The idiot

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.