Rating: 
Summary: A classic commentary on the futility of the human condition
Review: Dostoevsky tells the story of a simple young man, honest
and pure of heart, caught up in the social morass of late
19th century Russia. Prince Myshkin struggles to maintain
his beautiful soul amid the decadence swirling around him.
Filled with absolutely compelling insight into both the potentially ascertainable heights and horrific depths
of how humans treat each other. After reading this, call me an idiot any time.
Rating:
Summary: A beauty of a book ...always timely
Review: I read this book for the first time when I was 15 or 16, and promptly declared it my favorite book. When I read it again in my 30s, it rang even more true. The society in this book is not so different from ours, obsessed with money, beauty, social standing, celebrity, and so forth. People are restless, flawed, seeking peace, while at the same time self-hating, self-destructive, and seeking out danger. What happens to this perfectly good, loving, honest human being, Myshkin, comes to seem inevitable given what we know about human nature, then and now.
Rating: 
Summary: Teaches morality... but at what cost
Review: I was "The Idiot" who was told to grab a novel to write a review for and happened to grab a book with a most suiting title. It teaches of the conflicts of one's self and morality, and how difficult it really is. It does this through Prince Myshkin and his illness as well as with the interaction amongst various other characters in the story. I do, however, have a problem with the length of the novel on a whole. But really, who am I to argue... I was the Idiot that picked it up when I clearly knew that I had ADD.
Not recommended for people with ADD, ADHD, short attention span, short tempers, short term memory loss, and long term memory loss.
Rating: 
Summary: A let-down
Review: After Crime & Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, reading The Idiot is a major let-down. The Idiot's child-like innocence and purity, etc., is just annoying. He seems utterly in bad faith. The fact that we are meant to take him as being in good faith, as genuine, even as sympathetic, is what wrecks the novel for me. Myshkin seems just a foil for Dostoyevsky's ideas about society, conscience, Christianity, and so on. I don't believe in him as a character. I also don't find the themes discussed particularly interesting. And I didn't find any shockers or surprises in this book, all the moves seemed telegraphed in advance. I appreciated some of the subplots, but every scene with Myshkin in a central role was something of a dud. It's a bit like watching the Star Wars trilogy and groaning every time Luke Skywalker comes on screen. _That guy_ is the hero? Sigh... All this blushing and stammering and poses of meekness. I found myself appreciating the flawed characters much more: General Ivolgin, Lebedev, Rogozhin -- they are real characters with passions, interests, drives. Myshkin is infuriating with his passivity, his emptiness, his tiresome idealism.
Rating:
Summary: Great Pshychologic novel
Review: Dostoievsky is a great author, his books are fully intriguing and his characters represent many religious dilemmas. He's always presenting the anguish of moral conflicts. But no book achieves to represent the dicothomy of christian values as The Idiot does.
The main character is every christian virtue as viewed by the bizantine church on Dostoievsky's time represented and exaggerated. This makes him unsuferable, yet you cannot hate him. This book is a MUST read.
Rating: 
Summary: The Mirror
Review: Prince Myshkin arrives in Russia from a sanitorium in Switzerland. On the train journey, he meets Rogozhin and Lebedev, both of whom feature as major characters in the rest of the novel which is devoted to Myshkin's re-entry into Russian society.
Myshkin, Dostoyevsky's "completely beautiful human being", is the mirror in which the various characters of Russian society are reflected - and a mixed-up, sordid lot they are.
"The Idiot" is a long, complicated novel demanding a great deal of concentration from the reader: much of the action and plot development is not spelled out, rather it has to be devined or inferred from the characters' words or attitudes. Especially in the middle part of the novel, when the third person narrative is interrupted, keeping abreast of matters often becomes difficult, there being a real danger of disorientation.
Several things occurred to me after I finished this book. I regretted not having jotted down the characters' names as they appeared - this would have assisted me in keeping track of who was whom, as the cast list is long (it is a Russian novel, after all) and they disappear and then reappear sometimes after a long interval. It's worth persevering with "The Idiot", but I thought that a second reading (when I've got the time) might be worthwhile, as I think I would get even more out of it.
Not an easy read by any means, but a challenge, and one worth taking up.
G Rodgers
Rating:
Summary: The Mind That Matters
Review: Another reviewer states that The Idiot should not be a first foray into Dostoevsky's works....which I disagree with....
Having first read 'Crime and Punishment' and the dark complexity of a good man driven to tortured madness by having committed an unspeakable act, no matter how well-intentioned it might be...I found this novel lacking in comparison....and might suggest this as a starting point, in order to gain an insight into the writing style and illumination of theme one needs to appreciate such a complex author...
Prince Myshkin, the 'good man' protagonist of this novel, is purported by other reviewers to be either a representation of Christ; or a representation of the author himself, a man 'flawed' by his alcoholism and gambling addiction, illustrated as an affliction of epilepsy in the character of Myshkin....a 'defect' which makes him less than desirable to those around him...
However, Myshkin's wealth brings him admiration, frienship, even love; in the persons of some unscrupulous and amoral characters who seek him out for their own personal agendas, regardless of his 'idiocy' while Dostoevksy plays out their affect on this 'pure' man as they attempt to corrupt him as well. The characters are vain, ill-tempered gold-diggers and social climbers, and Myshkin's is tasked with remaining 'pure' in the face of such influence on him.
The novel is long, yes, and takes some attention in order to wade through the myriad characters and situations; and a bit of adeptness at 'reading between the lines' in order to recognize the theme that the author was exploring. However, though I do find it lack-lustre in comparison to C&P, it is a worthwhile read and deserves its place in the annals of classic literature.
Rating:
Summary: The Idiot
Review: I very much enjoyed the first part of this book, but the remaining parts seemed to loose focus and direction, in my opinion. All and all a worthy novel from a brilliant author, but unfortunately not one of my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: sublimely inaccessible
Review: This is one of the more famous of Dostoyevsky's novels, and quite rightly so as it has his very-unique blend of psychology, philosophy and an unrelenting view of the bleakest recesses of the soul.
I read the novel in the original Russian, so this isn't a review of any particular translation but the work itself.
In brief, the book centres around a Prince who has returned to Russia after being treated for mental illness in Switzerland since his childhood (hence the idiot). He quickly becomes involved within the upper-middle eschellons of St Petersburgian society, as people become fascinated by his direct honesty, simplicity and compassion. He becomes emotionally involved with a Fallen Woman, and this develops into a love triangle with another woman, ultimately ending in --- you guessed it! - tragedy. The Idiot is portrayed as the symbol of a child-like innocence: he genuinely wants everyone to live in harmony and love. However, the falseness, politics and backstabbing of the world of Russian middle-nobility will have none of that.
The plot is quite complicated - but not in terms of twists. The story is quite simple in terms of what happened, however much of it is told inside-out, focusing on the internal world of the characters. So, if you feel like you've missed something - a reason for a character's comment, an event etc, chances are, this will be revealed later on.
Dostoyevsky dwells on the extreme minute aspects of the emotional lives of his charactes. This is the richest aspect of the novel - and these emotions possess all the contradiction and chaos that real people have. There are no total heroes in the book - but I found a part of myself identifying with the Prince, as the grown child who just doesn't want to accept the "adult" behaviour of interpersonal relationships. I think it's expected in reading the book that some characters will be loathed, some found amusing and admired, some arousing interest - but not loved. This is because the world portrayed within the book is very inaccessible. It's hard to identify with anyone in terms of more than the generality of emotion - not just because the setting is remote, but because the characters experience thoughts and ideas that are so different to what most people would. I think this inaccessability was deliberate - as we feel not-quite-at-home in the world of the book, so it highlights how the Prince is not quite at home there - and that's where the sublime feeling is derived from.
On a side note, be prepared for the difficulty of keeping track of names, as people are called by their surnames on certain occasions and the rest is first name and father's name. With heaps of characters and many Russian names, it all becomes a mess. But with some concentration (perhaps making a cast of characters?) that can be overcome and a great read will be had.
A great book that will interact with your emotional world - if you don't mind heavy reading.
Rating:
Summary: A beauty of a book ...always timely
Review: I am a big Dostoyevsky head, but this is certainly one of his weaker novels. If you're starting on Dostoyevsky, go for the big one, The Brothers Karamazov, or the little one, Notes from Underground.King Dosty creates a fantastic set of characters and gets out his axe grinder; it comes together fairly slowly, but completing the book will be rewarding. Gracing the pages we have nihilists, slavophobes, endearing characters and despicables. Dostoyevsky was attempting to depict an honest, pure man (Prince Myshkin). Chances are all readers will like and admire Myshkin until about 3/4 of the way through, where things start to get really hairy: A scene is delightfully prepared with humor; Prince Myshkin, about to marry a Aglaia Epanchin (a beautiful young daughter of a well-off general) is exposed to aristocratic 'society' at a party. The way Dostoyevsky prepares you is reminiscent of some of Tolstoy's depictions of aristocrats; humorously jibing and illustrating their ridiculousness, yet appreciating the fact that they are human beings. Anyhow, the party is a make-or break opportunity for Myshkin; if he pleases the aristos, the Epanchin family will approve of the marriage and he will live happily ever afer with beautiful Aglaia. All Myshkin has to do is keep his mouth shut (as the Epanchins begged him to do beforehand), but regrettably, he does not. Impassioned, the Prince delivers a few splutterings about religion and Russia's destiny to one of the distinguished aristos. It appears that Myshkin here is really a mouthpeice for Dostoyevsky himself - and not the Ivan Karamazov doubting part of Dostoyevsky, what Myshkin says at this interval is what Dostoyevsky *really* believes. And the beliefs are rather too much for me to swallow: Catholicism is, in Myshkin's opinion, worse than atheism, the nihilist socialists have a deep hatred of Russia, etc.. we see the true extent of Dostoyevsky's reactionary religious beliefs. The aristocrat gentlemen try to mollify Myshkin a little, but to no avail; they leave seeing him as an oddity. The marriage with Aglaia falls through. After reading Myshkin's outburst, I could only blink a few times. Is this what Alyosha K. would say if pressed the same way? Thank goodness he didn't, otherwise Brothers K would have been a bit less enduring... But the book is still not a bad book! At the very least, Dostoyevsky shows how absolutely nutty people can become when it comes to passionate love. This isn't a simple love triangle, its a love quadrilateral!! But beyond the love story, you'll see social criticism, political and philosophical debates, pyschological analysis... in short, the typical complex and awesome Dostoyevsky novel. But, as I said above, its not Dosty at his best. Oh - and its a tragedy. You didn't think the Christ-man would be accepted by the sinful world, did you?
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