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"The Idiot" is a novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky that explores the life and struggles of its main character within Russian society. The work is considered significant in literature for its psychological depth and its examination of moral and spiritual themes.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Book · Open Library
- Author
- Elif Batuman
- First published
- 1969
- Editions
- 15
- Subjects
- fiction, Identity (Psychology), Turkish Americans, Women college students, Coming of age, Literary, Contemporary Women, Bildungsromans
via Open Library
~40 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Idiot (pre-reform Russian: Идіотъ; post-reform Russian: Идиот, romanized: Idiót) is a novel by the 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published serially in the journal The Russian Messenger in 1868–1869.
The title is an ironic reference to the central character of the novel, Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, a young prince whose goodness, open-hearted simplicity, and guilelessness lead many of the more worldly characters he encounters to mistakenly assume that he lacks intelligence and insight. In the character of Prince Myshkin, Dostoevsky set himself the task of depicting "the positively good and beautiful man." The novel examines the consequences of placing such a singular individual at the centre of the conflicts, desires, passions, and egoism of worldly society, both for the man himself and for those with whom he becomes involved.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “The Idiot” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.