This book was published after Crime and Punishment. Pretty good, definitely not my favorite of Dostoevsky. This book is I think his first iteration on the idea of a beautiful soul. The main character (Prince Myshkin) is a man who is guileless and deeply compassionate. As a result, everyone he comes in contact with assumes he is an idiot. The simple soul is dropped into the current of crazy Russians and you are left to watch what happens and where the soul ends up. While personally I feel like the character of the prince was perfected in story the brothers Karamazov, some of the transcendent goodness of father Zosima and Alyosha can be seen here. Enough of it is visible to make you wish you were a little more like the prince even though the consequences would be unbearable. Fyodor Dostoevsky