The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

published 1869

fiction

“. . . he was blind; otherwise he would have long since paid attention to the fact that this “Idiot” whom he mistreated so, was sometimes capable of understanding everything all too quickly and subtly, and of giving an excellent account of it.”

“Beauty is a riddle.”

When I sat down to read The Idiot, by the great Foydor Dostoyevsky, I already had an idea of what the book was about, meaning I’d heard that it was the author’s intent to portray, in his own words, “a perfectly beautiful man.” Dostoyevsky wanted to write a character that was as close to a perfect Christian as one could be (Dostoyevsky himself was a devout Christian) and to test this character against the trappings of modern society. “Modern society” to him of course was 19th century Russia, but the core observations remain relevant even to this 21st century American. Dostoyevsky is regarded as one of the best intuitive psychologists in world literature. So I wanted to hear his answer to these questions: How would a kind, innocent soul navigate when placed among ordinary, flawed humans? How would they affect him? How would he affect them? Is it possible that one pure heart can survive in a world that is ever increasingly vain, corrupt and godless? Could it maybe even prevail? I don’t want to give away the answers. I do think, agree or disagree, the book is worth grappling with in its entirety. But I’ll give an outline of the plot:

The “Idiot” in question is named Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, and at the beginning of the story he is 26 years old and arriving back home to Russia for the first time in years. He is from a noble family but he has been unwell, suffering from something like epileptic seizures, and has been living under the care of a beneficent doctor in Switzerland. He arrives penniless, underdressed for the Russian cold, with rags on his feet. Due to his trusting, open demeanor and gentle personality, he quickly piques the interest of those around him, including the dark-faced man sitting across from him, Roghozin.

He goes to visit a distant relation, Lizaveta Prokófeyvna, the wife of the prominent General Ivolgin. Through this family connection and his own remarkable personality he becomes intertwined in the lives of the Ivolgins, their three daughters, Roghozin from the train, and many other members of high society. At the crux of the story is the complicated love triangle between the Prince, the Ivolgin’s youngest daughter Aglaya, and the mysterious, tormented beauty Nastasya Fillipovna. Nastasya Fillipovna is one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever read. She’s someone who has come to deeply believe that there is something fundamentally broken in her that can never be repaired. After being sexually abused throughout her youth by a powerful baron, she and everyone around her see her as a “fallen woman.” As we meet her at the beginning of the story, she is clearly somebody who has chosen to embrace the role the world has given them, if it gives them a sense of empowerment and control. You think I’m a bad person? I’ll show you how bad of a person I am! The Prince, being naturally perspicacious, is the only one who can see her putting on a front, and it breaks his heart. He’s the only one who can tell she isn’t this cold-hearted character that she pretends to be. He sees through her charade straight to her core, to the wounded child that she truly is. (It’s the only way he knows how to see people, the beautiful bastard!) And as for her? Well, the Prince comes along and, probably for the first time ever, someone truly sees her. It's destabilizing to say the least. And then there's the rival: none other than Roghozin. He loves Nastasya as much as the Prince, but while the Prince has love and pity alongside each other in his heart, Roghozin has love and hatred. He is the Prince's opposite, and yet throughout the story the two share a strange kinship. They understand each other. All while Nastasya walks the knife's edge between self-love and self-destruction.

There are rivalries, confrontations, grand speeches, moments of hilarity, moments of humiliation, one attempted murder, and one successful murder. Through it all, the Prince remains, for better or for worse, one who in the words of Lizaveta “keeps his own counsel.” In my opinion, he doesn’t always make the right decisions, and I even think he behaves badly toward the end, but he always does what he thinks is right, and does it truthfully. (And awkwardly.) And there’s a lot to be said for those two things alone.

If the Prince has a superpower, it's seeing the best in people without being naive. It's the kind of trait that gets him taken advantage of, but he knows it, and he has other ways of sticking up for himself. Far from being the knight in shining armor, he's more like a gentle fool. He also occasionally displays tremendous intelligence. One of my favorite things about him was how much internal conflict and doubt he experiences.This character is meant to be the purest of heart, and he’s second-guessing himself constantly. It was almost reassuring. That said, I think he experiences two very different kinds of love, one for Aglaya and another for Nastasya. Ultimately, of course, he must choose between the two. Does he make the right choice? Well, I guess that depends on what kind of love is most important.

Indeed, a lot of the conflict in this story comes from love. Specifically, from romantic love. Which is great. To me, when discussing ideas of religious or spiritual purity, the concepts of love, romance, and human attraction are often sidestepped entirely. It either doesn't exist, or it's all bad. I think it’s a real dearth in conversations around spirituality. It’s almost as if you become enlightened, and you just never get horny or lonely again. I’ve always thought that’s way too clean of a separation. Would it then mean becoming so detached that you just float off and leave the realm of heartache and romance entirely? Isn’t that where some of our most meaningful experiences come from? That’s what was so interesting to me. I don’t care how Dostoyevsky’s hypothetical-perfect-person would act politically or economically. I want to know how they handle love. How they navigate the seismic emotions of falling in love, and being fallen in love with. All the insecurity, all the doubt, all the ways in which your heart is held by someone you don’t even fully understand. It’s terrifying, and that’s even if you’re lucky enough to know the difference between love and infatuation. Take Nastasya for example. The Prince is nothing if not infatuated. And yet while awestruck by her beauty, just like everyone else, his deepest feelings toward Nastasya come from a feeling of pity more than anything else. He sees a wounded, terrified child hiding inside the body of a manipulative enchantress. And yet he follows her to another city, and is usually incoherently awkward around her. How much of this love of his is romantic, and how much of it is a simple pure-hearted compassion? How much is the flesh-and-blood human, and how much is the ideal Christian? Especially since he also admits to being “in love” with Aglaya, the other point on the love triangle, (on one of the love triangles), I see it more so as the latter.  What does it mean to be in love? And what does it mean to love someone the way Christ would have? Can the two even co-exist?

This book was not easy. There’s challenges in reading any kind of translated literature, and this was written 150 years ago on top of that. The plot was all over the place. There were parts that were a slog, parts that were confusing, and there were also some parts that made me feel like I was being given a precious gift. Parts of it illuminated parts of me. Parts of it hurt. Others were genuinely hilarious. After I put it down, I felt like I was experiencing at least six different emotions at once. But despite all that, and despite it not ending how I’d hoped it would, I’m glad I experienced it.

Just like being in love.