THE IDIOT by FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

"It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise."

My rating: 8.7/10

After reading it I can say this much: it wasn't as much of a tough read as it would've been to write.

Dostoyevsky himself admits while working on "The Idiot" that it was a challenge for him, because to create what he called an innocent, Christ-like figure as a protagonist, "A Holy Fool", wasn't really an easy nut to crack. And I totally agree with it... I love writing and to be honest, to create a character like Prince Myshkin, a holy fool, is very tough, given the society and its perking evil.

Now describing the story, at a certain time, the protagonist of our story, Prince Myshkin returns to him home from a mental asylum in Switzerland... He was admitted there because of his hysteric fits and mental disability, which later was somehow cured and was discharged. Now being in an asylum with a mental illness for so long did numbers on Myshkin, and he was so much indulged in the goodness of the world that he didn't know that there is pitch-black evil too, that larks in the society, the very same evil which will be the end of him.

So as the story proceeds, we find our protagonist in a sort of love-triangle with Agafya and Nastasya, who are both equally beautiful... And these two become the end of him. Love sometimes truly can bring you demise, friends, seriously and this story proves it...in the most dark way.

Prince Myshkin's friendship with Rogozhin was something to remember and I won't spoil anymore by getting into the details but Ill say this: Rogozhin was another amazing antagonist created by Dostoyevsky... Deep, dark and evil, but not without reason. Given how he's treated and what befalls him, I'd say he had his reason.

I would take my time to point out one more character: Ippolit Terentyev. How can I forget his speech, his dramatic speech and death-play oh amazing!! Simply marvelous!!! It is for characters like Ippolit, that makes Dostoyevsky novels stand out.

Moral? Well the moral I learned from this story is... No matter how good you try to be, or how good you really are... The society will eventually drag you down in its dirt and dung and in the end, you'll find yourself stinking, dirty in it.

A rose cannot possibly grow in the swamps, can it eh?