The Idiot
Prince Myshkin is the ultimate nice guy, so nice that people think his innocent, Christ-like simplicity as idiotic. Through Myshkin, Dostoevsky delivers his condemnation of an increasingly vain and materialistic society, a society that cannot harbor someone as plaintively kind as Myshkin. I found The Idiot to be at times a funny but tragic story, in a way like Voltaire’s Candide: you can’t help but laugh and even scoff at the prince’s naïveté, but when his idealism fails to materialize, you can’t help but commiserate with him. The story is embellished with a varied cast: Myshkin’s foil Rogozhin is cold, dark, nihilistic. The two main women are Aglaya – young, sprightly, and naïve, and Nastasya – intelligent, practical, but haunted by her past. This book is one of my favorites among Dostoevsky’s major works for its deep exploration into kindness, faith, and guilt.
The 1860s was a time when God was all but dead, drawing his last breath as science and industry paved the way for materialism. As a result the self-sacrificing ascetics of old are now laughingstocks for modern, progressive businessmen and social climbers. Against this backdrop the novel refers to a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, called “The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb”. The painting depicts Christ before his resurrection, and Holbein’s depiction draws Christ as so dead, so corpselike, that Dostoevsky exclaims that looking at the picture, one couldn’t help but believe Christ is truly dead and won't rewake. If the world believes Christ is dead, then so dies the Christian ideas of meekness and loving kindness – and society promptly throws Myshkin out of its ring. Perhaps there is a way to salvage the old ideals of kindness, but that would require some belief that transcends reality – a faith which stares at the painting of the dead Christ, and at the same time fervently believes, against all absurdity, that he will live. As much as I might sound religious, I read the book from a purely secular point of view - and yet, I wish for a way to revive the moral values, even if God will not live again.
% grep -i "the idiot" quotes.txt2 matches
on giving
“Scattering your seed, in offering charity, in performing your good deed in whatever fashion it may be, you give away part of your personality and take in part of another’s; there is a mutual communion, and with a little more attention you will be rewarded by knowledge, the most unexpected discoveries… All the seeds you have broadcast, perhaps already forgotten, will take root and flourish; he who received it from you will pass it to another”
— (Ippolit), Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
on practicality
“Lack of originality has always been looked on since time immemorial as the outstanding quality and highest recommendation of a sensible, businesslike, and practical man”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot