By comparison, the plots and narrative structures of Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and even The Possessed seem straightforward and well-organized. In his afterword to the Signet edition, Gary Rosenshield says: “Henry James spoke pejoratively about the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky as huge, baggy monsters, and he could certainly have cited The Idiot as a prime candidate for this dubious distinction. The appalling nature of the close examination of these unimaginable emotions derives from the authority with which Dostoevsky can describe them, since he was himself condemned to death and reprieved, by an imperial whim, or display of power, as he stood in line at the scaffold behind a friend who had indeed just been killed.” What makes the greatness is double – the character of the prince, and a powerful series of confrontations with death…. The Guardian: “Prince of Fools” by AS Byatt Less widely read than Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazov, the novel nevertheless has its devotees: So, you want to read Dostoevsky’s most autobiographical, idiosyncratic, and enigmatic novel, centered on Prince Myshkin, a compassionate, Christlike central character who has been compared to the more comical protagonist of Don Quixote.

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