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I have been trying to fill this review box ever since I finished this book. After writing and rewriting about this book, I think I have finally come close to what I feel about this book. I don’t think I can ever do justice to the beauty of this book but I still wanted to write few things about it. I started reading this novel last year. Put on pause twice, then finally finishing it this month. I was so relieved not only because I managed to read it, but also because it is one of those books that are still a treat to read even after 150 years of its publication.

Story revolves around Prince Myshkin who arrived in Russia from Switzerland. There he meet Rogozhin on the train and befriends him. Then he went to see his distant relatives General and meet family. Here he sees a picture of Nastasya Fillipovna and falls in love with her. Things get complicated when he proposes her and she rejects him for Rogozhin, who is also madly in love with her. On the day of marriage she elopes to be with Rogozhin. Myshkin finds love in Agalaya but all hell loose breaks when once again Nastasya decides that she is still in love with the Prince.

In Prince Myshkin, Mr. Dostoyovesky created a beautiful soul. A man who is free of deception, lies, concoction, and brutally honest. A man who always put others before his own happiness. A man whom no one can hate even if one tries they fail miserably and end up falling in love with this simpleton. So many times I felt so angry when people called him mad, fool, idiot, because they failed to see the beautiful heart that the Prince had. Then one can’t blame them for we always hate people who are too good and have the qualities that we don’t possess. We want to be clever but hate it when outsmarted by cleverer person. But our prince is beyond all this, he just love and think highly of others even if those very people are trying to drag him down. And that’s the reason they find it so hard to begrudge him.

While the prince has no vile motives, the two leading ladies of the novel have intentions that were hard to grasp upon for me. One minute they were madly in love with Prince, but in the next moment they would leave him and tell him that they don’t love him. They could not bear the thought of him being with another, oh how they made sure of it. One kept running away from him, and the other kept him on the edge with her own confusion. They drove him mad and how I wanted him to leave both of them to their fate and go some other place where he would get peace of mind but they would not let him walk away.

Dostoyovesky has written a stunning story that evoked so many emotions in me. I found myself teary, laughing, distressed, full of hatred, scared, angry, and sad on behalf of the prince. I don’t think one will get to meet a person like Prince in real life but it is easy to see the goons that surround him in everyday life. His characters are deeply flawed, impulsive, and dense but at the same time they make me understand (or at least I tried to) how human nature works.

I absolutely loved this book, and I am definitely reading his other works but I think I will still take another year to get out of this world.