Prominent modern critics acknowledge the novel’s apparent structural deficiencies, but also point out that the author was aware of them himself, and that they were perhaps a natural consequence of the experimental approach toward the central idea. Joseph Frank has called The Idiot «perhaps the most original of Dostoevsky’s great novels, and certainly the most artistically uneven of them all,» but he also wondered how it was that the novel «triumphed so effortlessly over the inconsistencies and awkwardnesses of its structure.» Gary Saul Morson observes that «The Idiot brings to mind the old saw about how, according to the laws of physics, bumblebees should be unable to fly, but bumblebees, not knowing physics, go on flying anyway.»
The twentieth century Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin regarded the structural asymmetry and unpredictability of plot development, as well as the perceived ‘fantasticality’ of the characters, not as any sort of deficiency, but as entirely consistent with Dostoevsky’s unique and groundbreaking literary method. Bakhtin saw Dostoevsky as the preeminent exemplar of the Carnivalesque in literature, and as the inventor of the polyphonic novel. A literary approach that incorporates carnivalisation and polyphony in Bakhtin’s sense precludes any sort of conventionally recognizable structure or predictable pattern of plot development.
English translations
Since The Idiot was first published in Russian, there have been a number of translations into English, including those by:
Frederick Whishaw (1887)
Constance Garnett (1913)
Revised by Anna Brailovsky (2003)
Eva Martin (1915)
David Magarshack (1955)
John W. Strahan (1965)
Henry Carlisle and Olga Andreyeva Carlisle (1980)
Alan Myers (1992)
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2002)
David McDuff (2004)
Ignat Avsey (2010)
The Constance Garnett translation was for many years accepted as the definitive English translation, but more recently it has come under criticism for being dated. The Garnett translation, however, still remains widely available because it is now in the public domain. Some writers, such as Anna Brailovsky, have based their translations on Garnett’s. Since the 1990s, new English translations have appeared that have made the novel more accessible to English readers. The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation (2000) states that the Alan Myers version is the «best version currently available». Since then, however, new translations by David McDuff and Pevear & Volokhonsky have also been well received.
Adaptations
Several filmmakers have produced adaptations of the novel, among them Wandering Souls (Carl Froelich; 1921) L’idiot (Georges Lampin; 1946), a 1951 version by Akira Kurosawa, a 1958 version by Russian director Ivan Pyryev, and a 1992 Hindi version by Mani Kaul.
An unfinished silent version by Sergei Eisenstein was once shown in the Soviet Union, the last reel «lost» over a disagreement with Joseph Stalin on the ending. Andrei Tarkovsky aspired to eventually produce a film adaptation of The Idiot, but was constantly obfuscated by Soviet state censors. He was contracted by Mosfilm to write a screenplay in 1983, but production halted after he announced his intent never to return to the Soviet Union. Tarkovsky’s other films, such as Stalker, incorporate many themes from The Idiot.
In 1966, the British Broadcasting Corporation screened a five-part adaptation of The Idiot on BBC-2. It was directed by Alan Bridges and starred David Buck as Prince Myskin and Adrienne Corri as Nastasia.
In 2003, Russian State Television Network VGTRK produced a 10-part, 8-hour mini-series of the work, directed by Vladimir Bortko for Telekanal Rossiya, which is available with English subtitles.
BBC Radio 7 broadcast a 4-episode adaptation of The Idiot entitled Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, in June 2010. It starred Paul Rhys as Prince Myshkin.
Mieczysław Weinberg adapted the novel into a Russian-language opera.
