The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Is being kind, generous and warm hearted a proof of being an idiot? Well, I bet the answer changes from person to person. Dostoyevsky would say 'yes'. By introducing to us Prince Myshkin (ie. the idiot) he shows us a person that cannot find the place in the real World. Myshkin doesn't care about himself much, he cares about he loves, about poor and about sick, however this doesn't gain him any respect. It is rather opposite because his behaviour and total honesty only strenghtens the opinion of Russian society that he is an idiot. The biggest advantage of this book is that it's meaning can be applied to today's society as well. Don't we ...

The story of an epileptic, whose simplicity and goodness make him a Christ-figure. It is set in 1860s Russia, a society in turmoil. The mixture of characters is vast, typifying every part of the culture, from merchants and the decadent aristocracy, through the bourgeois to anarchists and the poor. Following the figure of an outsider, we move through these extremes, and an equal variation of emotions. Prince Myshkin, the hero, has grown up away from Russia, educated by a Swiss doctor and treated for his childhood illness. Because of this, or his purity of character, he seems unworldly, and - apparently penniless - vulnerable to fall underfoot in a greedy, chaotic ...