The Idiot

Prince Myshkin, a gentle and epileptic young man returning from a Swiss sanatorium, arrives in St. Petersburg with the intention of living a life of pure goodness. Dostoyevsky uses Myshkin as a vehicle to explore the possibility of a 'truly beautiful soul' in a corrupt, materialistic society. The narrative follows his interactions with the Yepanchin family and his tragic entanglement with the damaged and vengeful Nastasya Filippovna, creating a tense love triangle that exposes the psychological and moral fractures of the Russian aristocracy.

Description adapted from Open Library ↗.