RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Idiot. Signet Classics.
Dostoevsky gives us a warning of Two Russias--one dominated by pride, usury, and “urban values” and the other by the Old Russia.
The idiot himself is a parable of Russia. How will Russia respond to New Russia? Dostoevsky posits Prince Myshkin for redemption to the Russian soul. We see several responses:
A Party at Nastasya’s: The Prince deconstructs Ganya’s violence
B. Gen. Ivolgin waxes about money
C. The Prince and Rogozhin meet in the stairwell.
B’ Gen. Ivolgin has a stroke after waxing about honor
A’ Party at the Yepanchins
1. The Prince offers Holy Russia as the deconstructing solution to the world’s chaos.
2. Dostoevsky exposes the hypocrisy of urban “high life” (p. 558). The Prince gives his eschatology (568ff). References back to an Old Believer (570). Is this a spiritual key to the book?
Conclusion:
While this might be Dostoevsky’s favorite of his works, it is by no means his best. The plot is episodic. The ending did surprise me, though. I didn’t find all of the character social dynamics believable. Given the meeting between Rogozhin and the Prince at the middle of the book, the dynamic between the two towards the end simply strains all credulity.
Positives:
*Lebedev might be a scoundrel, but he is funny. I was in tears when Lebedev made up his story on losing his leg.
*The Prince’s narrative on Russian eschatology is simply beautiful.
Dostoevsky gives us a warning of Two Russias--one dominated by pride, usury, and “urban values” and the other by the Old Russia.
The idiot himself is a parable of Russia. How will Russia respond to New Russia? Dostoevsky posits Prince Myshkin for redemption to the Russian soul. We see several responses:
- Nihilism and Liberalism (and Dostoevsky implies that the latter must always reduce to the former).
- The Bureaucracy. This is manifested by St Petersburg.
- Old Russia. Dostoevsky makes clear he is following--at least ideally--the Old Believers prior to the Nikonian schism.
A Party at Nastasya’s: The Prince deconstructs Ganya’s violence
B. Gen. Ivolgin waxes about money
C. The Prince and Rogozhin meet in the stairwell.
B’ Gen. Ivolgin has a stroke after waxing about honor
A’ Party at the Yepanchins
1. The Prince offers Holy Russia as the deconstructing solution to the world’s chaos.
2. Dostoevsky exposes the hypocrisy of urban “high life” (p. 558). The Prince gives his eschatology (568ff). References back to an Old Believer (570). Is this a spiritual key to the book?
Conclusion:
While this might be Dostoevsky’s favorite of his works, it is by no means his best. The plot is episodic. The ending did surprise me, though. I didn’t find all of the character social dynamics believable. Given the meeting between Rogozhin and the Prince at the middle of the book, the dynamic between the two towards the end simply strains all credulity.
Positives:
*Lebedev might be a scoundrel, but he is funny. I was in tears when Lebedev made up his story on losing his leg.
*The Prince’s narrative on Russian eschatology is simply beautiful.