The Idiot
In a world driven by vanity, power, and concealed wounds, what place is there for pure goodness? The Idiot follows Prince Myshkin—a man of childlike honesty and saintly compassion—whose return to Russian society sets off a quiet storm of obsession, betrayal, and unspoken despair. As he moves through a web of wounded souls and fevered passions, his innocence becomes both a beacon and a curse, casting light on the madness that masquerades as reason. Is it folly to live with an unguarded heart—or is it the only form of sanity left? With haunting tenderness and tragic irony, this luminous novel exposes the cruel bewilderment of a society that cannot recognize grace, even as it longs for it.
- Originally Published: 1869
- Publisher : Everyman’s Library, 2002
- Pages: 632
- Genre: Novel
- Book Type: Hardcopy/Hardcover
- ISBN-13: 978-1857152548
- Access: Prime Membership
Description
After his great portrayal of a guilty man in Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky set out in The Idiot to portray a man of pure innocence. The twenty-six-year-old Prince Myshkin, following a stay of several years in a Swiss sanatorium, returns to Russia to collect an inheritance and “be among people.” Even before he reaches home he meets the dark Rogozhin, a rich merchant’s son whose obsession with the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna eventually draws all three of them into a tragic denouement. In Petersburg, the prince finds himself a stranger in a society obsessed with money, power, and manipulation. Scandal escalates to murder as Dostoevsky traces the surprising effect of this “positively beautiful man” on the people around him, leading to a final scene that is one of the most powerful in all of world literature.
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