Prince Myshkin arrives to St. Petersburg as a naive, full of life fellow. It turns out that he is quite unable to survive in the high society of the Russian metropole. The first day of the book is the most enjoyable to read. The book unfolds in the one day described so that the prince already is a complex love relationship with Nastasya Filipovna by the end of the very first day he is staying in St.Petersburg. Then Myshkin falls in love with another woman, Aglaya Yepanchina. She is a daughter of a distant relative of prince Myshkin. Eventually the story takes twists and turns that are quite a torment to read.
It is widely perceived that Dostoyevsky used many elements of his own life in creating the characters for this story. (F.e he had a lover that quite resembled the character of Nastasya filipovna.) Such notions always make a book more interesting to read.
The middle part of the book is quite philosophical and promoting russian patriotism and deep religiousness, themes that Dostoyevsky likes to discuss. Towards the end I was in pain to see how prince Myshkin was shattered slowly but surely into bits and pieces, perhaps suggesting that true virtue does not survive in the real world.
Compared to [bc:The Pyramid 17899 The Pyramid Ismail Kadare https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348763532s/17899.jpg 19391] this one is much better. I have always been a sucker for Ottoman history and while this is a semi-historical novel at best, it does base itself in a larger than life myth of Skanderberg and the Ottoman - Albania conflict which both were very real. Like in the “pyramid” the behind the lines critique of the soviet system becomes evident, but in the siege the story comes closer to a universal reader. The characters, the horror and the headlessness of people especially in a devine mob are much more intrestingly portrayed as in the “pyramid”. Ps. Only read this because of laziness of transferring books to my kindle. Otherwise i might never have known that Kadare can do better.
Only slightly off the magnificent standards set by the first book. This time the main action takes place at sea and is great entertainment even so. There are pirates, love, cunning and rivaling power hungry peeps. Definately word a recommendation in case you have been living under a rock and dont already know.
Yet another book of Dostoyevsky where the main character is a young man who is a little bit out of balance mentally. The difference to the “Idiot” and the “Double” is that the underground man knows that his thinking patterns should be different but at the same time he loathes the conventional. And by doing so he appears to make himself unstable. It is hard to be the one who swims against the stream. In it extremes you have it as a new “normal”, poisoning everything. I would advice reading the second chapter first and first chapter second. In this particular vintage classics edition the foreword of Pevear offer further insight.
