edition part of the Piccola Biblioteca collection by Adelphi

Il principe Myskin, ultimo erede di una grande famiglia decaduta, è una creatura spiritualmente superiore, la cui «idiozia» consiste in un’assoluta mancanza di volontà e in una fede assoluta negli altri. Dopo un lungo soggiorno in Svizzera, al ritorno in patria si trova coinvolto in un vortice di storie d’amore vissute con passione torbida e violenta, che hanno come protagonisti il giovane Rogozin, la bellissima Nastas’ja e l’aristocratica Aglaja. Un’intricatissima sequenza di avvenimenti, raccontati con ritmo incalzante, in cui sfocia un’immensa mole di materiale: da Cristo alla cronaca giudiziaria russa, dall’Apocalisse alla polemica con il socialismo.

After spending several years in a sanatorium recovering from an illness that caused him to lose his memory and ability to reason, Prince Myshkin arrives in St Petersburg and is at once confronted with the stark realities of life in the Russian capital – from greed, murder and nihilism to passion, vanity and love. Mocked for his childlike naivety yet valued for his openness and understanding, Prince Myshkin finds himself entangled with two women in a position he cannot bring himself to resolve.
Dostoevsky, who wrote that in the character of Prince Myshkin he hoped to portray a “wholly virtuous man”, shows the workings of the human mind and our relationships with others in all their complex and contradictory nature. Populated by an unforgettable cast of characters, from the beautiful, self-destructive Nastasya Filippovna to the dangerously obsessed Rogozhin and the radical student Ippolit, The Idiot is one of Dostoevsky’s most personal and intense works of fiction.

From the award-winning translators of Crime and Punishment, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

Based on a real-life crime which horrified Russia in 1869, Dostoevsky intended his novel to castigate the fanaticism of his country's new revolutionaries, particularly those known as Nihilists. Blackly funny, grotesque and shocking, it is a disturbing portrait of five young men saturated in ideology and bent on destruction, and a compelling study of terrorism

Source: penguin.co.uk

Роман в шест части, в които всяко престъпление е човешко, а наказанието следва невидимите проявления на божествената воля, която спасява човешкото у човека. Всичко ли е позволено на човека, мъртъв ли е неговият вътрешен бог? Отговора на този въпрос ще намерите в един от великите романи на Достоевски — „Престъпление и наказание“.

Dmitri, Ivan et Alexeï, trois êtres que tout sépare, partagent un même père, et avec lui une honte indicible : honte de l’origine, de la naissance… Honte d’exister, qui précipite Dimitri dans l’alcool et les excès de son père et assigne Ivan à une résignation désabusée.
Alors que la propagation de l’athéisme plonge le peuple russe dans un doute existentiel, Fiodor Pavlovich, le père de la fratrie, incarne ce désarroi d’une dévotion en souffrance d’idole. Condamné à une existence au second degré, il s’affirme comme une parodie de lui-même. La disparition de Dieu n’a balayé ni la peine ni la culpabilité, mais laissé insatiable la faim d’être pardonné : faute de rédemption, Fiodor mène l’existence dérisoire d’un bouffon et ne récolte que la haine de ses fils. Seul le cadet Alexeï ouvre, confiant, le chemin vers une existence vivable, en opposant au règne généralisé de la honte la ferveur de l’homme simple.

Exprimant les craintes ineffables qui nous agitent, Dostoïevski trouve une ultime consolation dans la fièvre des mots échangés et l’ivresse dangereuse des aveux murmurés.

Dostoevsky's influence on the modern literary mind is unrivalled in its scope and vitality. Nowhere does his art appear in so quintessential a form as in Notes from Underground , certainly one of the most revolutionary and original works in world literature; nowhere is his thought presented with such authority as in "The Grand Inquisitor," an episode of central importance taken from his last and greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov . In both these vital works Dostoevsky confronts the reader with the tragic grandeur of man, indeed, with a whole philosophy of tragedy: the tragedy of the individual and freedom, the tragedy of the historical process, the tragedy of universal evil.

Relevant works included by Chernyshevsky, Schedrin and Dostoevsky.