Favorite characters

Prince Myshkin: Due to a terrible case of epilepsy, he spent most of his time isolated from society, living under a doctor’s care; The Idiot details the story of his return to Russia for the first time, and his attempts to fit in there. He has a deep, natural love for all people, always trusting them, seeing the good in them, and trying to forgive. However, he can be whimsical, quixotic, and awkward due to how little life experience he has, and how little time he’s spent in society. He wants everyone in the world to live in utter harmony and happiness but fails to grasp that this isn’t possible. He himself notices how strange he is compared to those around him, and his inability to fully understand other people, which sometimes makes him feel terribly lonely, as though he were living in a world he had no place in.

Ivan Karamazov: His parts of The Brothers Karamazov are the best, in my opinion. His dilemma lies in the fact that he yearns deeply to believe in God, but believes religion is scientifically impossible; he wants to be altrustic and deeply moral while believing morality is a social construct. "You are going to perform a virtuous deed, but you don’t even believe in virtue ... what is virtue to you? Why drag yourself there if your sacrifice serves no purpose?" He has no logical refutations to materialism and nihilism, but he hates those things, without quite understading why.

Nastasya Barashkov: She was abused in her youth, which made her feel like she could never be "pure." She also saw everyone around her as being twisted and superficial, which they were to an extent, but she played emotional games with them and caused chaos for fun. She often tried to sacrifice herself for others, or put herself in dangerous situations, believing herself to be unworthy of happiness. Deep inside, she wanted to lead a simple, quiet life, and be loved and understood by someone, but [spoilers] her self-hatred ultimately lead to her downfall.

I also loved Miusov and Fyodor Karamazov’s dynamic, it was hilarious and it’s unfortunate it lasted so briefly.

Favorite quotes

“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”

“I swear to you that to think too much is a disease—a real, actual disease.”

“Man can be extraordinarily, passionately in love with suffering.”

Originally, Dostoyevsky said this to mean that if we grow too bored, we’ll eventually destroy ourselves and others to alleviate our ennui. However, this particular line can be interpreted many other ways. I have heard of artists who seek out suffering so they can heighten the strength of yearning and melancholy in their music, or people who have fallen in love with unhappiness because it is the only constant in their lives.

“Suffering and pain are always obligatory for a broad consciousness and a deep heart.”

“Before him was the shining sky, below him the lake, around him the horizon, bright and infinite, as if it went on forever. For a long time he looked and suffered. He remembered now how he had stretched out his arms to that bright, infinite blue and wept. What had tormented him was that he was a total stranger to it all. What was this banquet, what was this great everlasting feast, to which he had long been drawn, always, ever since childhood, and which he could never join? Every morning the same bright sun rises; every morning there is a rainbow over the waterfall; every evening the highest snowcapped mountain, there, far away, at the edge of the sky, burns with a crimson flame; every “little fly that buzzes near him in a hot ray of sunlight participates in this whole chorus: knows its place, loves it, and is happy”; every little blade of grass grows and is happy! And everything has its path, and everything knows its path… only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither people nor sounds, a stranger to everything and a castaway…”