The Idiot

Brigitte writes:

The Idiot is one of the few very moving books that I have read. Dostoevsky really makes you feel as if you are actually there and you can see everything that’s happening. After reading just a little bit of the book you begin to feel the essence of the characters and you begin to worry and wonder about them also.
Unlike most novels, the beginning does not start off by giving a brief background info of what has happened, the author lets the characters do it instead. Straight away you can tell that everything is going to take place in Russia. Dostoevsky sure doesn’t make it easy for you to try to pronounce the long Russian names. It is especially difficult when the story starts to get really intense; you always seem to stumble upon the longest names, which sometimes take away the excitement that you had when you were reading.
In the beginning of the novel, mostly all of the important characters are introduced. Prince Myshkin is the main character in the novel, and after him, it would be both Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya, both of which are extremely beautiful. Throughout the novel, there is in a sense, a sort of love triangle going on between these three. Both Nastasya and Aglaya love the prince very much, but he is torn between the two. He often refers to Aglaya and everything associated with her as light, ironically, her name also means light. On the other hand, he always associates everything that has to do with Nastasya as dark. Even the physical appearance of Rogozhin, which is who she has decided to run off with but only to show how much pain Totsky has caused her. In a way, it is a sort of revenge to Totsky because she is degrading herself by running off with Rogozhin, because he is very low class and he in a way, loves her too much. He loves her to the point of hatred, and Nastasya knows this. Even the prince has admitted that he thinks that the two might get married, but Rogozhin might end up killing her, shortly afterwards. Nastasya would very much like to be wed with the prince, but she believes that she is not worthy of marrying him, and in a sense, he is too good for her. The Prince is unlike anyone that they have ever seen. He stands out in the corrupted word of Russia because he is always so honest and upfront about everything. Sometimes, people take these innocent traits of his along with his illness of epilepsy and assume that he is an idiot. In reality, the prince is far more intelligent than anyone else that he meets, and I the end of the book we learn that the all the help and passion that the prince was too much for the people around him, and that such a world was not reading for such a great man like Prince Myshkin.
All in all, I think that this is very moving and touching book and I would rate the novel as an eight and a half. I would give it this rating because by the end of the book, I was honestly moved by all the kind acts that Prince Myshkin did, and how everyone around him was oblivious of his help. Also, I liked how even though he is such a kind soul, his environment was not ready for him yet and he ended up doing the opposite of his intentions.
I would defiantly recommend this book to other students because I think that it really has something to say and after reading the book, you feel as if you see a different view of things, like Prince Myshkin. You have a different outlook on life and the things that happen. For example, Prince Myshkin is diagnosed with epilepsy, but he does not hate nature for doing so, instead he wants to help the people who are like him, who are different. On the other hand, another character named Hippolite, also has an illness in which he only has a few weeks to live, but instead, he has a different outlook on nature. He hates nature for giving him such a short time in life and he thinks that he is being cheated by it. Ultimately, the prince has learned to have a certain understanding for everything and calmness inside of him for mostly everyone he meets, and the book teaches you to do the same.