The Idiot
Dostoevsky's attempt to portray an absolutely good man — 'a positively beautiful man,' as he wrote in his notes — and the catastrophe such a man causes when he enters society.
“Beauty will save the world.”
Why It Matters
Dostoevsky's attempt to portray an absolutely good man — 'a positively beautiful man,' as he wrote in his notes — and the catastrophe such a man causes when he enters society. The novel asks whether Christ-like goodness can survive in the modern world, and answers no. It is the most uncompromising treatment of that question in any nineteenth-century novel.
The 
Take
Personal reviewI read Garnett translation:On a low brow level, it was an absolutely unhinged dark entertaining plot with a small group of very interesting characters.High brow: I finally came up with the right term to describe the chaotic spiraling passages that are uniquely Dostoevsky -incomprehensibly comprehensible:The thoughts do not cleanly lead to one another, and are instead more roughly associated with each other, more similar to the internal workings of one mind rather than actual speech patterns. Yet somehow, there’s a shred of understanding why each thought leads to the next. It’s easy to follow but impossible to put your finger on why it makes sense.There were also a few great logical philosophical arguments/parables strewn throughout, although none preached to the reader as correct. I was a huge fan of this one. Ippolits big moment was my absolute favorite of the book
Notable Quotes
“Compassion was the chief and perhaps the only law of human existence.”
“It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.”