Arian’s Reviews > The Idiot > Status Update
Arian
is on page 60 of 768
Dostoyevsky interrupts the flow of the narrative 'in order to establish, in the most straightforward and precise manner, the relations and circumstances that we find in General Yepanchin's household at the beginning of our tale.' This extract brings to the present a clear understanding of the context behind 'the incident' and Nastasya Filippovna's impending decision later this evening.
— Apr 30, 2026 03:29AM
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Arian
is on page 105 of 768
Ganya, by exploiting the prince’s innocence, delivers a note to Aglaya, casting her as his only possible saviour from marrying Nastasya Filippovna as a ‘last attempt to save himself from perdition.’ ‘Do not be angry at the insolence of a desperate, a drowning man, for having dared to make a last attempt to save himself from perdition.’
— May 03, 2026 04:18PM
Arian
is on page 79 of 768
The prince, revisiting capital punishment, 'but he says that nothing was so hard for him at the time as the incessant thought: "What if I didn't have to die? What if I could get my life back - what an infinity it would be! And it would all be mine! Then I would make each minute into a whole lifetime.." He said that this idea finally turned into such a fury that he wanted them to shoot him as quickly as possible.'
— Apr 30, 2026 04:13PM
Arian
is on page 43 of 768
I suspect Ivan Fyodorvich is the most evil of Dostoyevsky's characters, and that he named him after himself. (I could be totally wrong about this, as there is very little evidence so early in the story to justify that judgement). The frequent interrupting of the prince just as he means to bring up his business for standing before the general is noteworthy. Dostoyevsky is delaying the revelation.
— Apr 28, 2026 02:28PM
Arian
is on page 29 of 768
Prince Myshkin, on the capital punishment he witnessed in France says, 'perhaps the worst, most violent pain lies not in injuries, but in the fact that you know for certain that within the space of an hour, then ten minutes, then half a minute, then now, right at this moment -- your soul will fly out of your body, and you'll no longer be a human being, and that this is certain; the main thing is that it's certain. '
— Apr 27, 2026 04:31AM
Arian
is starting
So excited to read my first Dostoyevsky! William Mills Todd III writes an introduction, highlighting how Myshkin's honesty and compassion are tragically mismatched with the world's cynicism. The introduction also situates the novel within Dostoyevsky’s broader concerns about faith, beauty, and the failure of utopian ideals in a morally fragmented age.
— Apr 20, 2026 10:43AM
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Apr 30, 2026 03:35AM
It is rumoured that Yepanchin, a married man and father of three daughters, has been seduced by Nastasya Filippovna. To this the narrator says, 'it is well known that a man excessively carried away by passion, especially if he is getting on in years, becomes completely blind and is ready to suspect hope where there is none at all; not only that, but he loses his reason and acts like a silly child, though he may be a Solomon of wisdom.'
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