Enjoy ابله Designed By Fyodor Dostoevsky Publication
siempre me pasa con Dostoievski, debo decir que he disfrutado mucho la historia del Príncipe Lev Nikoláievich Mishkin, quien vuelve luego de cuatro años de un sanatario en Suiza para recuperarse.
. . adivinen de qué si, de epilepsia, como Dostoievski, hacia Pávlovsk en Rusia, De ahí, que, a partir de sus problemas de salud es considerado un idiota, Al volver a insertarse en la sociedad rusa, la encuentra totalmente fría, distorsionada, mezquina y malévola y es, tal vez, el mensaje que Dostoievski realmente quiso mostrar acerca de su presente, allá por.
Debo reconocer que El adolescente me gustó mucho, pero El Idiota más aún porque me pareció más fluido, más ameno de leer, tal vez con una historia menos enrevesada y con personajes más marcados en El Adolescente los parentescos confunden, los apellidos se repiten y es necesario apoyarse en las notas aclaratorias al final del libro.
Otro aspecto interesante del libro son los diálogos, Tal vez, lo atribuyo a los traductores que hacen que la lectura del libro que sea fluida,
La concepción de Dostoievski sobre el personaje es muy rica, ya que se propuso crear en Mishkin un personaje totalmente antagónico a Rodion Raskólnikov recordemos que escribió Crimen y Castigo eny esto se nota en el carácter del príncipe, dado que el hombre tiene sus convicciones, pero estas no logran ser refutadas o respetadas, como las del Raskólnikov.
Mishkin es débil, ingenuo, influenciable, indeciso, Su relación con las mujeres es conflictiva, enfermiza y angustiante por momentos por culpa de su propia decisión, en otras por estar negativamente influenciado,
El triángulo amoroso y enfermizo que forma que involucra al príncipe con Aglaia Ivanovna y a Nastasia Filíppovna es por donde pasa el nudo de esta historia.
También he de destacar que algunos personajes son muy importantes en esta historia, puesto que tienen implicancia directa, Cito entre ellos a Parfión Rogozhin, a Lizaveta Prokofievna, el General Ivolguin, Ippolit Terentiev, Kostia Lebediev y Gavrila Ardaliónovich, entre otros, Siempre en las novelas de Dostoievski, las conexiones entre personajes son el modo de llevar adelante la historia,
Como creador de la novela polifónica, Dostoievski le da a sus héroes la función fundamental de que cada uno desarrolle su propia idea y sea portador de su voz, y a la vez, cada una de estas voces hace al conjunto de la historia.
Dicen que Dostoievksi quiso hacer confluir en el príncipe Mishkin características de Jesucristo y Don Quijote, Yo particularmente me quedo con el segundo, Realmente hay momentos en que Mishkin va interactuando con los demás personajes de una manera tristemente quijotesca, sobre todo al exponer sus ideales su discurso sobre el Catolicismo, el Ateísmo y el Nihilismo es muy importante e interesante de leer con detenimiento.
Y por último creo que Don Quijote cuadra más porque, sin hacer spoiler, todo eclosiona en el final,
“La belleza salvará al mundo”, proclama el príncipe Mishkin,
Es probable que la ingenuidad de esta frase encierre la naturaleza de su fracaso, Further chapter in the story of my books and the conversations they strike up,
There's a scene in The Idiot where the main character, Prince Lev Nikolyevich Myshkin, while traveling on a train to Saint Petersburg, recalls an execution by guillotine he witnessed in France.
Being a very sensitive sort, he empathizes intensely with the victim, imagining that the worst aspect might not be the blade itself but the knowledge, during the days and hours leading up to the beheading, that the victim is facing his final moments.
The Prince considers that the
last half minute before the blade falls must be the most intensely cruel, He speaks about that experience several times in the novel so it's a significant themethough the book handles many themes in the course of its baggageladen journey to the final page.
When I read about the guillotine scene, I was reminded of Vladimir Nabokov's novel, sitelinkInvitation to a Beheading in which the victim's dilemma is the opposite of the one in Prince Myshkin's account.
Nabokov's main character has been sentenced to death by beheading, but he has not been told the date or time of the execution, His torture lies in not knowing what hour will be his last hourhe wants desperately to be told the date and time but no one will oblige him.
I wondered if Nabokov's book was a response to Dostoyevsky'she was not one of D's greatest fans, after all, There was also the fact that Nabokov places a pretend spider in the condemned man's cell, Might that have been a way to ridicule a sentimental detail about a real spider in Prince Myshkin's account of a prison cell Or maybe I'm searching too hard to link these two books together
When I finished The Idiot, I went looking for information on Dostoyevsky's life and found that he was sentenced to execution by firing squad for his involvement with a literary group critical of the Tzar incidentally, the group used to meet in the café on Nevsky Avenue in Saint Petersburg in which Pushkin spent his last hours before the frivolous duel that ended his life.
It seems that Dostoyevsky and his comrades were already blindfolded and standing in front of their graves on Semyonov Place when a message came from the Tzar commuting the sentence to several years hard labor in Siberia instead.
The Tzar's decision had been made the previous day but ordered not to be communicated to the prisoners until the last minute, It's clear that Prince Myshkin's theories about the horrors of awaiting execution originated from Dostoyevsky's real experience unlike Nabokov's theories,
But the thing is, one of the men responsible for ordering Dostoyevsky's execution was called Ivan Nabokov, What if he were related to the writer, I thought, so I looked him up, He was! Ivan Nabokov belonged to the same prominent St Petersburg family as Vladimir Nabokov's immediate forebears, It may not mean anything but it is an interesting coincidence,
Ok, I hear you say, enough with the coincidences, But here's another one. In Nabokov's novel, sitelinkThe Gift, there is a chapter ridiculing Nikolay Chernyshevsky, a writer and contemporary of Dostoyevsky who was also subjected to a mock execution because of his revolutionary activities.
Nabokov had more than a passing interest in the subject of executions, it seems, and reading The Idiot has given me new ways to think about those two Nabokov novels as if the three books had just had a conversation with each other.
Actually, there's a fourth book involved in the conversation, I started reading a long sitelinknovel by contemporary Russian author Oleg Strijak weeks ago, His book is a beautiful but complex tribute to Saint Petersburg, to its history, its literature, its canals and its rivers, Halfway through, I decided to pause the reading and choose a nineteenth century novel associated with the city that I haven't yet read, I picked The Idiot, It's a book I've dutifully intended to read for years ever since I was eighteen and found myself too embarrassed to admit I didn't know who Prince Myshkin was, but we all know about our reading intentionsthey often remain just that.
What I prefer is when the urge to read something comes, not from any sense of duty, but because another book nudges me to finally get to it.
I know then that the time is right, and that was the case with The Idiot, Strijak's angstridden idiot of a main character was the perfect preparation for meeting Dostoyevsky's angstridden Prince Myshkin who is not an idiot at all, He's now joining my list of favorite literary characters, I think I'll place him beside Leopold Bloom and let them chat to each other, And needless to add, I'm very grateful to Oleg Strijak's book for introducing me to the Prince at last, .