The Idiot

Story is good. Well written, but at places things seem to be exaggerated. May be it is due to my lack of knowledge of the time and place that I am writing all this. May be still that the translation is not good, or that the translation is perfect but it is the inherent loss of meaning that a translation brings about. But let me point out what I liked the best: Dostoevsky understands human emotions and feelings much better than any other good author (I won’t say that that he understands better than psychologists, because in so doing I would be comparing him with a class of self-congratulating people, or in words a class of real idiots). As an example, the description of commonplace people is simply awe-inspiring and you wonder at how some author can describe so vividly such a thing as commonplace people.

The characters are lifelike, and one cannot help empathising with them, especially the protagonist, whose happiness and sorrow can be felt throughout this book.

Lengthy phylosophical book with lots of characters. The hero ‘prince’ was an idiot before the beginning, in the book he’s clever, soft spoken, kind but at the end becomes an idiot again as he spends a night with a corpse n the murderer. Two beautiful proud females love him but do not marry him. 1 orphan loose woman who runs away from marriage twice n murdered, 2 youngest daughter of reputed family in the end marries a fraud foreigner. Read only the first and last chapters to get the complete picture.