The Idiot

See also: Idiotic (homonymy)

the Idiot is a novel of the Russian writer Fedor Dostoïevski. It was published in 1869.

A plate in N°2 of the Piazza Pitti opposite the Palais Pitti commemorates the presence of the author with Florence between 1868 and 1869, when he writes his novel.

Summary

Prince Mnichkine is a basically good being, but its kindness confines with the naivety and idiocy, even if it is capable of psychological analyzes very fines.
After having passed its youth to Switzerland in a sanatorium to look after its epilepsy, it turns over to Russia from where it penetrates the closed circles of the Russian company.

At the time of the evening of birthday of Nastasia Filippovna, prince Mychkine sees a young middle-class man, Parfen Semenovitch Rogojine to arrive drunk and offer a broad amount of money to the young woman so that it follows it. The prince perceives the despair of Nastasia and proposes to him to marry it. She, thinking that the prince acts only by pity, flees with Rogojine. Noting their competition, Rogojine tries to kill the prince.

Sailing of blunders in heritage, disgraces in fashionable coquetteries, Prince Mnichkine, during this time, hopelessly tries to include/understand the codes of this company from which its frankness excludes it, and binds friendship with the young girl of the General, Aglaé Ivanovna. It will give up her to save Nastasia Filippovna, but the day of the marriage, odd Nastasia flees again with Rogojine.
The novel is completed with all the main characters brought together around prince Mnichkine, this last having sunk completely in the madness.

The tragic sequence of situations pushed to the extreme is without exit, of course.

Several realizers used this literary base to make films of them, like Akira Kurosawa in particular.

In 2003, the Russian television of state produced a 10 hours series which received praises of criticism.

External bonds

  • the English text

  • the Russian text

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