The Simpleton
a novel by Alex Bakhtin
(Pigeon Classics, 2022), 612 pages

Reviewed by James Fable

It is almost a truism by now that Postmodernism is obsessed with adaptations. Whether feminist retellings of Greek myth or barely digestible mashups of anglophone classics (with horror I refer to Seth Graeme-Smith’s Pride, Prejudice and Zombies), publishing houses do not appear fussy when it comes to regurgitations of the literary past. And now, it is the Russian canon’s turn to come under the postmodernist pen.

In his debut novel, The Simpleton, Alex Bakhtin takes the conceptual seed of Dostoevsky’s masterpiece The Idiot and plants it in the present day, resulting in a scathing yet at times predictable critique of contemporary society. Incensed by the world’s ‘misplaced optimism’ and celebrities claiming that ‘life is a precious gift,’ Andrew Shore, a moody teacher of Philosophy and Russian at a secondary school in London, UK, sets out to show that ‘life is not all roses for your ordinary, simple man.’ After much deliberation, which Bakhtin drags out until the reader’s patience starts wearing thin, Andrew creates a TikTok account and begins to upload videos of himself doing everyday tasks such as tying his shoelaces, feeding his dog, Diogenes, and grocery shopping.

An author is every character in their novel, to varying degrees, and the reader gets the impression early on that Bakhtin, a lecturer in Russian Literature at University College London, is himself a cynical recluse like his protagonist. Part Two of The Simpleton reinforces this, as Andrew’s TikTok channel unwittingly garners the admiration of his co-workers, who laud him for sharing ‘fascinating snapshots of his life.’ Much to his frustration and bemusement, Andrew’s monotonous films quickly attract several thousand viewers – a witty inversion of the fate of Dostoevsky’s ‘idiot,’ Prince Myshkin, whose humility and compassion lead nearly everyone he encounters to disparage him.

As Andrew’s desperation to satirise society rises, his attention turns to the trend of cryptocurrencies and NFTs (non-fungible tokens). However, his cryptocurrency – Useless (ULS), a so-called ‘shitcoin’ with no use case – soars 50,000% in a single year, while the NFTs he has minted – which include images of his little finger, a spade, and a series of cartoonish ‘burp jars’ – sell for the equivalent of several million dollars. Soon, a popular magazine names Andrew the ‘Top Influencer of 2022’, sealing his unintended ascent to fame.

As amusing as these developments are, Bakhtin dwells on them for far too long, making parts Two and Three a repetitive and at times overly didactic read. They also only loosely follow the plot of The Idiot, raising the question of whether Bakhtin describes The Simpleton as an adaptation of the Russian classic simply to grant it canonical status. Suffice it to say, there is little trace in The Simpleton of the philosophical and psychological complexities that characterise The Idiot, further suggesting that the title of Bakhtin’s novel serves more than anything as a means of self-aggrandisement.

Nevertheless, The Simpleton entertains most of the way through and particularly in Part Four, which offers a few humorous echoes of Dostoevsky’s tour de force. Determined to put his fame to meaningful use, Andrew writes a popular philosophy book about free will, examining the notion of it all the way from antiquity to contemporary neuroscience. However, the book is a commercial flop, and Andrew’s followers plead for him to resume his TikTok videos, driving him mad – a playful allusion to Myshkin, who also ends up going insane. Confined to a mental asylum, Andrew spends the rests of his days arranging alphabetti spaghetti into three-syllable words. In a hilarious twist that hammers home the novel’s message, a nurse films this and uploads the footage to Andrew’s TikTok channel. He swiftly becomes the most popular TikTok user on Earth, forcing the reader to ask: just who is the simpleton in this story?