The Idiot

The Idiot
By Fyodor Dostoesky

Prince Myshkin arrives off the train in St. Petersburg after a long trip from Switzerland. He finds himself unquestioningly accepted into a family of apparent upper crust and entangled in family affairs. In his first attempt to atone for the acceptance, he sights his discussion on Capital Punishment, Love, and his preference to be with children. The unconscious idea was to somehow convince the family that he was capable of conversing on complex subject matter and maintain an appreciation for innocence. After character introduction Dostyosky refers to Myshkin simply as the Prince, which puts a Russian version of Machiavelli twist into the formal and respectful portrayal of upper crust dialogue in St. Petersburg of the mid 1800's.

On a train the Prince describes to his newfound acquaintance Rogozhin his first hand experience and interpretation of capital punishment. I picked up on this theme, principally because of the author's previous books and TJs commentary on the author in the past. The Prince describes that moment of certain death of he being executed. He describes that pleading face for redemption. He describes a man going from full control to absolutely no control and total surrender. He proposes an opportunity for the guilty, to then with a stay of execution, go back into society a completely changed person, incapable of committing a crime. He only describes a face, and purposefully does not propose a stay to be actually carried through.

In prelude to the closing section the author plants an early seed with the supposition that there are two types of people of which to examine. First is the normal person, who is easily satisfied with a new revelation as though a novel idea, gleaned from the wisdom of someone else, was his or her own. The other type of person is one who is the creator of plans aimed at his personal promotion up his ladder of success. The second person spends his time vexed over the unsuccessful results of his narrow design on success. Leaving him in continuous chase for that one accomplishment that will define him as extraordinary and therefore successful. The central theme of both types of persons is the notion of originality. The charlatan commends himself despite what others would say. The discoverer criticizes himself for not reaching that unique ideal. Dostoesky uses an unlikely character in the Prince to demonstrate the wisdom, largely found in innocence and forgiveness, of being able to navigate ones own introspective views across the playing field of the polarized players. This character becomes the intrigue aspect of the, long in coming plot.

Dostoesky’s second theme describes the colorful and intriguing interplay of society from upper crust down through "street walker" as these men vie for the hand of the beautiful Natasha Fillippovna. Of course there is the General who holds Natasha as a kept women and must release her. The whole scene is designed by Natasha herself to occur on her birthday where she makes her decision. Each has he putting their money forth with exception of the Prince who announces simply his love. It is there and then that the room discovers the Prince has come in to a large inheritance of an undetermined amount of money. Natasha lets it be known that he has won the prize, and then suddenly throws the proposal of Rogozhin dowries into a fire and leaves the room for Moscow alone. The parlor is now filled with people from rogue thugs led by his prime competitor for Natasha to a retired General of the Army and many in between to mull over in their mind if they would be the one to reach into the fire and pull out this large bag of money for their own. How to do this gracefully and with a sense of justifiable entitlement is the subject of many pages in the book. That chapter leaves you with a yearning for proper etiquette and at the same time exposes the social pressures of money.

As the social circle moves with the story from Petersburg to the Dacha in the country, IIpolitt, a character is introduced simply to examine the aspects of suicide. Interestingly in the reciting of Iipolitt’s suicide note, a challenge in the belief of Christ's resurrection provokes the reader to reexamine his or her own faith. The part that struck me most was the observation that all the paintings of Christ during his crucifixion do not properly portray a man who has been tortured but rather a peaceful forgiving man. The question posed is to believe or not in the resurrection put in such a way as to imply that if a man gave his life in the way Jesus did, why would one not. And to parallel this thought the room full of guests are privileged to ponder to the benefit of the reader why IIpolitt failed in his suicide attempt.

The story makes several turns in an out of family plots to abscond money from the Prince. In almost every attempt a competing party for the same favor of the Prince defends the Prince. A turn about is fair play. When the misdeed is exposed, the Prince responds with complete forgiveness leaving you with an implied message from the author to forgive for they no not what they are doing. These numerous plots against the Prince are occurring in the Dachas of the Petersburg countryside where the reader becomes familiar with the 1860s life style of taking the train into town for daily business and returning at the end of a day. I enjoyed this as it reminded me of my lifestyle in my last year in New York. The aspect that I grew most fond of was the sense of self responsibility in a Russian of the time; to manage money and securities in a expert and intuitive way that seems to have been lost on today’s modern man; a point that has tossed me further into Russian literature and possibly into literature of the era of Splendid Isolation.

As an undercurrent to these plots the Prince finds himself still in love with Natasha and ashamed of his weakness in violating personal integrity as well as the promise he gave to his good friend and competitor Rogozhin who has given the Prince nothing but betrayal and foiled plots to kill him. In Russian theater, Dostoesky colors a cloak and dagger game of intrigue with Rogozhin plotting first to kill the Prince and then to kill Natasha Fillippovna. The way in which he meets this goal is somewhat curious of which I will leave to you. However in the end, after 600 pages of social satiric drama of which amounts to no real accomplishment by any of the characters, you the reader are left to contemplate the mind of he who is about to meet his maker. And then you are left with a society who could really care less about your survival or the rest of your meaningless life as they see it. You do have a face to look at in the mirror for your answers. I closed the book a month ago. It took me this long to actually grind it’s grist and make a loaf of bread with it. I leave it for you to break.