Includes pictures and an extensive section on Dostoevsky's life and
works After spending several years in a sanatorium recovering from an
illness that caused him to lose his memory and ability to reason, Prince
Myshkin arrives in St. Petersburg and is at once confronted with the
stark realities of life in the Russian capital from greed, murder, and
nihilism to passion, vanity, and love. Mocked for his childlike naivety
yet valued for his openness and understanding, Prince Myshkin finds
himself entangled with two women in a position he cannot bring himself
to resolve. Dostoevsky, who wrote that in the character of Prince
Myshkin he hoped to portray a "wholly virtuous man," shows the workings
of the human mind and our relationships with others in all their complex
and contradictory nature."