The Idiot (Vintage Classics)
Books | Fiction / Literary
4.1
(135)
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic tale of one man’s pure innocence in the face of a society obsessed with power, money, and manipulationThe twenty-six-year-old Prince Myshkin, following a stay of several years in a Swiss sanatorium, returns to Russia to collect an inheritance and “be among people.” Even before he reaches home he meets the dark Rogozhin, a rich merchant’s son whose obsession with the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna eventually draws all three of them into a tragic denouement. In Petersburg the prince finds himself a stranger in a society obsessed with money, power, and manipulation. Scandal escalates to murder as Dostoevsky traces the surprising effect of this “positively beautiful man” on the people around him, leading to a final scene that is one of the most powerful in all of world literature. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s masterful translation of The Idiot is destined to stand with their versions of Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and Demons as the definitive Dostoevsky in English.
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Author
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Pages
656
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published Date
2012-07-18
ISBN
0553901893 9780553901894
Community ReviewsSee all
"The Idiot is another one of Dostoevsky’s greats. Following the story of the perfect man who chases after the wicked woman in order to save her but ends up a failure in the modern world is a poignant take on the biblical story. "
Téa Picconatto
"красота спасет мир! Beauty will save the world! So declares the protagonist Prince Myshkin. But can beauty really save anyone? That is the question Dostoevsky asks in this wonderful novel. What happens when a truly beautiful, moral, upright person enters a society full of people who are too concerned with wealth, social standing, and intrigue? Does society recognize the beauty that stands before it or will it dismiss the Prince as a simple "idiot?""
Richard Entingh