Fjodor Michajlovič Dostojevskij - Idiot (Vintage Publishing)

In his second novel, Dostoevsky sought to portray "a positively beautiful man, " a saintly paragon in contrast to the murderer Raskolnikov of his first novel. After a stay in a Swiss sanitarium, Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin returns to an unrecognizable Russia obsessed with material and carnal pleasures. His own goodness clashes with this world as he becomes entangled in love affairs with two very different women. Through Myshkin's struggle, in which his corruption seems fated, Dostoevsky offers a brilliant indictment of a society that cannot countenance virtue.