THE IDIOT
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Vintage Classics
1868-9, translation 2001
Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
Ms. Hen likes to read heavy Russian novels in the middle of
the summer. She does this because most of the time, she has more of an
attention span to read something long when the sun shines all day. While most people
are reading fluffy bestselling books on the beach, Ms. Hen reads about the
torment of life in Russia in the nineteenth century.
Ms. Hen has read both THE BROTHERS KARAMASOV and CRIME AND
PUNISHMENT during different summers. She liked CRIME AND PUNISHMENT the best,
out of the three, because she thought it makes the most sense as a story, and
the characters weren’t all completely unpleasant.
Ms. Hen read that THE IDIOT is the most autobiographical of
all Dostoevsky’s novels. She also read that he wanted to write a novel that was
the complete opposite of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, one that surrounds a character
that is completely innocent. But all the characters that are around the prince,
or the idiot, are despicable.
The novel is about a young prince, Lev Nikoleavich Myshkin,
who is traveling on a train to Petersburg from Switzerland where he had spent
time recovering from an illness. He meets Roggozhin on the train and they talk
about their lives. The prince tries to make his way in Petersburg, but quickly
he becomes embroiled into Nastaya Filipovna’s life, which is a disaster. She is
known as a disgraced woman, and everyone he meets tells him that.
The prince also meets the Epanchin family and becomes
involved with them, especially Aglaya. All the people around him seem to take
advantage of the prince’s naivete. He spent so much time in an asylum when he
was young, that he doesn’t know the ways of society, and how things work amongst
people. He doesn’t know that it isn’t deemed proper to associate with fallen
women like Nastaya Filipovna, and it also isn’t right to say you will marry one
woman, then take up with another.
Ms. Hen found reading this novel difficult because most of
it consists of people standing around at a party, screaming and
being horrible to each other. Even though the prince is an simple character, everyone in
his circle is out to get everyone else, and are only interested in themselves.
This made it difficult for Ms. Hen to pay attention to what was happening in
the novel.
Some hens appeared in THE IDIOT, which made Ms. Hen happy.
There was talk about dreams that are childish, “Once Alexandra Ivanovna saw
nine hens in a dream, and this caused a formal quarrel between her and her
mother – why – it is difficult to explain.” Dreaming of hens might be childish,
but Ms. Hen doesn’t know why she should tell her mother and have a formal
quarrel about it. Ms. Hen realizes that this novel took place in a different
culture, and a different time. A lot of aspects of this novel made Ms. Hen
cringe, for the way women were treated, and the ridiculousness of fighting
duels, but she knows that she can’t do anything about the way the world used to
be.
Ms. Hen thought this novel was difficult, and slow. It took
her a very long time to finish. When she was reading, there seemed to be a lot
of suffering on every page. Ms. Hen likes to read about people’s troubles that are not her own. There’s a special degree of torment that goes along with the
Russian soul. Ms. Hen thinks she might have a piece of Russian soul inside her,
even though she is not Russian, she feels as if she connects with Russia
through a type of astral cord that she can’t control.
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