Crime and Punishment

This took so long because it was too big to travel with and also made me anxious to read. Does anyone recommend a particular translation? I read Pevear and Volokhonsky and I’m guessing I’d prefer something else. Might try again in ten years.

Need to go back and annotate once I’ve read what more intelligent people than me had to say about it, but I liked it.

And now I can annoy lit bros by telling them I preferred The Atlas Six to Dostoyevsky.

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”

I don’t even know where to begin with this one. I mean, what can I possibly say about “Crime and Punishment” that hasn’t been said already? I picked up my first Dostoyevsky novel right after finishing Yukio Mishima’s novel, “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), because of the parallels between the two stories: they are both about young, isolated and rather nihilistic men, and while one book ends with a crime and the other more or less begins with one, both works pick apart the hearts and minds of someone capable of committing such acts, and what brings them to it.

Razkolnikov is a strange case: for most of the book, I did not know what to make of this man. Caught up in a bad financial situation, depressive, entitled, arrogant and utterly careless, there isn’t much to like in him. Especially since, as the story unfolds, you see that he is not nearly as intelligent as he believes himself to be. In fact, it becomes clearer and clearer that the person he thinks he is, and the person he actually is a very different, and as his self-image and rather muddled philosophical ideas start to crumble, he begins to seek forgiveness and redemption.

After coming up with a half-baked philosophical notion on what distinguishes extraordinary people from ordinary people, Razkolnikov convinced himself that he can prove his absurd theory to be right by committing a senseless murder. He chooses his victim on the basis that she is an inconsequential moneylender, and that in fact, the world might just be a better place without her anyway, as she brings her customers much misery. Of course, things don’t really work like that, and the consequences of his gesture will plague him in more ways than he could have imagined. Razkolnikov starts out as a bit of a slacker: he doesn’t have a kopek to his name, but won’t take work when it is offered to him, instead of trying to get his life together, he lets things fall to pieces around him and then whines endlessly about his condition. Then he is forced (by his own hand) to wrestle with his conscience. It is truly remarkable how a few days bring him from one extreme of behavior to a completely different way of living and looking at his life.

The description of the squalor of the poor neighborhoods of St-Petersburg, the misery and threadbare-ness people are reduced to, are vivid, almost Dickensian. And similarly, Dostoyevsky drives the point that people who live in such conditions will never be as important in the eyes of the law, as their more privileged counterparts. While this comes off as a bit heavy-handed and obvious at times, but thankfully, he also doesn't linger too long in lecture-mode.

The treatment of female characters struck me as more nuanced than I was expecting: Dostoyevsky’s women are drawn realistically, with their flaws made painfully obvious, but their strengths and wills are to be reckoned with. Sonya and Dunya are incredible! The way Dunya gets rid of her horrid suitor and would-be rapist by standing up for herself and her family, and Sonya’s immense power of forgiveness and compassion had me enthralled. Sonya’s faith sometimes comes across as naïve, but at the same time, how naïve can a girl in her position possibly be?

I read the Oliver Ready translation, which was clear and fluid, and made going through 700 pages much easier than I had anticipated. But I have to say that I found the first half of the book somewhat uneven. We go from moments of intense drama, to quiet introspection, to long ramblings that could have been trimmed generously without sacrificing any meaning... But once I got past the halfway point, things really ramped up, and it was difficult to put the book away for too long. The second half is really where the book earns its reputation as an existential thriller. Some scenes, while drawn out a bit, still kept me on the edge of my seat, hanging on to every word on the page, impressed by the intensity Dostoyevsky conveyed through something as simple as the reading of a few Bible verses... There is also a surprising streak of dark humour coursing through this novel, an absurdist humour that makes one snort rather than enjoy a good belly laugh – but I’m starting to think that’s just a Russian thing.

Reading “Crime and Punishment” actually makes me look forward to getting around to “The Brothers Karamazov”, as I have found Dostoyevsky to be just as thought-provoking and entertaining as his reputation promised. A great, if somewhat imperfect book, well worth making time for.

Time and timing were key elements in my reading of Crime and Punishment because real life became particularly busy just after I began the book making reading time particularly scarce, and since it is a novel that demands full attention, the timing couldn't have been more unfortunate, especially as I began to realise quite early on that ideally I would like to have been able to read it at the pace of the story, i.e., in the same amount of days as the narrative covers, days which Dostoyevsky fills almost entirely with thoughts and speech, most often as a series of monologues, keeping the story in some kind of real time, the words and thoughts of the characters counting time like the hands of a clock, even throughout the night, since the main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov experiences many nightmares which allow us to accompany him even when his eyes are closed, and in any case, his family, friends and acquaintances have a habit of wandering in and out of his room while he is sleeping so that when we are not experiencing his dreams, we are hearing from people who are watching him sleep until he wakes up, when the verbal monologues begin again, though rarely delivered by Raskolnikov who is a reluctant communicator with scarcely more than a page of words escaping his lips during the entire 650 pages of the novel even while his friends and family rabbit on and on, though when there’s no one else about, and especially when he is wandering through Saint Petersburg alone, our Rodion Romanovich talks to himself, and of course to us the readers, so that we are treated to his opinions on everything, and very much in real time, because he focuses on where he is at every moment so that we are there with him, not only party to his thoughts but seeing what he sees, living his dilemmas minute by minute, and when Dostoyevsky pulls one of the surprise stunts with which he brilliantly paces the story, we are pulled up short along with Rodion, our hearts beat faster, the blood drains from our faces, we come out in a cold sweat until we manage to adjust to the new situation shoulder to shoulder with Rodya, and as this happens again and again, we are eventually so conditioned to his world that we are reluctant to leave it when the narrative comes to its inevitable end…

n  "Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a broad consciousness and a deep heart. Truly great men, I think, must feel great sorrow in this world."n

In this review I focus on the theme of pain as a path toward personal growth and discovering one’s true identity. I dedicate it to my friend Jeffrey. At first we would just read each others’ reviews. It was a common painful experience that bought us together and let me get to know the fabulous person behind the written words. Thank you for being what you are, Jeffrey!

SPOILERS

n  "If I am guilty, forgive me (though if I'm guilty, I cannot be forgiven)…I'll try to be both courageous and honest all my life, even though I'm a murderer. Perhaps you'll hear my name someday."n

How much do we know of forgiveness? It is a thing universally spoken of, asked for, preached, aspired to, but do we actually know what it means? Can it be defined? And if so, is there anyone who has the right to define it and give it a universal meaning or is it something each of us needs to define for him/herself? Is forgiveness meant to erase the act? If so, then, indeed, nothing could ever be forgiven, because nothing can ever change the past, bring back the time, make you a different person, change the reality of who you are and what you have done. But if there is such thing as forgiveness, what does it mean? Does it mean to believe that the committer is not guilty, that they have done their best under their circumstances? But if there is no crime, then there is no need of forgiveness. Or is this it? To keep an open mind, to understand when and where judgement needs to be bestowed and when and where – withdrawn. Or is it to conceal, to hide your negative feelings toward them and act merely on your positive ones? But if so, wouldn’t that be a lie, a false forgiveness, a show? And if we let it all out, then wouldn’t we be condemning them, after all? Or maybe this is it. Along with the accusations to be able to show them some goodness, to remember that they are humans too. And what about when we have no positive feelings toward them and all we can see is a monster? And if we don’t let ourselves fall into lust for vengeance and let them go, or even, show them some goodness, despite the knowledge that they wouldn’t do the same for us? Would that be forgiveness? And if the wound is healed? Does our overcoming the hurt automatically bestow forgiveness on the committer? And how would they feel? If the pain is gone, does that release us from responsibility? If the victim ceases to be a victim, does the criminal cease to be a criminal? If those whom we have hurt can make peace with what we have done, can we? Which is the harder forgiveness? The one we need to bestow on others or on ourselves? Do we truly believe in forgiveness when we speak of it? Can a wound really be overcome? My friend Jeffrey told me once that we don’t get over things. That the best we could hope for is to find a place for them somewhere within us and carry them in a way that wouldn’t paralyse us and that would let us keep going despite the pain. And I said to him that if we were able to have everything we needed, we would have been able to get over things. But due to life’s nature, there is always more that needs to be overcome. If it is true that we never get over things, then it is because there are always new ones piling on top of the old ones. Also, what happens when there is not enough left of us to be healed? In Fugitive Pieces it is said:

n  ”Nothing erases the immoral act. Not forgiveness. Not confession. And even if an act could be forgiven, no one could bear the responsibility of forgiveness on behalf of the dead. No act of violence is ever resolved. When the one who can forgive can no longer speak, there is only silence.”n

Whatever the truth, I believe that forgiveness, whenever possible and with its different faces, helps us in our sorrow, in our need, our humiliation and anger. Raskolnikov’s family and friends presented to me a truly profound from of forgiveness. They don't conceal their feelings and their belief that what he has done is unacceptable, incomprehensible, cruel act. Yet, they do so without assuming lofty position, without anger, without judgement, without coldness, without contempt. They choose to treat the criminal as an equal, as a victim in need of help, as a loved one. But can a criminal be a victim at the same time? Those are the biggest victims. Victims of themselves, of their inability to rise above and believe. But is it so easy to determine the nature of a crime? It is usually seen as a harmful to others deed. But I don’t believe that things are simply right and wrong. Not everything that isn’t wrong is right, and not everything that isn’t right is wrong. I believe in gray areas.

n  “You shed blood!” “Which everyone sheds, which is and always has been shed in torrents in this world, which men spill like champagne, and for which they're crowned on the Capitoline and afterwards called benefactors of mankind…if I'd succeeded, I'd have been crowned, but now I'm walking into the trap!”n

We tend to see people who bring down oppressors, dictators, tyrants, as heroes, revolutionaries. And this is how Raskolnikov sees himself. It is his personal rebellion against an oppressor. Oppressor who consists of more than an old pawnbroker. To him she is part of a decease that the world is rife with. She is no a single tyrant holding a whole city or nation in her fist, but sometimes the face of evil, the oppression is not just one person, but many. To him she is part of a society that needs to be brought down in order for new, better breed of people, compassionate, altruistic people, to come and rule. To come and make the important decisions. And he thinks that if he can't defeat the system, he can at least weaken it by destroying one of its members, the harsh, uncaring old woman, and add the acquired from her to the good society, to those in need. And he also sacrifices an innocent woman in order to protect himself and his plan. And the pawnbroker herself? I don’t think he sees her in this horrible light because she doesn't want to relieve him a little bit of his debt. Or at least not mainly because of that. I think he sees her this way mostly because there is no compassion in her refusal, no understanding. There are those who make hard decisions and hurt other people but are hurting while doing so and are sorry for that they need to do it. This woman shows no compassion, no regret. And it is this most of all that drives him over the edge. I believe it is essential to show compassion toward those we hurt. Even when we think they deserve it, even when we feel we have no other choice. Raskolnikov kills her. And kills her sister. He believes that sometimes it is acceptable for an "exceptional" human to sacrifice an "ordinary" one in the name of the greater good. I cannot see him as simply a criminal, or simply a victim. I can neither oppose, nor side with his philosophy. All is quite relevant. I can talk of this situation. Do I see the murder of the two women as justified act? No. Yet, I can’t help but feeling more sorry for the murderer than the victims. Raskolnikov has a truly exceptional mind that, unfortunately, proves to be a knife with two blades. Sofia Simeonovna asks him:

n  "And how is it, how is it that you could give away your last penny, and yet kill in order to rob!"n

He is one of those with whom the good and the bad come from the same place. His passion, his broad consciousness lead him to both great good and great cruelty. For some reason it just goes both ways. His victims lack the capacity for such a crime, but they also lack the capacity for the good he is capable of. He is a deep, very deep person, but he doesn’t possess the necessary to bear this depth. It is marvellous to possess such a wealth of profundity and passion, but only when you have the means to channel them the right way. Sometimes the best of us is the worst in someone else. There are those of us who lack the necessary substance to bear their gifts with dignity, integrity, passion, and therefore their depth, their brilliance is a murder. They incite them to believes and actions that are far beyond our and their own comprehension. Only a healthy spirit can bear the weight of a large intelligence. As Raskolnikov himself points out, ”it takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently”. I keep asking myself why our human complexity results into violence, sadism, cruelty, and not in beauty, nobleness, desire. It is our birthright and obligation to be more than what nature has bestowed on us. Technically, biologically, we are no more than animals, part of the big chain, but inwardly we are something else. Something exceptional, spectacular, breathtaking. We are strong and beautiful in our intricacy, but cruel and weak in our inability to bear it, to recognize it, to give in to it. The beauty of the human heart and mind is always dual, deadly and life-giving, poisonous and healing, grand and small. And it is there that lays the biggest mystery. For it is pain and suffering that the most beautiful creations are based on. It is pain that forces us to grow, to develop, it is pain that reveals to us our most amazing qualities, our deepest beauty, our profoundest selves. It is there that lays the irony, the paradox. Our highest cannot exist without our lowest. As said in ”An Unnecessary Woman”, ”Peaks cannot exist without valleys.”. I think it is rather notable that after having murdered two women and being incarcerated for it, Raskolnikov is actually more at peace with himself than at the beginning. The pain he goes through changes him. He might have commits his crime only once, but in his mind many times before that. Subconsciously, but still, the thoughts, the feelings that lead to it in the end have been part of him always. And after finally getting to it, he changes.

n   "In torment he asked himself this question, and could not understand that even then, when he was standing over the river, he may have sensed a profound lie in himself and in his convictions. He did not understand that this sense might herald a future break in his life, his future resurrection, his future new vision of life."n

Sometimes there is no other way than through our own destruction and the one of others for us to come to realize our truth. In Raskolnikov’s case the cost he pays for his personal growth are the lives of two human beings and the suffering of all those who love him. Yet, in the end he does find peace. A peace he has never known before. Because it is one thing to imagine and think of something. It’s another to face it. Only when he truly faces his convictions, by actually acting on them, he realizes their true nature. Some I used to know told me they felt his remorse was self-serving. But does the suffering make the remorse more real, worthier? Isn’t it the inner change that is most important, the decision to be a different person? Desperation drives Raskolnikov toward his crime and had he stayed in this abyss of guilt and darkness, maybe he would have gone down the same road eventually. Yet, he manages to realize the error of his ways and make peace with what he has done, and this saves him and those around him. I believe, though, that personal growth can be achieved without a crime, without a downfall, without taking others’ lives and happiness away. I have always believed that, when it comes to personal growth, deep reading and writing are the best alternative to pain and suffering. Long live great literature.

P.S. I would also like to thank my friend Sidharth who really does understand and appreciate the connection between beauty and pain and whose words about it were a part of what inspired me to write this. Thank you, Sidharth. You are a very wise young man. :)

Read count: 1

What a sensational reading experience, what an unconditional surrender to an atmosphere of fear, anxiety and confusion - and to an epic battle of wills!

Rarely these days do I read with that kind of hopeless, helpless feeling of being completely, utterly lost in the imaginary world. From the first moment, when Raskolnikov steps out on the street and begins wandering around in Petersburg, to the very last pages, I live with the characters, I am part of the story, I have my own opinions, and argue against their actions, in my head, while reading on in a frenzy.

What can I say?

There has been enough said of Raskolnikov’s murky motives for doing what he does. I don’t agree with him at all, neither with the theory he proposes, nor with the idea that he can expiate his crime through intense suffering. I hate the nonchalance with which he discards the murderee - “a louse” - as an unimportant detail in the bigger picture of him, his character, his suffering ego, and his ultimate redemption and resurrection as a “new man”.

Even if the pawnbroker is not a sympathetic character, she is an independent woman, who provides for herself, without having to sell her body to a husband or a pimp. She is not a “louse”, and by killing her out of vanity, pride, self-promotion, delusion or hubris, Raskolnikov destroys her. It is not the devil’s work, as Raskolnikov says at one point. A great man should be better able to take responsibility for his own actions. It is Raskolnikov himself who knowingly, condescendingly, makes the calculation that an ugly, businesslike old woman does not have any value in herself. Of course not, Raskolnikov! Neither does Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice! Not part of the mainstream community, they don’t count, in the name of law and justice and compassion. It takes a Shakespeare or a Dostoyevsky to point that out without sounding preachy and moralist, and without siding with one character against another.

In a world in which women are property, the unattractive pawnbroker is meaningless, unless you turn her riches into your property. As for the brutal killing, with an axe? A mere trifle in the context!

But as Dostoyevsky might well be one of the most brilliant authors ever describing an evil character, I commiserate with the scoundrel, with the egomaniac, charismatic murderer. I feel for him, with him, in his dramatic stand offs with Pyotr Petrovich, his intellectual counterpart. Their verbal exchanges evoke the image of two predators circling each other, working on their own strategies while calculating the enemy’s.

I suffer with the psychopath, and take his side, even when I disagree with him. Such is the power of Dostoyevsky’s storytelling genius. He creates characters with major flaws, and very different positions, and he gives all of them their space, their say, their moment on stage. And when they appear, they have the audience’s full attention.

Dostoyevsky lets a cynical self-confessed abuser of women commit the one act of charity that actually has a positive impact on three children’s future.

He lets a drunkard, the comical character of Marmeladov, who pushes his wife to insanity and his daughter to prostitution, revel in the pleasure of suffering, sounding almost like a philosopher when he cherishes his idea that god will honour the self-sacrifice of the women he has destroyed, and that the same god will indiscriminately have mercy on himself as well, for being so willing to suffer (especially the pulling of hair does a great deal of good, according to Marmeladov, comical effect included!).

Dostoyevsky lets women sacrifice themselves in the name of charity and religion. Needless to say, I have strong opinions about that, and apart from the unspeakable suffering imposed on them in their lifetime, I do not approve of any religious dogma that justifies self-sacrifice as a virtue - in our time of terrorist violence, it seems an almost obscene attitude. Regardless, I suffer with them through the author’s brilliantly atmospheric narrative.

Dostoyevsky, the sharp psychological mind and analytic, accurately points out the difference between women in the story, sacrificing “only” themselves, and the violent men, sacrificing others (mostly women, children and innocent, intellectually inferior men) for their own benefit in their delusion that they are extraordinary, and have special rights beyond the law. And he does it so convincingly that the reader feels the urge to argue with the characters. I found myself saying:

“But Raskolnikov, I really don’t think Napoleon would have killed a pawnbroker with an axe to demonstrate his greatness, that is not the way great men exert their power. And as an anachronistic side note, in these times of newspeakish, American-style greatness, we need to ask ourselves if that is anything to strive for at all.”

It is a powerful book, and a book about power.

The hypnotic power that a charismatic personality exerts over other people.
The physical power that men exert over women and children.
The mental power that educated people exert over simple minds.
The financial power that wealthy people exert over hungry, poor, miserable people.
The religious power that dogma exerts over people to accept injustice in the hope of scoring high with god in the afterlife.
The linguistic power that eloquence exerts to dominate an entire environment with propaganda.

The individual power to say no.

Two characters, both women, refuse to play the cards they are dealt. Dounia Romanovna and Katerina Ivanovna - you are my true heroes in this endlessly deep masterpiece of a novel!

Dounia - holding the revolver, ready to kill the man who has lured her into a corner and tries to blackmail her into a sexual relationship! The most powerful scene of all. I shiver while reading. Literally! I have goosebumps! As will power goes, hers is brilliant. No man owns that woman. Thank you for that scene, Dostoyevsky! And she manages NOT to kill, thus showing her spoiled, attention-seeking, impulsive and arrogant brother who is mentally superior despite physical weakness.

Katerina - committing an act of insanity while slowly dying of consumption, and leaving her three children orphans! Instead of hiding herself and suffering in secret, she takes to the streets, forces her misery upon the world, and makes it official. She has all the right in the world to dance, sing and make noise to point to the insanity of society, which creates a platform for a life like hers. And her refusal to receive the greedy priest on her deathbed is simply divine: “God can take me as I am, or be damned!”

Right you are, Katerina!

I could go on in infinity, but I will break off here, just like Dostoyevsky breaks off in medias res, hinting at the untold sequel - the marriage between Raskolnikov and Sonia! Oh, dear, what an emotional roller coaster that must be - it is quite enough to allude to it in an epilogue to make me smile. The brooding murderer and the saintly whore, joined together in holy suffering. Brilliant, even as a vague idea.

Curtain.

Standing, shaking, roaring ovations!

“When reason fails, the devil helps!”
They coerced us to read Crime and Punishment at school – we hated the book but were compelled to read it anyway.
“The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
And it took the years to understand what a great novel it is.
One may play God however long but this won’t bring one anywhere near to heaven.

انگار
من اون پیرزن رو با تبر کشتم
من تب‌دار و مجنون در خیابان‌های سن پترزبورگ گشتم
من همه رو از خودم راندم
من فهمیده نشدم
من مکافات کشیدم

سال‌ها بعد که به خواندن این کتاب فکر کنم، به یاد سیاهی و درد می‌افتم. به یاد تمام روزها و شب‌هایی که با جسم تب‌دارم به زندگی تب‌دار راسکولنیکوف گوش دادم

ازش متنفر بودم، نگرانش بودم، درکش نمی‌کردم، می فهمیدمش، می خواستم از بین جمله ها بیرون بکشمش و سرش فریاد بکشم که دیگه بسه، فقط تمومش کن، می خواستم آروم شه، می‌خواستم دستگیر شه، می‌خواستم فرار کنه


این داستان من رو بیچاره کرد. فکر کردم و به خودم پیچیدم و هرچی تونستم در موردش خوندم که این گره‌ها رو باز کنه. اما آهر من موندم و کلی گره‌ی کور، خرواری فکر خام و پایان داستانی که حداقل برای من رستگاری نداشت

جمله‌ای از ایتالو کالوینو خوندم که می‌گفت: " یک کلاسیک کتابی است که هرگز گفتن چیزی که باید بگوید را تمام نکرده است" و این تجربه‌ی حقیقی من با جنایت و مکافات بود. شعله‌هایی که داستایوفسکی در ذهنم روشن کرد که تا مدت‌ها خواهند سوخت.

۹۸/۱۱/۲۹

آپدیت ۱۴۰۲: این کتاب رو سال‌ها پیش وسط یک آنفولانزای بدجور با اجرای بی‌نظیر آرمان سلطان‌زاده گوش دادم و باید بگم که ترکیب تب و هذیون با جنایت و مکافات اشتباه بدی بود