The Idiot

I've never been one for the classics, preferring instead to read a random assemblage of books that catch my eye while wandering the many bookshops of London. However, when I see the growing chorus of mentally (un)balanced individuals on the news calling for the complete elimination of any trace of Russia, no matter how unrelated to current events it may be, I start feeling a pang of hunger for those classics that may soon be black-bagged and snatched from the shelves.

That is why as soon as I saw the cover of The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky coldly staring at me from the shelf, I couldn't refuse and bought it immediately.

The novel starts with its eponymous character, Prince Myshkin, an innocent, christ-like man of the Russian nobility with child-like naivety. With his severe epilepsy partially treated, and his backers' money running out, he descends from the Swiss Mountains and begins a journey back to Russia. On this train, he meets his inversion, the wealthy atheistic merchant's son Rogozhin. Impulsive, passionate, and with a half-mad love for and half-mad obsession with a woman called Nastasya Filippovna.

Here is where the whirlwind begins, as we are whisked first to Myshkins relatives for a brief introduction before being thrown straight into the headwinds of the storm that is Nastasya Filippovna. A woman, orphaned into the guardianship of the decadent aristocrat Totsky, who groomed her into his mistress. As a result, she is unstable, and Myshkin believes her insane. Despite this, he falls in love with her and immediately promises to live the rest of his days with her.

It's around this triangle that Dostoevsky explores the state of Russia, revealing its deep cynicism, faithlessness, and daily corruption as it's clear that no one but Myshkin cares for anything but social status or money. It is a fundamentally shallow place amid great social upheaval. Merchants and industrialists are now beginning to dominate society, and their rise has brought the new world of the middle class. This negative view of Russian society is due to the clear feeling conveyed by Dostoevsky that it's an inversion of the correct order. Rogozhin is wealthy but drawn from common stock. Myshkin is poor but from an old noble dynasty. The highly accomplished General is a boisterous liar, and what should be a noble lieutenant is more of a common thug.

The theme of inversion is reinforced with the appearance of every new character. Each crawls onto the page and reveals itself to be, in some manner, morally corrupted compared to the behavior one would expect of someone in their position. The early introduction of Totsky, a deviant aristocrat who exploits his position of care, is one such example. It no doubt serves as a comment on the Russian aristocracy as a whole in how they fulfilled their duties of guardianship over the Russia that was in their care.

However, there is plenty of hope. While weaving themselves around Myshkin, his pure goodness reflects on them, leading them to change their ways and end up in a better position than when they started. This growth and change in even the most minor characters reveals the layered storytelling on offer and comes together to create a living, very human world.

It's not very original of me to comment on the Christian character that threads its way through every scene involving Myshkin. It's front and centre that Dostoevsky intended him to be a Christ-like figure and that within The Idiot, he is exploring how a Christ-like man would deal with a morally decaying un-christ-like modern world. When Myshkin recounts his experience in Switzerland, this clear impression has the required detail added to make it a certainty. He spends most of his time with the children, but Dostoevsky distinguishes him from them by making Myshkin more kind and good-hearted than they are. The focus is on how Myshkin deliberately and indirectly induced both them and the villagers into being kind to an ostracised woman. We don't live in a bible literate society, but here I believe Dostoevsky is painting Myshkin as the perfect picture of one who enters heaven as written in Mathew 18:3-4. He humbles himself, becomes better than the little children, and displays supreme Christian virtue.

In two particular situations, Dostoevsky's mastery is fully on display and makes you understand why he is so celebrated. First, when dealing with Ippolit, a young nihilist dying of tuberculosis. Secondly, when dealing with the two women that treat Myshkin as their plaything.

Firstly, the young nihilist Ippolit and his half-manifesto half-suicide note is the part of the story that first truly gripped me. I pulled out my copy while having a quick rest on a hike. What I thought would be one chapter turned into several chapters and a far long rest than expected.

Early in the novel, Myshkin, or rather Dostoevsky speaking directly through him, delivers his screed against execution. In the mouth of tuberculosis-infected Ippolit, we see the stance of the prisoner about to face execution again. Frequent referrals are made to his status as a man condemned by his sickness, and the worry about when or how long he'll survive until the arbitrary sentence of death is again a reflection of the earlier screed. Myshkin offers him his house so that Ippolit may live the rest of his days free from the darkness of his room where all he has to stare at is a brick wall.

Again, there is frequent vivid imagery of Ippolit, a prisoner of his disease. I see this as Dostoevsky's commentary on the natural endpoint of what materialism delivers, Ippolits condemned not by disease but by his views on life. With Myshkins's gesture of bringing him out to the trees and clean air of his villa and the improvement it brings Ippolit, we see what Dostoevsky is trying to achieve with the character. By accepting the offer from the christ-like figure, Ippolit is brought closer to health and further away from his status as a condemned figure. No doubt a hint about what Dostoevsky believes even the smallest Christian gesture achieves.

The only other comment in the same vein that is apparent is that when Ippolit wakes, he sees the outline of Rogozhin, and recognises him as the man sitting by the door of his dark room watching over him. In this, I believe Dostoevsky is attempting to portray Rogozhin, or at least what he represents as a sort of jailer. The inversion of Myshkin, the man that wants him to live in the open and be free.

Despite making his views clear, Dostoevsky hears out what he believes the materialist view represents in what I'd describe as the most poignant monologue of the book with Ippolits 'My Necessary Explanations'. Within it, he writes a condemnation of everyone that takes life too lightly. It's callous at times towards those crushed under starvation and suffering but represents a belief that life is something special, it is something to be grasped, and that no situation is permanent "If he's alive, everything must be within his power!". Despite its callousness towards the suffering, it is a celebration of them and what they could be if they merely grasped life.

This monologue contains my favourite quotation from the book, summing up Dostoevsky's take on materialism while using Columbus as a leaping-off point to describe something deeply human, the romance and joy of the journey over the destination, something I have experienced over and over again.

Secondly, when we see Myshkin torn between two diametrically opposite women, Aglaya and Nastasya, this is where The Idiot captures me the most as the trappings of the 19th century almost fell away. It becomes a very human story, some moments that grasp you, some that make you chuckle, in others, wow, I have been that Idiot before.

In both cases, these women are unworthy of Myshkin. One minute they are madly in love with him, the next, rejecting him entirely. For Aglaya he is her plaything, a clown that she uses to amuse herself at first, but she grows a deep appreciation for his innate noble character causing her to leap with joy at him becoming her idiot. As for Nastasya, she knows she is a fallen woman and out of deep love for Myshkin refuses to sully his reputation by marrying him. Then again, who could be worthy of a Christ-like figure?

The budding romance between Myshkin and Aglaya drew me thoroughly into her corner and left me deeply invested in the idea that Myshkin would turn away from his almost divine mission to make that fallen woman Nastasya his. As we reach the party with Aglayas family and their various friends and benefactors, my heart stopped numerous times as it all comes almost undone. The most relatable moment throughout the whole book occurs when Myshkin makes a fool of himself at a party, the kind people there convince him it's okay but the next day it is not. This sort of meandering gives the impression that there is no clear direction, but these shifts and misunderstandings add a realistic, human quality to the characters that compounds with other small details add depth to what would otherwise be a one-and-done scene,

The final confrontation between these two women is the chapter that had me gripping the book the hardest and left me feeling emotionally exhausted once I pulled through it. Aglaya pulls an its-her-or-me situation with Myshkin, forcing the three together to settle the score once and for all. But as Myshkin gives in to temptation and falls again into Nastasyas clutches you join the chorus yet again to mutter into the book "Oh you idiot" It's a testament to how well this novel is written that you start reacting to the Prince's actions as the character in the novel do.

The Idiot is a Russian novel, so I didn't exactly go into it expecting a happy ending. When I got close to it, I gripped what few pages remained, praying that the rapidly thinning clump of paper between my position and the cold back cover were reserved for an inversion of the Prince's fortunes. Perhaps all would be forgiven, the Myshkin would have a happy life with Aglaya, and they'd spend the rest of their days in each other's arms.

These were the hopes running through my mind, but there was no turnaround, and it was far darker than I imagined. Death runs through this novel, from the Prince's outbursts against execution, Ippolits' desire for suicide, and the painting of Dead Christ in his Tomb hanging in the Rogozhin household. Dostoevsky baits us with it the entire way through, but what is death if not delivery to judgement? After many hours of fruitless searching, Prince Myshkin finds Rogozhin, is led back to his house, and see's Nastasya Filippovna stabbed through the heart. In the shadow of the Dead Christ, Nastasya lays dead, and the Prince enters an epilepsy-induced coma.

Although distraught with the ending I got, it's very fitting. Every major or minor character in this novel is flawed in some way, and those flaws manage to undo them. Nastasya is the only character where the context around her flaws marks her as the only true innocent other than the Prince himself, but innocent in a different sense. Who, after all, could blame an orphan for being groomed by the decadent aristocrat Totsky?

Taken with this context, Nastasya is the Prince's counterpart within The Idiot and explains the orbit they share. Unlike him, whose missteps only take a mention of his idiocy to receive forgiveness. Her actions build-up, compound, and are terminally in the frame. Both end up martyrs. The Prince ends up as an invalid vegetable laid out on a bed back in his Swiss Mountain, no doubt in the same manner as the dead Christ. In contrast, Nastasya finds herself martyred for the wrongs of a decadent, deeply materialistic society so obsessed with social status that it allowed her innocence to be stolen without complaint, twisting her into a discordant beast.

I believe that is the key to understanding the role of Nastasya throughout the novel, and its general themes. I've noticed that each character receives either judgement, punishment, or redemption. Some find redemption through their interactions with the Prince. Others, like Ivolgin, were punished for his lies and thievery with broken friendships and a stroke. Dostoevsky, a deeply Christian man, spent the novel having Nastasya judged by every character but Myshkin. With her murder, he sent her to God to receive judgement, the only entity he believed could.

Yes, punishment is the label you could apply to her horrific murder. Crucially, Dostoevsky does not indulge in it as if it's a fitting end he conjured up for her as he does for the other characters. With this act, she is fully separated from the ensemble and placed on the same level as the Prince, above the society they inhabit. The fool and the fallen; united in a mutual dance over 600 pages to their bitter end.

Of all the pieces of Russian literature, I'm glad I started with this. Dostoevsky produced a masterpiece that shattered the most common rules of storytelling but crafted a woven narrative about human nature, Christianity, and the modern age. It's a testament to how well it captures the timeless that despite being separated by 150 years, it still felt relevant today. I hope you manage to buy it before it's dropped from the shelves in some misplaced anti-war statement.