Russian soul is beautiful, mysterious, destructive, resurrecting, merciful, mean, forgiving, religious... The list can go on and on. It is hard to comprehend that eternal craving for happiness and denying every possibility of it. Self-torment is the biggest enemy of Russians who are almost never in peace with themselves, with those they love, with those they try to hate and fail doing so.Each time I am asked about the mysterious Russian soul I pick up The Idiot and give it to read. Here we are all - naked and immortalized by genius Dostoevsky.
The book is full of different characters belonging to various social levels of tsarist Russia. They all have their own tragedy, their own crime and their own punishment. The ability to describe each and every of them in such a detail makes Dostoevsky a master. In the centre of this chaos stays Prince Myshkin, yet another character representing Jesus Christ (in Crime and Punishment it was Sonya Marmeladova, in The Brothers Karamazovs - Alyosha Karamazov), with yet another attempt to survive, to stay sane, to not be crucified. The result... we know it too well. The confrontation of Myshkin and Rogozhin is the eternal good or bad, white or black with the only exception that there is no one correct answer, because they are one whole.
The book teaches love and compassion, the art of absolution and acceptance, it teaches to stay human even among animals no matter how hard or even impossible it may seem. I love this book and it stays a mystery for me why children are always made to read Crime and Punishment at school if The Idiot is the Bible of the literature. I also advise to watch the latest screen version of The Idiot (2003, Russia). The English subtitles can be found in the Internet which seldom happens to beautiful and yet too self-sufficient Russian cinema.
The book is full of different characters belonging to various social levels of tsarist Russia. They all have their own tragedy, their own crime and their own punishment. The ability to describe each and every of them in such a detail makes Dostoevsky a master. In the centre of this chaos stays Prince Myshkin, yet another character representing Jesus Christ (in Crime and Punishment it was Sonya Marmeladova, in The Brothers Karamazovs - Alyosha Karamazov), with yet another attempt to survive, to stay sane, to not be crucified. The result... we know it too well. The confrontation of Myshkin and Rogozhin is the eternal good or bad, white or black with the only exception that there is no one correct answer, because they are one whole.
The book teaches love and compassion, the art of absolution and acceptance, it teaches to stay human even among animals no matter how hard or even impossible it may seem. I love this book and it stays a mystery for me why children are always made to read Crime and Punishment at school if The Idiot is the Bible of the literature. I also advise to watch the latest screen version of The Idiot (2003, Russia). The English subtitles can be found in the Internet which seldom happens to beautiful and yet too self-sufficient Russian cinema.
2 comments:
Hello Ananstasia,
I liked your book critic very much. I think that Russian culture is kind of a mistery to western civilization so maybe "The Idiot" is a good way to understand it.
If you want to be a writer and if I got it right you are interested in building up characters I think Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez are also good references (even to compare with russian authors.
Of What Y read you have an attractive way of putting things, with emotion. That's a good start.
Kisses from Lina, Peter's portuguese friend :)
Dear Lina
Thank you for your kind comment and advice. I really like Marquez and I have read some of his books. They will definitely appear in this blog but I think about rereading them to refresh my memory (Love in the Time of Cholera is a promise as it is my favourite one from him). Allende is on her way to me as well.
Anastasia
Post a Comment