The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz

Expand

The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz

If Fyodor Dostoyevsky has a reputation in America as entirely grim, maybe it’s the fault of his English language translators? The new translation of his 1869 novel, The Idiot, is almost laugh-out loud on many pages. Mel Brooks could’ve made a great movie adaptation with Gene Wilder as the protagonist, Prince Myshkin (Brooks referenced The Idiot in The Producers), and passages of conversation among Russia’s wealthy read like the script for a ‘30s screwball comedy. And while we’re talking classic Hollywood, too bad no one thought of casting young Jimmy Stewart as Myshkin, the naif whose ideals are tested when he finds himself surrounded by deceit.

Michael R. Katz comes to The Idiot after translating more than 20 Russian novels, including Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground. In his introduction, Katz quotes Dostoyevsky’s objective in writing The Idiot: “The idea is—to portray a perfectly good man. I believe there is nothing more difficult than this, especially in our time.” The people Myshkin encounters are baffled by his guilessness.

Despite his title, Prince Myshkin comes from a decayed branch of aristocracy. He returns to Russia penniless after a stay in Switzerland to cure an unnamed neurological disorder (epilepsy?). Readers seeking contemporary “relevance” will appreciate the prince’s abhorrence of capital punishment and uncharitable Christianity, and Dostoyevsky’s respect for children, animals and the disabled (as Myshkin was viewed) along with a subplot concerning a young woman abused at the hands of her guardian. Katz’s The Idiot emerges from a trend in publishing to revisit the task of translation. “Unlike my predecessors, I have chosen to render this complicated novel into standard American English for an American audience.” He succeeds.

Get The Idiot on Amazon here.

Paid link