Breakfast at Muishkin's

The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Page Count: 100%


Malin is right, it's been slow going this month. Though I suppose that's almost to be expected when your generator picks such a big challenge for the shortest month of the year. But I have finally finished The Idiot and hopefully Malin will forgive me for not hitting the 3 post minimum (which was, sadly, my own suggestion).


The Idiot has been a ridiculous challenge. Just like Malin's choice, Dostoyevsky's novel is chock full of characters with ridiculously long names (they often have 2 or 3 that change throughout the story) and ridiculously complicated relationships. I told Malin the other week that I should have kept a chart going from the beginning. I wish I had just so I could post it on here - it'd be such a mess of lines that you wouldn't even be able to read it. I don't want to spoil too much here because as much as I complained to my co-workers whilst reading it, I did quite enjoy the novel and would suggest to any of you that you read it as well!

I do want to talk a bit about the title though. Dostoyevsky's protagonist, Prince Muishkin, is referred to as an idiot throughout the book, even by the prince himself. The interesting thing, to me at least, is that he is actually not an idiot in the modern sense of the word (I'm thinking of it as a synonym for a stupid person). In fact, although Muishkin's social graces are a bit lacking (and let's not lie, my understanding of Russian high society in the 19th century would be pretty poor as well), he is actually quite intelligent. Dostoyevsky's definition of the word indicates someone with a child-like manner of looking at things. Muishkin describes it thusly,

"I made up my mind to be honest, and steadfast in accomplishing my task. Perhaps I shall meet with troubles and many disappointments, but I have made up my mind to be polite and sincere to everyone; more cannot be asked of me. People may consider me a child if they like. I am often called an idiot, and at one time I certainly was so ill that I was nearly as bad as an idiot; but i am not an idiot now. How can I possibly be so when I know myself that I am considered one?"

Things do not end well for Muishkin, caught as he is between two women he loves. It takes quite a while for Dostoyevsky to reach any sort of conclusion, and even then, while the plot seems like it should be exciting, said conclusion feels anticlimactic. Like most Russian novels I've read from this time period, there are spurts of action surrounded by pages and pages of random stories and dialogue.

This is not to say that it's all not worth reading, though. Dostoyevsky's style of writing is very indicative of his time and to be completely honest, I found the odd details of Russian society fascinating. Theirs was such a different time period that it is almost impossible to picture, but for Dostoyevsky's characters and their complicated relationships.




(The title for this post is an allusion to the fact that Breakfast at Tiffany's - the novella and thus the movie - was based on this novel!)