed in the inherent goodness of man and that love and goodness will ultimately triumph. Dostoevsky shows us that Myshkin's philosophy could not stand up to the corruption and the lack of forgiveness in the world. Dostoevsky seems to believe that goodness is an internal victory and not something that will end the tragic acts in the world.
8. Does beauty save the world in the novel as Prince Myshkin suggests?
Yes, in a strange way. Beauty, for Dostoevsky, in this novel, is not entirely aesthetic. Rather it is the concept that the internal goodness of man, that ultimate refinement of the soul, is what makes life livable. As I answered in #7, it does not practically triumph over the corruption, the evil, the greed, or the egotism. All that is good in The Prince is tainted by all that is dirty in the world around him. However, rather than change and become "like them", he removes himself from their conditions and truly becomes The Idiot that he was predestined to be.
9. Philosophically, what comments does Dostoevsky seem to be making about the nature of innocence, especially when it comes into contact with hypocrisy and evil?
I think I already answered this one.
10. Is the ending satisfying? If so, why? If not, why not...and how would you change it?
Well, I was certainly not expecting a "happy ever after" ending but I would have liked to have seen one of the characters, maybe Kolya, for example, as the nearest thing to the embodiment of Myshkin's philosophy outside of Myshkin himself, be enlightened as to the nature of the world and yet still able to live a good life in the world. I guess that would be another novel altogether.
11. What passages strike you as insightful, even profound? Perhaps a bit of dialog that's funny or poignant or that encapsulates a character? Maybe there's a particular comment that states the book's thematic concerns?
"It's better to be unhappy but to know, than to be happy and live as a fool."
“Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.”
There are so many....
but this one made me chuckle: “God knows what is in me in place of me.”
Mod
Assess the character of Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin. I saw him as a Christ like figure. He is near perfect and humans just are not perfect or essentially good. He suffered from epilepsy which the author also had, and which he uses to explore themes of suffering, spirituality, and the human condition
Assess the character of Parfyon Semyonych Rogozhin. This was a complex character with strong temper, materialistic world view, destructive behavior. Cruel, greedy, corrupt.
What role does Fate play in The Idiot? the fragile nature and circumstances
Man has free will and free will. Dostoevsky felt this is what made man malevalent, not original sin. So did the author think man should never have had free will?
1. I had to take a break from this in February because I had Gorky's Artamonov Business as my TBR takedown, and I couldn't keep track of the double set of Russian characters! And while I read part 1 of the Idiot quite quickly in January, I found it difficult to pick the book back up again. I did like it, but I also found it bewildering and melodramatic.
2.
Prince Myshkin is clearly a Christ figure. He is kind and not at all worldly. He has a strong sense of moral right and wrong and is perceived by others sometimes as naive other times as wise. He missteps and has doubts. He takes upon himself the sins of his fellow men and seeks to atone on their behalf by marrying Nastasya - it becomes his cross to bear, so to speak.
3.
Rogozin is immature, wealthy, obsessive. All of his relationships are toxic. I'm not sure if he is supposed do be Judas or Satan himself in this analogy.
4.
Aglaya is also very immature and spoiled. She's headstrong and intelligent, but she is being manipulated and has no one to confide in, and it drives her to cruelty and poor decisions.
5.
Nastasya was groomed and exploited by her guardian. Her abuser is worried that she is going to make a nuisance of herself, and seeks to neutralise her by bribing someone to marry her. Nastasya refuses to play along and decides to wreak havoc instead. She is Mary Magdalen, but while she will sit at Myshkin's feet and listen, she has too much internalised shame, and too much pride, to become his follower. By the end she is both broken down and destructive, no longer in control of the situation.
6.
I'm not sure about Fate, but there seems to be a lot of self-fulfilling prophesies!
10.
The ending made sense from a compositional point of view. We were clearly headed for tragedy, and the ending made everything come full circle.
