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The thing that most impressed me about the Idiot was the extreme complexity of the interpersonal relationships of the characters. It made me think that Dostoev
by narrator 9y ago
The thing that most impressed me about the Idiot was the extreme complexity of the interpersonal relationships of the characters. It made me think that Dostoevsky was vastly overstating the intelligence of the average Russian, or maybe they were all that smart back in the day. Some of the monologues in which the main characters explain the various interpersonal relationships and intrigues are as hard to follow as any I've ever read. The only thing that comes close is some of Pynchon's stuff.
- westoncb 9y agoI'm tempted to think that's an artifact of a tendency in writers to give their characters thought processes resembling their own. I don't think it's anything especially related to writing; I think everyone does it in their normal life: you want to think about how so and so is going to react to whatever, but the best we can really do is consider them as basically like ourselves +/- some known differences (which for many things is sufficient, but in my experience can also lead to absurdities due to how vastly differently some folks think).