The Idiot

Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin returns to Russia after staying in a sanatorium and finds himself entangled in a complex love triangle. His sincere impulses and feelings clash with the harsh world of jealousy, egoism, and the surfeit of those around him.

Such rich plots are always «doomed» to evoke an automatic effect of presence in the reader. The secret lies not only in the eventful twists and turns but also in the brilliantly crafted characters and the electric charges between them. The sum of all components transforms the effect of presence into an «effect of participation»: as you immerse yourself in the novel, you first become an invisible witness to the events, and then you merge with the main character so closely that you see through his eyes and measure his world with the beating of your own heart. And then the main question arises: how to survive in this world that seemed fictional and suddenly became so real, and how not to go mad here. After all, can society determine the degree of someone’s «normality»? In general, who among us is Prince Myshkin?