{"product_id":"the-idiot-9780241739822","title":"The Idiot","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe most autobiographical novel by the author of \u003ci\u003eCrime and Punishment \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Brothers Karamazov--\u003c\/i\u003eand the namesake of Elif Batuman's debut novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Idiot\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Returning to St Petersburg from a Swiss sanatorium, the gentle and naïve epileptic Prince Myshkin-- known as the \"idiot\"--pays a visit to his distant relative General Yepanchin and proceeds to charm the General and his family. But his life is thrown into turmoil when he chances on a photograph of the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna. Utterly infatuated, he soon finds himself caught up in a love triangle and drawn into a web of blackmail, betrayal, and finally, murder. In Prince Myshkin, Dostoyevsky portrays the purity of \"a truly beautiful soul\" and explores the perils that innocence and goodness face in a corrupt world. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e David McDuff's translation brilliantly captures the novel's idiosyncratic and dream-like language and the nervous, elliptic flow of the narrative. This edition also contains an introduction by William Mills Todd III, which is a fascinating examination of the pressures on Dostoyevsky as he wrote the story of his Christ-like hero.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFyodor Dostoyevsky \u003c\/b\u003e(1821-1881) was a Russian novelist, journalist, and short-story writer whose novels \u003ci\u003eCrime and Punishment \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Brothers Karamazov \u003c\/i\u003erank among the greatest of the nineteenth century. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cb\u003eDavid McDuff\u003c\/b\u003e (translator) has translated many works of nineteenth-century Russian literature, including works by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Leskov for Penguin Classics. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cb\u003eWilliam Mills Todd III\u003c\/b\u003e (introducer) is a professor of Slavic languages at Harvard.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Penguin Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51749464441106,"sku":"9780241739822","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_419e07e0-82bc-400b-9c4e-a60bb7957c9d.jpg?v=1764087024","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-idiot-9780241739822","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}