Dostoevsky: THE IDIOT Summary & Analysis

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In this episode of Literary Tales we explore Dostoevsky's The Idiot and explore the virtue of the "holy fool" in Russian culture, the virtue of mercy, compassion, and kindness in the story. We also explore Dostoevsky's class criticism within the novel.
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Paul Krause is the editor-in-chief of VoegelinView. He is a writer, classicist, and historian. He has written on the arts, culture, classics, literature, philosophy, religion, and history for numerous publications in the English-speaking world. He is the author of Finding Arcadia (2023), The Odyssey of Love (2021), and the Politics of Plato (2020); he has also contributed to The College Lecture Today (2019) and Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters (2022).

[Jere]

I enjoyed your explanation of the typology of the characters. The opening scene on the train that described how cold the Prince was due to his inadequate clothing exactly prefigured how inadequately prepared he was for the harsh cold society of Petersburg he was heading into.

[willieluncheonette]

"Just a single man, Fyodor Dostoevsky, is enough to defeat all the creative novelists of the world. If one has to decide on 10 great novels in all the languages of the world, one will have to choose at least 3 novels of Dostoevsky in those 10. Dostoevsky’s insight into human beings and their problems is greater than your so-called psychoanalysts, and there are moments where he reaches the heights of great mystics. His book BROTHERS KARAMAZOV is so great in its insights that no BIBLE or KORAN or GITA comes close.

In another masterpiece of Dostoevsky, THE IDIOT, the main character is called ‘idiot’ by the people because they can’t understand his simplicity, his humbleness, his purity, his trust, his love. You can cheat him, you can deceive him, and he will still trust you. He is really one of the most beautiful characters ever created by any novelist. The idiot is a sage. The novel could just as well have been called THE SAGE. Dostoevsky’s idiot is not an idiot; he is one of the sanest men amongst an insane humanity. If you can become the idiot of Fyodor Dostoevsky, it is perfectly beautiful. It is better than being cunning priest or politician. Humbleness has such a blessing. Simplicity has such benediction:"

[yazanasad]

Can confess sins to the holy fool

To sympathise with the poor - no rationality for it, no reason just compassion

[clumsydad]

I recently watched another 10 minute summary of The Idiot. I have difficulty working up the will to read such involved character laden tales.

[Kellie-ck]

Sandles then bearfeet..as John Baptist...but any road... certainly...charity of the heart and it's compassion may be difficult to measure according to "who"...and what is pious

[Kellie-ck]

Well..that's sort of like in gauged classes in Russia at that era..with Rasputin..he wasn't actually a "predator"..but had a raw innocent charm which alkhohol as well as any "indian"..can cut rest loose...his protection order or security was in frame work...of some "religious"order...and fudementals (not negative)of living or being raised in some cold outcrop of hardy folks

[Kellie-ck]

which could have seemed offensive ..to those not as close to it such as John the Baptist....or felt themselves more we know that prophets are so human as well in view of Johnah...and his predicament and his "attitude"to his own human kin was at one point misdirected

[whatbooks]

However, the novel concludes with Prince Myshkin returning to the Swiss sanatorium where he had previously stayed, regressing into a state of idiocy. He becomes completely detached from reality, and his condition is perceived as incurable!

[lorenzogomesdecarvalho]

Amazing review! Im very touched by this book

[Kellie-ck]

Or what she is supposed to "personally "save herself from

[Kellie-ck]

There wasn't any fragile charm ....

[Kellie-ck]

Jesus...peace be upon him.... actually was very astute and somewhat cosmopolitan...and more of a townsman...it's likey he wore

[Kellie-ck]

A female in this situation..and raised exposed to men continually actually needs a fella who can protect her and even from her own vulnerabilities...from conditionings....but not in some dourgh Sense...

[Kellie-ck]

It's my opinion (if you don't mind)...that Jesus Christ Chachcter..as a man and prophet was not nieve at all....yet ofcourse there have been Prophets who's nature had a degree in nature ..