Jon Taylor’s Reviews > The Idiot > Status Update

Grim, nightmare imagery of the ‘scorpion’ cracked in the dog’s mouth. Can’t grasp the metaphor yet…

Wish I knew what to make of Lebedyev. The monologue about technology seems prescient. But this doesn’t fit my view of him as a scoundrel. I could be reading him wrong…

Rogojin and Muishkin are two halves of the same coin. As are Aglaya and Nastasia. None are complete and each needs something from the other to survive.

There is a strange mania to this novel; weird leaps in the narrative, sudden fits of madness in the characters and unfathomable motives. Nastasia and her crew of misfits appear again and everything goes to Hell in a basket just like that. Aglaya is involved but how? The prince is lost in the middle of all the melodrama. Madness.

A debate about Russian liberalism. Points made about liberals actually hating their country seem pertinent to right wing views today.

To the end of Part II. This part loses its way after the murder attempt. Hard to be interested in the sub-plots after that. Still, Myshkin’s increasing paranoia is interesting and Mes Epanchin is some character.

He writes at such a pace! The prince is in the middle of a whirlwind of characters, and ‘double motives’. Who is ‘in on it’? Lebedyev certainly. Classically bourgeois melodrama - much ado about nothing - but it feels like there is something deeper about society in here somewhere…

Hippolyte - a dying man who knows he is to die - much like those awaiting execution, as Dostoevsky was. There is nothing more terrible. Hippolyte uses this to cut through the hypocrisy of polite company. Fascinating stuff.

Mrs Epanchin kicks off and is then totally wooed by Hippolyte’s frailty. Verges on comedy whenever she’s around…

The claim on Myshkin’s money - masterfully handled again - by making Burdovsky ‘simple’ Myshkin spares his honour. Seems somewhat episodic at the moment - will it all hang together?