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Radio 3’s flagship arts programme until 2013. Over 350 editions available in the archive.

Radio 3’s flagship arts programme until 2013. Search the extensive archive for interviews, debates and reviews. Go to Free Thinking for the new home of arts and ideas on Radio 3.

Night Waves: Landmarks: Dostoevsky's The Idiot

Landmarks: Dostoevsky's The Idiot

12/09/2012

BBC Radio 3 - Night Waves, Landmarks: Dostoevsky's The Idiot

Matthew Sweet with a Landmark edition examining Dostoevsky's The Idiot.

In a week of programmes devoted to the good life, Matthew Sweet has a Landmark edition examining The Idiot, Dostoyevsky's religious response to attaining a stable, joyful life.

From holy fools to fallen women, via scenes of high social drama in middle class drawing rooms, Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot' (1869) raises 'the good life' as an existential question that everybody must answer for themselves.
Written whilst the author was on the run from his creditors, the novel has been read as both an over-the-top melodrama, and as a profound exploration of the ambiguity of goodness. It's also proved irresistible to directors, spawning adaptations for stage, cinema and TV.
Matthew Sweet is joined by the theologian Giles Fraser, Russian specialist Sarah Young and the novelist Zinovy Zinik 

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

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