num_pages: 20
description: In The Idiot, a saintly man, Prince Myshkin, is thrust into the heart of a society more concerned with wealth, power, and sexual conquest than the ideals of Christianity. Myshkin soon finds himself at the center of a violent love triangle in which a notorious woman and a beautiful young girl become rivals for his affections. Extortion, scandal, and murder follow, testing the wreckage left by human misery to find "man in man." The Idiot is a quintessentially Russian novel, one that penetrates the complex psyche of the Russian people. "They call me a psychologist," wrote Dostoevsky. "That is not true. I'm only a realist in the higher sense; that is, I portray all the depths of the human soul."
language: English
title: The Idiot
titlecomplete: The Idiot
characters: Rogozhin, Nastasya Filippovna, Prince Myshkin
genres: Classics, Philosophy, Russia, Novels, Russian Literature, Classic Literature, Historical Fiction, Literature, 19th Century, Fiction
ratings_count: 173586
places: St. Petersburg, Russian Empire
publisher: Craig Black