The Idiot - Fjodor Michajlovič Dostojevskij

The most autobiographical novel by the author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov--and the namesake of Elif Batuman's debut novel, The Idiot
Returning to St Petersburg from a Swiss sanatorium, the gentle and na ve epileptic Prince Myshkin-- known as the "idiot"--pays a visit to his distant relative General Yepanchin and proceeds to charm the General and his family. But his life is thrown into turmoil when he chances on a photograph of the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna. Utterly infatuated, he soon finds himself caught up in a love triangle and drawn into a web of blackmail, betrayal, and finally, murder. In Prince Myshkin, Dostoyevsky portrays the purity of "a truly beautiful soul" and explores the perils that innocence and goodness face in a corrupt world.
David McDuff's translation brilliantly captures the novel's idiosyncratic and