The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

By waterolive4

Hey fellow book lovers, A few days ago I started *The Idiot* by Dostoyevsky. I picked it mostly because he’s a pretty famous author and everyone always recommends his stuff. Also, the title sounded catchy, and a friend suggested it too. The first 100 pages were totally okay, but after that I just started getting annoyed. It felt like there were a lot of random conversations, weird emotional reactions, and I couldn’t really understand why the characters were acting like that. It didn’t connect, and honestly it felt irrelevant. By that point, there were even some sections where the dialogue seemed pointless—like you could probably skim a good chunk (maybe 30–40 pages) and nothing would be lost. Once I reached around 47% (about 200 pages), I stopped. I wasn’t interested in picking it back up. At first I wondered if it was a bad translation, or maybe the book wasn’t edited properly. Then I looked up a few things on YouTube and read some articles, and it seemed like other people had similar opinions and also set it aside. I’ve also noticed that readers don’t seem to have the same issues with *Crime and Punishment* and *Brothers Karamazov*—those were actually really good, and I’d say they’re must-reads. Has anyone else felt the same way about *The Idiot*? P.S. Please don’t take this the wrong way—I’m only talking about this particular Dostoyevsky book. I just ordered the other two, and after I read them I’ll share my thoughts too.