The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1869
Second attempt at reading The Idiot - April 2023
Introduction
I picked up The Idiot for the second time in 2023, starting it after I finished The Leopard at the end of January. School started again at the same time, so it took about two months for me to read The Idiot during free moments that I snatched here and there. The first time I read this book, I stopped after about a third of the way in. During that first reading, I couldn’t connect with the content due to its highly dated concerns (19th century wedding schemes and drama) and the antiquated language (in the translation) compared to that of Crime and Punishment, which presented as much more modern and relatable. However, I put down the book knowing that I would return to it later, and that time arrived recently.
During discussions with Danette, we discussed the occult mystical concept of the fool archetype. I will expound on this more later in the essay, but this discussion reminded me of The Idiot and helped me realize some of the significant themes and ideas in the book of which I had been ignorant during that first reading.
As a novel it was rather challenging to follow and certainly doesn’t follow novelistic “best practices.” I finished the book wondering if I had really understood it, particularly the meaning of the plot and the characters, so I briefly began to read its Wikipedia page. I saw that this perception is not mine alone - in fact, Dostoesvly himself wrote in a letter "Much in the novel was written hurriedly, much is too diffuse and did not turn out well, but some of it did turn out well. I do not stand behind the novel, but I do stand behind the idea." I think the author correctly evaluated his work.
One note on the methods of writing this essay - some elements were written before I read any supplemental materials online, others afterwards. Indeed, this is the first of my literary reflections for which I used GPT-4 as a kind of book club resource to discuss my thoughts. However, for me it is still the case that I often learn the most through writing the review of the book in question.
Novel
The plot proceeds loosely as follows: Prince Myshkin returns to St. Petersburg via train after a long stay in a sanatorium in Switzerland. Myshkin is epileptic, among other mental issues, but he is now recovered. He is not at all properly dressed for the Russian weather, drawing the attention of a fellow traveler named Rogozhin, who, it turns out, is returning from his own stay abroad to collect a large inheritance from his semi-estranged family. We already see some parallel inversions between the two. Myshkin also meets Lebedev, a striving civil servant. Myshkin’s return to Russia is not aimless - he seeks out his relative, Mrs. Epanchin, an older woman of the middle level of society who is his only cousin. He meets her, her husband the general, and their three children, particularly Aglaya, the youngest and most beautiful, as well as the general’s assistant Ganya. The Epanchin parents have grand plans for Aglaya’s future marriage, although nothing concrete has presented itself. It is Myshkin’s chance meeting of these characters that determines the rest of the course of his story.
Myshkin gets caught up in a complex web of schemes that center around a woman named Nastasya Filippovna, the most mysterious and confusing character of the book, at least for me. Nastasya was more or less “groomed” by a wealthy friend of Epanchin named Totsky after she was orphaned on one of his estates. He noticed her remarkable beauty even at a young age. He made arrangements for her education and upbringing and made her his “kept woman,” presumably to marry her later. Nastasya’s character reveals itself to be much darker and more complex than Totsky had bargained for, and so he instead gives her a pseudo freedom to stay in the city and begins his attempts to rid himself of her through marriage. Totsky feels he cannot have any peace until this is done. Epanchin convinces his secretary Ganya to marry Nastasya as a favor for Totsky (freeing him from Nastasya’s attention), promising him the handsome dowry that Totsky has promised. Rogozhin, who we met on the train, has designs on Nastasya as well. When Myshekin enters the scene, Nastasya is poised to decide whether to accept the proposal of Ganya. Nastasya is described as hauntingly beautiful, so much so that a still image of her ensnares the attention and imagination of Myshkin at the Epanchin home.
In the dramatic final scene of the first act, Nastasya hosts a party where she will announce her decision. All the major characters up to that point are in attendance. The point of maximum crescendo is a string of moments when Nastasya throws a fortune in cash into the fireplace, daring Ganya to reveal his base motives by throwing himself into the flames to save the money; when Myshkin professes love for Nastasya and Ganya strikes Myshkin; and when Rogozhin enters the party with a motley crew and elopes with Nastasya. This is an amazing scene and I would love to see it played out in a film or on stage. From that point, the novel unfortunately unravels.
Afterwards, there is a drawn out implicit courtship between Myshkin and Aglaya Epanchin. Nastasya becomes a foreboding figure in the background, hanging over this courtship, and along with Rogozhin, the four young people find themselves in a romantic web. Rogozhin loves Nastasya but has such a dark character that everyone senses that he is a danger to her, and Nastasya seems to use him rather than love him, repeatedly fleeing before marriage. Nastasya apparently is attempting to manipulate or convince Aglaya to marry Myshkin, perhaps to prevent Myshkin from pursuing herself. Aglaya loves Myshkin but won’t admit it even to herself, and so she treats him badly. Myshkin develops a slow-burn love for Aglaya, one that is more pure and traditional, while at the same time he suffers a deeper fascination for Nastasya fueled by pity, self-destruction, and darkness.
In the end, there is another dramatic meeting, this time including these four. Nastaya again makes a dare, this time forcing Myshkin to choose between her and Aglaya. Myshkin hesitates, which prompts Aglaya to flee in agony, and finally a definitive marriage will happen between Nastasya and Myshkin - or so we think. One last time, she leaves Myshkin at the altar and elopes with Rogozhin. Myshkin follows them to Rogozhin’s Petersburg mansion where he discovers that Rogozhin has in fact murdered Nastasya in a strange blend of love and destruction. Rogozhin and Myshkin fall asleep in the house alongside the dead Nastasya, where they are later discovered. Rogozhin is sent to prison, Myshkin reverts to insanity and must return to the sanatorium.
Ideas
That describes the novel. But let us heed the quote of Dostoevsky and turn to the ideas. Notably, many of these ideas are explored furthest in monologues and stories by the characters rather than as part of the mainline plot. Let us investigate some of the noteworthy ideas. The more philosophical and theological asides and monologues by the author and the characters, such as from the prince and Ippolit, were very interesting and strong, as were the smaller short stories, such as from the General Ivolgin, and others. One thing to note is that the novel is quite funny at many of the points that may come across as extreme melodrama - often the absurdity of the situation in a scene makes it very funny as well as serious.
Sickness and mortality
Dostoevsky wants to teach lessons about how to live life in the face of knowing that we will die. He wants us to view our time alive as precious and to not let it prevent us from doing great works, including charities. Our mortality is a part of our life and should inform how we live it in a positive way rather than a nihilistic or pessimistic way.
In several similar anecdotes, Myshkin talks about the final moments before a certain death. He witnessed a public execution and spoke with someone who was certain he would be killed but had a reprieve. Similarly, the consumptive Ippolit muses aloud about the impacts of his knowing about his imminent death. The dominant lesson drawn from these situations is that those final moments become ecstatically precious and that the condemned view even a short time longer in life as enormous wealth. Dostoevsky is trying to express to the reader that we should view our time in this way now - that it is a great wealth, that it is precious - and not wait for an imminent certain death to make us realize this. In his musings, Ippolit questions whether he should engage in good deeds to the benefit of others or the world in general since he has too little time to achieve much.
The author himself experienced the above - he was sentenced to death by firing squad after being discovered with radical political books and only in the last moment before a certain execution was he spared by order of the Tsar. This event changed the course of Dostoevsky’s life and brought him to Christianity. Clearly the event impacted his view on the value of time alive, and he directly brought this into his novel.
There are several characters who deal with various sicknesses in the book, especially Myshkin, Ippolit, and General Ivolgin. They suffer from epilepsy, tuberculosis, and alcoholism, respectively. As with the passage about mortality, the inclusion of these details in the book both reflect specific demons of Dostoevksy’s own mind and life as well as shared fundamental issues of the human condition. For example, the author directly faced addiction (in the form of gambling) and epilepsy. Interestingly, it is described how the moments just before an epileptic seizure provide great insight, energy, and powerful thinking. It’s possible that this is a lateral description of Doestoevksy’s own experiences, or a more abstract suggestion that sickness povokes insights.
Not having grown up steeped in Christianity myself, there are aspects of it I don’t intuitively understand. However, I have a sense that Christianity (at least in some of its traditions) attempts to raise up the weakest of society in a moral sense. Sickness, poverty, suffering, etc are made more holy than strength, power, wealth, and I feel that Dostoevsky is exploring these ideas. Myshkin, through his personal merits (honesty, etc) but also his kind behavior towards the sick and poor, is a kind of Christian ideal contrasted with the sinful society around him.
Religion vs nihilism and atheism
I have already mentioned above some elements of the religious content of the book. Throughout, Dostoevsky’s works include speculation and despair about a world after Christianity. Notably, this prefigures the famous Nietszhe quote, “God is dead.” Dostoevsky wonders whether the default nature of humanity is to do good or evil, and like Nietsche later, wonders if the very concept of good and evil will exist without Christianity. Indeed, Nietszhe’s formulation, or rather his goal, of going “beyond good and evil” is played out by nihilist characters on the pages of Dostoevsky’s works. This is clearer in Crime and Punishment but this occurs in The Idiot as well. Myshkin deals with some nihilists that attempt to trick him for his inheritance, although these would-be thieves are bumblers and fail.
The character Lebedev is apparently a part time interpreter of the Apocalypse sections of the Bible. His speciality is finding parallels between contemporary technological advances and the descriptions of Biblical end times in. In one monologue he describes how the European real network is malevolently and monstrously stretching out across the world, perhaps to its downfall. Perhaps the author views modernism and enlightenment in an equally negative way.
Some analyses describe Myshkin as a Christ-like figure. The narrative similarities are there - Myshkin arrives into our world and is destroyed by our sinfulness and evil. Rogozhin even acts like an inversion/opposite to Myshkin, like an antichrist. Christ is sent to earth to redeem it from the sins of humanity, although I don’t think the belief is that Christ achieved this all at once, but rather that this is an ongoing process that lies to some extent within each of us - that is, that we each have responsibility to seek redemption. If we take this reading, then I think this book is a damning take on the actions of the other characters in the story. A few of them may be said to have gone through redemptive processes, such as Ganya and Ippolit, but most did not change much. After the end of the plot, when Myshkin is again at the sanatorium, many of the characters are described somewhat tenderly in that they visit him or care about him. But fundamentally I don’t think the characters really improve themselves morally during the arc of the story, which probably best reflects our society as a whole. The Myshkin-as-Christ is certainly there, and given the author’s ideology this was probably the intention, but I have so far found it more useful to consider Myshkin in the light of the tarot-fool. This may be because I am not Christian and am not sufficiently familiar with its ideas.
Although this is connected with Myshkin’s monologue about the role of Russia in the world (more on that later), we see through his remarks there and elsewhere a deep seated faith and a stark belief that good and evil come from the Orthodox faith. These are most likely coming directly from the author.
Innocence and Women
Innocence is a highly Christian subject matter and is critical to the moral content of The Idiot. Myshkin is portrayed as highly innocent, even ignorant of many worldly affairs, for which others mock him. We see this early when Myshkin talks with the Epanchin’s doorman in a breach of etiquette and social norms. His innocence allows him to empathize with others (including the sick and children), and to admire the creativity and joy shown by children. This is most strongly shown in the anecdote of the sick girl in Switzerland that Myshkin saw during his time at the sanatorium. This sick girl, close to dying of tuberculosis, was derided and shunned by the whole village after she engaged in “depraved” actions due to the desperation of her situation. Even the children bullied her and hurt her. But Mishkyn loved this girl out of deep empathy, and was able to first turn the children to her side, and then much of the others. This is perhaps the most Christ-like behavior in the story.
It is this same love-pity-empathy that draws Myshkin to Nastasya, who is sick morally due to her history of emotional abuse. While it is not always explicitly shown, I presumed that within Nastasya there is great pain and suffering which she counteracts by acting the ways he does - that is, by displaying many of the same characteristics of behavior as does the Joker from the Batman universe; making decisions erratically, laughing at situations, and placing others around her in entangled situations as if for her own amusement. These are outward projections of her attempts to cope with her inner suffering.
These figures with whom Myshkin falls in empathy-love are often women. I’ve seen some analysis that suggests that The Idiot features Dostoevksy’s most extensive and three-dimensional treatment of women as characters and of women’s inner psychologies. I think the women are agents in the plot and certainly can’t be accused of being uninteresting psychologies. But the issue that is front and center for Dostoevsky in his investigation of women is the traditional Christian set of concerns of innocence, purity, and so on.
Nastasya and Aglaya present an interesting contrast and dichotomy. They are both highly intelligent and manipulate most of the other characters around them. Nastasya is like the fallen woman, with significant implications of a dark sexual past or future, while Aglaya is pure. While Nastasya is fallen and dark, she yearns to be saved through Myshkin and yet time and time again denies herself salvation by shunning him at the last moment, like before they are to be wed - twice! She muses that she doesn't want to destroy Myshkin by her nature, although she ends up doing just that. She ends up a victim of a caricatured male vampiric rapaciousness from Rogozhin, reinforcing some ideas of women as object and male target. There are certainly some tropes and caricatures surrounding Nastasya, but there’s a lot to unpack with her and a lot that is left unsaid, making her very interesting and mysterious. I will seek out more analysis of her.
Russia’s role in the world and the Russian character
I get the sense that this topic is not among the most discussed in analyses of The Idiot, but perhaps it should be. Later in the novel, when Myshkin is being “introduced to society” at a dinner party, a discussion arises about how Myshkin’s guardian converted to Catholicism - new information to Myshkin. He launches into a passionate takedown of Catholicism, calling it “unchristian,” declaring it to be the source of both nihilism and socialism. Catholicism and the church, he argues, lack moral and spiritual content and instead seek political and financial power, a hypocrisy which propels the people to seek other ideologies to fill the moral void. This is contrasted with the genuine Christianity of Russian Orthodoxy, which is good, correct, and can save the world. Dostoevsky was personally persecuted by the Russian state, nearly executed and sent to the gulag. The bureaucracy and aristocracy are lambasted throughout the work. The character of the Russian people is likewise often critiqued - they are described in authorial monologues in general terms as mediocre, striving, disorganized, and uninteresting. The author clearly has a lot of negative feelings about his home nation and its state, but the Russian religion and the people’s spirit are reserved as morally powerful and redemptive.
I thought immediately of the writings of the historian Stephen Kotkin, who described how there has long been an ideology of Russia’s special place and mission in the world. This derives from its unique geopolitical position as a continental nation, part of but remote from both Europe and Asia - some call it a Eurasian ideology. The special mission has evolved over time, from being the tsarist aspiration to become the “third Rome” (more or less the ideology represented in Myshkin’s words), to the Soviet role as standard bearer of world communist revolution, to now a role as a kind of spoiler for American hegemony in the world and supporter of multipolarity.
The Fool
Myshkin is an archetypal fool, marked by his innocence, honesty, and naivety. He is returning to and entering a world marked by schemes, lies, ulterior motives, and we will see how he fares among such people.
The fool is a figure of love and trust towards all, to the point of naivety. Others can easily take advantage of the fool, and in many ways it is very radical or even insane to fully inhabit the fool archetype. It is tempting to instead inhabit the cynic as a cautious defensive posture, or perhaps even to attempt to take advantage of others to our own benefit. These behaviors are often rewarded in the practical, professional, and financial realms of life. But the attitude of the fool is one of love, joy, and happiness - there is an incredible strength in opening oneself up to these dangers.
Dostoevsky is writing about his conception of the fool archetype in The Idiot, which includes many elements of the mystical archetype mentioned above as well as additional qualities that represent Christian ideals. These include a certain veneration or raising up of the weak and downtrodden, ideals of purity, innocence, and so on: the meek shall inherit the earth, turn the other cheek, etc.
Prince Myshkin is certainly Dostoevsky’s “fool”, but he is no “idiot.” The other characters make horrible assumptions about the prince, but he proves time and time again to be intelligent and insightful. Dostoevky wants to show that the fool is inherently noble and good, that the fool loves powerfully, feels happiness, experiences empathy towards and from others, and is a highly spiritual and religious state. Myshkin’s interaction with the world is highly instructive about the fool in the world - if we try to act as the fool would, which might be good for us individually, since we must act in and among the world, we will be treated badly, taken advantage of, and in the end destroyed. I think the fool is a kind of example, an ideal, that can serve as a guiding principle but not as an example. For Dostoevsky, the fool also serves to contrast the kingdoms of man and of heaven. The fool is fit for heaven, but not for earth, which is a very damning statement.
The Idiot follows Crime and Punishment and there is a clear connection thematic between the two. Crime and Punishment investigates criminality from inside the mind of a murderer, while The Idiot investigates the fool - the books have quite opposite protagonists, but they deal with similar ideas.
The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1869 - July 2021
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