The Idiot was my first work by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and amounted in many ways to what I expected: befittingly tragic, intensely psychological, and deeply moving as all great Russian literature is hyped up to be. However, in many ways The Idiot exceeded those expectations too. Especially from a psychological aspect; exploring the consciousness of Prince Myshkin affected my emotional and mental state for the duration of my reading experience in an incredibly moving and reflective way. The Idiot by Dostoyevsky has immediately become one of my favorite works of all time, and, despite some glaring flaws in pacing and cohesion, is easily one of, if not the, most powerful novel I have ever read. 

     The Idiot recounts the story of Prince Lev Myshkin, a man who has spent the last 24 years in a sanatorium in Switzerland, being treated for his simplemindedness and “idiocy.” Only now has he returned to his homeland of Russia and gets to interact with a plethora of various characters. Most of The Idiot is about how Myshkin interacts with these characters, and how his lasting goodheartedness, willingness to forgive, and transparency makes him prey to the schemes and pettiness of those around him. 

     There are four characters in The Idiot that stuck the most with me while I was reading: Prince Myshkin, Nastasya Fillipovna, Ippolit, and Ferdyschenko. Myshkin is the most interesting being the centerpiece of the novel, and his connections and parallels to Christ, as well as to Dostoyevsky himself, are immensely fascinating. In the novel, the Prince has two main love interests: Aglaya and Nastasya Fillipovna. Aglaya is the daughter of General Epanchin, a rich man who has little importance to the novel. On the other hand, Aglaya is very central to the novel and her interactions with the Prince take up much of Books 2 and 3. However, Nastaya is a much more interesting character to me. Even though she appears rarely and sporadically across the novel, her absence is often louder than many characters in the book, and the shadow she casts over the whole narrative is staggering. Nastasya is a hurtful and mean-spirited woman, but one can hardly blame her for it, since her upbringing is described as so horrible. Her meanness to other people is above all a defense mechanism to protect herself from people. So when Myshkin offers her his hand in marriage in the beginning, Nastaya, out of fear of tainting such a pure man with her nature and out of self-preservation, denies him, running away with a ne’er-do-well named Rogozhin. The Prince’s longing for Nastasya never ends for the duration of the novel until the tragic ending. 

     Besides these two are two more minor characters (one more minor than the other): Ippolit and Ferdyschenko. Ippolit is an 18 year old dying slowly of consumption. He is an edgy atheist and nihilist who is hard for anyone to like or sympathize with. However, it is clear (especially in the scene where he reads his “Explanation”) that he is by no means a traditional nihilist. Ippolit is an extremely young man who loves life so incredibly much that he can not bear the fact that he has been denied it. In many ways, Ippolit is also meant to be the darker side of Prince Myshkin, someone just as attentive, young, and sickly with a darker and more antagonistic nature. 

     The fourth character of interest is Ferdyschenko, a very minor character whom I adore. He is essentially an uncouth, dumb drunkard who does an act as an even dumber drunkard to try and be charming, although he never is, and no one really likes him. Just that character idea makes me love him in a way very similar to Nicholas’ mother in Nicholas Nickleby (maybe I actually just love him because he feels the most like a Charles Dickens character?). But he plays a very minor role in the novel, and is not very important.

     What was most incredible to discover through reading The Idiot is how it affected me personally, and realizing how much you can discover about yourself through your impressions of great literature. Oftentimes I personally will imagine myself in different, fictional scenarios and try to imagine how I would react when faced with different challenges. Something I realized after coming back to The Idiot after a short period of time was that in those thoughts, my idea of myself had been distorted by my understanding of Prince Myshkin’s character. I had been imagining myself as Prince Myshkin on a subconscious level that I myself did not realize until looking at his actions in the book. After that, I realized how personal reading can be, and should be, and makes me want to read everything by Dostoyevsky now (including an in-depth reread of The Idiot).
Overall, The Idiot is a genuine masterpiece, despite clunky pacing in some parts. I would highly recommend it for anyone looking for a deep read and something to think on. Just be prepared for bleak catastrophe by the end; it is a 19th century Russian novel after all!