The Idiot

"The still, radiant center of an ambitious and remarkable novel, Prince Myshkin - the idiot - stands above and apart from characters who vividly and violently embody the passions and conflicts of nineteenth-century Russia. An almost comically innocent Christ figure, Myshkin is a "wholly beautiful man" in a land of sinners, a man whose faith in the power of beauty contrasts sharply with the materialistic mores of his society. In him, his creator, Dostoyevsky, sees Russia's redemption."--