The Idiot

Hans Holbein, Christ in the Tomb, 1521

By Fyodor Dostoevsky, trans. by Alan Myers, London: Oxford U Press, 1992.

I want to love Russian literature and this novel in particular.  Proust was deeply influenced by The Idiot.   MAF, my former companion in all things psychological, used to proclaim, "Oh, that is so Russian!"  But, alas, I did not enjoy the experience of reading Dostoevsky.  He is very much a soup to nuts novelist (and sometimes there are too many courses in the dinner).  Dostoevsky tells a complex tale and includes lots of interesting tidbits such as an exploration of the moments before an epileptic seizure and the thoughts of a political prisoner in advance of his scheduled execution.  All fascinating but I found myself yearning for the novel to end.

The theme of the book is that money determines one's social value.  The title's eponymous character is Prince Myshkin, a Christ-like figure whose honesty and humility disrupts the artificial world of 19th century  Russian society.  Holbien's horrific Christ in the Tomb hangs in the parlor of Rogozhin, a fabulously rich ex-merchant, and Prince Myshkin ironically proclaims, "A man could lose his faith looking at that picture."