The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

This is essentially the story of what happens when you throw a truly good man into the society of self absorbed aristocrats. Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin is a young man from a well to do family who travels to Saint Peterburg after spending four years in a Swiss sanitorium for treatment for epilepsy. Because of the epilepsy, he is widely regarded as an idiot. On the train to Saint Peterburg he encounters Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin who tells Myshkin of his obsession with the great beauty, Nastasya Filippovna.

Myshkin is travelling to gain the acquainence of a distant relative, Lizaveta Prokofyevna. (Yes there are a lot of very Russian names to keep track of). His objective is to make the acquainence of a distant relative, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, the wife of General Epanchin, the patriarch of the family. Myshkin is unannounced and simply knocks on the door of the family and first encounters the General who is, at first, taken aback by this unconventional young man with this seemingly disabling affliction. But through conversation, Myshkin proves to be an inciteful and intelligent young man. In fact, throughout the book, Myshkin's superpower is that he manages to always be underestimated.

In short order, Myshkin gains the confidence of the General and enters the society of the family. Myshkin soon meets Ganya, the General's assistant, who also is in pursuit of Nastasya Filippovna. In fact, Nastasya Filippovna, has many suitors.

Shortly thereafter, Myshkin meets Nastasya Filippovna himself, and becomes smitten, not so much out of love, as a sense of duty to protect her from the scheming of her various suitors. The rest of the book tells the story of the manuvering of various suitors and Nastasya Filippovna's toying with their various affections.

On the whole, I find the book less satisfying than Dostoevsky's other books. Evidently critics at the time of its publication were of a similar opinion. Dostoevsky wrote that the telling of the story was a sort of experiment in writing, and that it was not always successful. But it remained one of his personal favorites amongst his writings.

For me, after a promising start to the novel, it kind of meanders through chapter after chapter of unrelated events and philosophizing, neither of which lend much insight into the characters or the over-arching plot.

I guess it was worth the read, if only for cultural reference, but I doubt I will have much longing to return to it.