Well, what’s a global pandemic for if you don’t read the stuff you think you really ought to have read by now. Although I hope this strange circumstance will not result in me referring to Fyodor Dostoyevsky as The Corona Guy.

Those yet to read this towering inferno of literature may wish to know what’s in the nearly 700 pages, so here is a scientific analysis :

WHAT HAPPENS IN CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Long conversations between people who could talk the hind legs off a donkey: .....................53%
People going mad and running about wildly or quietly chewing the wallpaper in their tiny room : .........11%
People being in debt :.................. 41.7%
People being unsteady on their legs due to vast consumption of vodka :.................... 51%
People being ill (physical) :.................... 34%
People being ill (mental) :...…...…...…...……37%
People contemplating suicide :...………………19%
People enjoying a pleasant stroll in the countryside : .....0%
People having a friendly chat over a cup of coffee :... 0.03%
Men figuring they can force a poor woman to marry them :.....……...……………. 36%
Women being terrified :...…...……………..………………. 39%
Horses being beaten :...……………...…..……...…...……...……... 2%
Nothing exciting happening :...……...……...………….. 0%

This all adds up to more than 100%. That is because C&P is a very excessive novel. It has more than 100% inside it.

INTERVIEW WITH F DOSTOYEVSKY, 18 March 1867

FD : You see, in my books...the numbers all go to eleven. Look...right across the board.

V. M Vorshynsky: Ahh...oh, I see....

FD : All other novelists, they only go up to 10. But I go up to 11.

V. M Vorshynsky:: Does that mean you have more emotion in your books ?

FD: Well, it's one whole notch more, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most...most novelists, you know, they don’t know eleven exists. I get my characters all the way to ten with their emotional situations, and then...push over the cliff. See?

V. M Vorshynsky: Put it up to eleven.

FD: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

And it’s really true. If they are not about to jump into a river, they are going to fall in love with a prostitute, or they are going to get roaring drunk because they have fallen in love with a prostitute and will later jump into a river.

CAN WE GET SLIGHTLY MORE SERIOUS PLEASE

C&P surprised me. It was like a Dardenne Brothers movie with the camera tight up to Raskolnikov nearly the whole time, and the action shown in detail almost hour by hour over a couple of weeks. Yes it’s a whole lot about th psychological disintegration of this arrogant twerp who thinks he might be some kind of extraordinary person destined to improve the human race by sheer power of his brainwaves & so therefore is justified in bashing in the head of some horrible old woman pawnbroker to steal her money and kickstart his wonderful career. And bash in the brains of her sister who unfortunately comes in the door at the wrong moment. Bad timing.

But it seemed to me that at least half of C&P was all about the horrible powerlessness of women and how they are forced into marriages which are no more than licenced prostitution. An antidote to Jane Austen, indeed.

And it was about how the arrogant twerp murderer can also be a guy who perceives this injustice and wants to revolutionise society. And to do that he starts by bashing in the brains of two women.
So you see this is a psychological minefield we are in.

Like Macbeth and An American Tragedy by Dreiser the murder is contemplated beforehand, then committed, then acts like acid on the mind of its perpetrator, and the reader is along for the excruciating ride.

Thre are hundreds of connections that trigger like flashing synapses as you go through this big ass book… Freud, Leopold and Loeb, the philosophy of the Nazi Party, Camus, Beckett…

I do admit that there are probably three windbags too many in C&P and I could think of snipping a chapter here and a chapter there to get the whole thing down to a tight 500 pages of ranting and caterwauling. But all in all, this novel rides all over you like an out of control ox cart & will leave you gasping and discombobulated.

Conclusion : excellent pandemic reading

‘To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.’

I have been giving a lot of thought to this novel lately. Despite the three years* that have gone by since reading Crime and Punishment—three years in which I’ve read some outstanding literature, joined Goodreads and written just over 100 reviews of the books I’ve journeyed through—Dostoevsky’s novel still resides on it’s throne as one of my personal favorite novels. Top 2 for sure along with Winterson’s The Passion which rotates with this or depending on the wave of drunk I’m riding when asked. No other web of words, brushstrokes or music melody has ever struck me so deeply and consumed me so completely as this book did. The author’s collection of works as a whole has left such a mark on my soul that I felt it necessary to permanently affix his likeness on my arm. Over a century has passed since its initial publication, yet Dostoevsky’s message is still as poignant today as it was when it was first inked onto paper. Crime and Punishment features an immensely engaging blend of intrigue; philosophy; political, social, moral and religious commentary, that all thread together to create a masterpiece of literature that captures the deep, raw core of the human condition when it is at it’s most gruesome and vulnerable. The exquisite literary genius of the novel evoked a strong emotional resonance in me and the timing of my reading was just right to forever wed me to my love of books.

Initially envisioned as two separate novels, one following the inner turmoil of a murderer and the other chronicling the melancholic destruction of a family due to a flighty, alcoholic patriarch, Dostoevsky deftly weaves together a multitude of unforgettable characters as they interplay through their tangle of plotlines. There are some incredible scenes that will forever haunt and delight me in my memory, such as the narrow escape from the scene of the crime which had me holding my breath in anxious anticipation, the darkly comical disaster of the funeral feast, or the emotionally charged and grim meeting between Dunya and the vile Svidrigaïlov. Each character is carefully balanced with their foil, each character is written with their own unique style of speech and language, and the novel seems to tie every thread together with such perfection and care as it churns forward, raining destruction on the lives of it’s characters to bring them toward their own personal redemption or demise.

This was a book that I was unable to put down as the words flowed from their pages to deep within my heart. Dostoevsky brilliantly straps the reader to the emotional states of his characters and is able to create seamless transitions between scenes or from the minds of one character to the next by riding the wings of an emotion. Most often this emotion is guilt, and the murder scene and it’s feverish follow-up is so expertly crafted that the reader feels they must share in Raskolnikov’s guilty burden. During the course of reading this book, I was overwhelmed by a crushing sense of guilt that was disconnected to any of my own actions. Yet, had police officers confronted me at any given moment, I would have held out my hands in surrender since I was so burdened by the guilty residue of the novel. What further linked me to the book was Raskolnikov’s illness following his crime. Maybe it wasn’t the novel taking root in my soul, perhaps it was due to the cold fall weather that was creeping in at the time, or perhaps it was due to my lack of sleep and early rising to embark on 10-12hr shifts in an unheated factory where I would work away amidst a cloud of aluminum dust, but I felt feverish and ill alongside Raskolnikov and his fever dreams. I don’t think I felt well again until after finishing the book.

I believe I read Crime and Punishment at the ideal moment in my life. I had spent the summer going through several of Dostoevsky’s other novels and falling madly in love with his writing. Then my whole life was uprooted. At the time I began C&P, I had moved across the state away from all my friends, family, and everything I knew and recognized, to live in Holland with my brand new baby daughter and work in a factory that could easily serve for a modern day sequel to Sinclair’s The Jungle. Looking back, I think I can see why I so easily soaked up Raskolnikov’s feelings. Dostoevsky shows how we are a product of our choices, and it is how we deal with our consequences that makes us who we are. I was placed in the new situation because of choices I had made, like choosing to skip class to smoke and read by the river, and Raskolnikov was faced with the guilt of his own actions. It was the most dramatic shift in my life and I am not a person who enjoys change, yet here I was without a familiar face and nobody to talk to. Crime and Punishment was there in my hand every morning and night as I walked between my home and car, like a friend holding my hand to comfort and encourage me in my exhaustion. It rode shotgun on my hour commutes like a faithful companion, and was the friendly face in which I could take refuge in on my breaks. When stripped of all I knew, there was literature to keep me sane and give me something to hold on to as my world spiraled out of control around me (my daughter was also a tether of sanity for me, but fatherhood was still new and intimidating at the time). Dostoevsky and his beautiful words became my friend and my passion, and in my solitude (because, let’s face it, I was very much an oddball in that factory and it took awhile to find my place there) I plunged myself deep into books, something I am very thankful for and feel that all the strangeness and loneliness of the existence is washed away by the glow I feel from grappling with my favorite authors. Then I discovered Goodreads and you all became incredibly dear to me. I don’t think I would have survived my time in that dark pit without you all, so, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I apologize that this isn’t really much of a review, I’m very excited for  this review, as it was seeing this GR friend—one of which I hold in the highest regard and am always incredibly impressed by—reading Crime and Punishment that brought back a flood of memories of my times with the book as if I were Proust with his madeleines. I highly recommend this novel, and firmly stand by my choice of it as my favorite. Recently, I had to make a list for work of my top 5 favorite books, which was difficult to do, damn near impossible, but I realized how simple it was to put a book down in the #1 slot. I have read some incredible books since, Hunger (my love of which stems from the similarities to Dostoevsky I noticed in the book), Gravity’s Rainbow, or To the Lighthouse to name a few, yet nothing has ever left as deep of an impact on me as a reader and as a human being as this book. This is a fantastic book about the human spirit, about our deepest, darkest impulses, and shows that our own inner consciousness can dish out a far greater punishment than any legal system can. Now I need to sleep and sober up.
5/5

*It has now been fourteen years since I've read this novel and I remember it less as a book I once read but as a moment in my life I once lived. When I read C&P, admittedly at the right time for such an excursion of thought, it was like a companion that went along with me on a new adventure in what was a seemingly empty and lonely landscape, a friend that chatted with me throughout the day, a book that shared my emotional state with me for better or for worse. I feel like I entered this book as much as it entered me and I'm not entirely sure what I mean by that but I know that I mean it. All I can say is that eight years later no book has ever meant as much to me as this book did and I feel it more as a moment in the timeline of my life than a book upon my shelf.

‘ I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.’

What can I add to 7000+ reviews (at the time I write)? I think this book is fascinating because of all the topic it covers. Like the OJ trial, it is about many important interconnected things and those things remain important today, even though this book was originally published in 1865.

Sure, it has a lot about crime and punishment. But also insanity and temporary insanity, the latter a legal plea that could be entered in Russia of the mid-1800's. It's about guilt and conscience, long before Freud. In fact, this book was written at a time when psychological theories were coming into vogue. It's about false confessions. It's about poverty and social class and people who rise above their class and people who fall from the class they were born into. It's about the wild dreams and the follies of youth.

There is also mention of many social theories that were in vogue at that time, so, for example, if you want to, you can click on Wikipedia to find out about "Fourier's system" and his phalansteres. There is attempted rape, blackmail, child labor, child prostitution, child marriage and child molestation. There is discussion of marrying for money. There are ethnic tensions between Russians and the Germans of St. Petersburg. Should you give to charity or should you give to change the conditions that caused the poverty? Like me, you may have thought that was a modern idea, but here it is, laid out in 1865. There's a lot about alcoholism. Stir in a cat-and-mouse detective and a bit of Christian redemption. No wonder this is a classic.

“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.”

An impoverished ex-student in St Petersburg, Rodion Raskolnikov, formulates a plan to kill a pawnbroker for her money.

I’m still in shock over how much I enjoyed Crime and Punishment. SHOCK. I feared it would take me WEEKS and that I’d be begging for it to just end... but I flew through it in less than a week and quickly found myself looking at which Russian classic I wanted to tackle next!

All I can say is, if this one has interested or intrigued you, but it has intimidated you... do not be afraid!! It is incredibly accessible and bingeable. The perfect introduction to the Russian classics.

There is so much going on that it’s almost impossible to cover it all in a review. There’s a crime... and there’s punishment. And so much in between! The idea of temporary insanity, the effects a guilty conscience can have, questions about morality... and so on and so forth.

In terms of the characters, they were all so complex and well-fleshed out, and not always likeable, but my favourites were the ladies! Dunya, Raskolnikov’s sister, was the standout for me. She is so intelligent and strong-willed, with oodles of compassion for others. I also really liked Sonya, the love interest of Raskolnikov, and her dedication to her family, and found her mother Katerina to be an absolute hoot at times! Porfiry, however... god, some of his monologues were PAINFUL. I wanted to scream at him to get on with whatever he was saying!!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, something I struggled with at the start was all the names and interchangeable nicknames etc. Thankfully my edition had a handy character list at the beginning, with each of their alternative names. But once I got into it, it was fine! Just be prepared to struggle with that at first.

Overall, a fantastic read that leaves you with a lot to think about. I’m glad that I tackled it and even more glad that I loved it! 5 stars.

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. --Nietzsche

I first read Crime and Punishment in my late teens. In those years I read several of the great Dostoevsky novels—The Idiot, Underground Man, and especially The Brothers Karamazov and C & P. In various “the BEST _____ ever” bar and coffee shop conversations over the years (such as, for instance, who is the hottest actress in the history of cinema, Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca or Lauren Bacall in To Have or Have Not?) (Ingrid, of course!), The Brothers K and C & P would always top my Greatest Novels of All Time list, usually BK first, C & P second. I actually once named one of my brooding gray cats Raskolnikov (Rascal, for short), so there: Proof that it wasn’t a trivial thing for me, this book. ☺

I come back to C & P more than four decades later, as part of the process of my revisiting some of my greatest reads ever, and also reading some other Great Books that had been on my bucket list for decades, such as Anna Karenina and In Search of Lost Time. (Livin' the [Reading] Dream, man!)

Spoiler Alert: I want to really talk about this book, so if you have never read it and still might, you might want to skip this review or at least parts of it. Some reviews I write in part for others; some of them I write mainly for myself, as a kind of autobiography of my reading. This I put in the latter category, though if you have read it, please tell me what you think of what I think.

So, most people who have never even read this book already know from the simple title that a Crime has been committed, and most probably know a guy kills a woman or two. Then we know there is a punishment that follows the crime. Simple. You need 500 plus pages to tell that?! The short answer is yes.

But the crime is basically what happens in the first hundred or so pages, and we never know exactly why, really, which is also part of the overall point Raskolnikov seems to be making to himself. So Rask kills his pawnbroker Alyona and robs her, though he never does anything with what he steals. In the process, her sister Lizaveta walks in so Rask kills her, too. So that’s the crime. The last 4/5 of the book is in part about the “punishment” which unless you omit the short epilogue, does not involve institutional punishment. The police have to solve this "mystery," and they do, with some suspense, I guess, but whodunnit is obviously not the point. The last 4/5 focuses on psychological and spiritual self-punishment or what Dostoevsky always refers to as “suffering.” And various considerations of what Dostoevsky never quite calls sin in the context of a parade of wild and wonderful characters.

At the outset of the novel, we learn that former college student Raskolnikov lives in St. Petersburg, in relative poverty, spinning his wheels, drinking and hanging with women (or, spending some of what little money he has on prostitutes) (things that we know Dostoevsky also did much of his life, in addition to gambling). As things proceed we see Rask has published an essay about how there are some people, usually great ones, who are “above the law,” people who can do whatever they want and get away with it.

Nietzsche, a nineteenth century philosopher, called such folks “supermen,” those who attempt to rise above the moral precepts of the time to achieve greatness or just to prove that moral systems do not apply to them. This might begin to summarize simply the moral position of Nietzsche: You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. There’s no God, and no religious or ethical system that must apply to all people.

Rask commits the murders in part as a way of working out this stupid theory, though he is poor and at the very least could also use the cash he steals in the process, but never does. He seems to be making a point, this bright and anguished young scholar. So why care about this idiot, you ask? Well, read on.

Rask needs the money, but when he has it, he tends to give it away to others. Not that he is a really a good guy; he IS a murderer, but he has some charitable aspects to his character revealed from time time. There's some goodness that shines through the grime. Sometimes he despicably tries to dismiss his murders as trivial, sometimes we see that the woman he murders is not likable in any sense, but he never gets off the hook for it, ever, especially with himself. This is not an isolated thing, this murder for philosophical principle, by the way. In the twentieth century, the two teenagers Leopold and Loeb read Nietzsche and just to test the theory killed a kid randomly in Chicago, and they fried (yes, were electrocuted) for it. They had the same thing in mind: Great men can do Whatever They Want and not experience Guilt. They will rise above ethics, they think or, as most novelists and moralists think, sink below it. The theory is an empty one, of course, as most humans with any common sense would see, but intellectuals, eh, sometimes they are kinda blowin' in the winds of theoretical fashion, as Dostoevsky sees it. Arrogant, they all think they wanna be Napoleon, D thinks. D thinks there are a lot of young nihilists around in the latter part of the nineteenth century when he writes this.

Anyway, Rask is painfully aware his mother and sister will do anything to help him financially. And he’s maybe in love with prostitute Sonya, who is doing this terrible work to make money for her family. He fears his own sister (Dunya) will do similar sorts of prostituting (she has already, for instance, agreed to marry rich jerk Luzhin, just to help out the family that has gone poor in part through supporting profliigate student Rask; this is one sub-theme, how women are reduced in the [Russian] patriarchal economic system). But he never does anything with money except give some that he has to Sonya's family, left destitute at the death of their drunken father, Marmeledov. So he's strange and at times quite unlikable, our anti-hero Rask, though he is fascinating always and even a little likable sometimes to me, as I am also [pretty] [okay, a lot] fallible myself, so I have empathy for him sometimes.

Later, we might see a kind of “moral” in this story about a man like Rask who doesn’t believe in God, from Dostoevsky through Nietzsche: He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. [Nietzsche]

That happens to Rask, and others in this book. They suffer, facing their demons or monsters.

And no one depicts suffering like Dostoevsky. His predecessor and mentor in Russian literature, Gogol, also knew suffering, though while he is similarly recognized for creating poor folk grotesques, Gogol's are often comic. D references and creates tributes to his Master in this work, but most people don’t see D’s grotesque, suffering folks as all that funny. D does sad better than funny. In this reading, I saw some characters as (darkly) funny sometimes, however. There’s satire throughout, especially of the upper classes. D and literature in general don't usually make fun of the poor with any success. The drunken Marmeledov, for instance, is pathetic, but he's also hilarious and insightful and finally tragic. He’s a full and rich and complex character. We see poverty and its attendant horrors in many ways in this book, and we come to care about them and their needs. They suffer and we can see this is central to humanity. In some ways they become close to saints in their suffering. This is certainly true for Sonya, one of the several notable "madonna-whore" women characters in literary history.

There’s some action in this book, of course; in fact it is sometimes quite the page turner as we wonder what is going to happen, whether Rask going to get caught, and so on, and in this sense it has the feel of a murder mystery where the suspense is whether he gets caught, but the centerpiece in this book (besides the moral wrangling) is dialogue in the service of character, and it works breath-takingly well here. Most twentieth century dark gutter noir (Thompson, Cain) owes much to Dostoevsky, for sure.

And the talk from the gutter is stunning. Most of the male characters are tortured drunken philosophizers who go on page after page speaking their madness and grief. And most of these crazy flawed folks are indeed men doing most of the talking. The women are less crazy, and less flawed, on balance, and mostly crazy BECAUSE of the men, surprise, surprise. But the talk is amazing, it is the heart of the book as narrative creation. When men drink and talk, they are passionate, he has that down, (actually, this book came out of a failed attempt at a draft he called The Drunks!), but the ideas that flow from their mouths, the thinking about the meaning of life, the struggles with love and morality, all this is incredible. I mean it, no irony here. Some of the best writing ever, and about poor folks, sometimes even despicable folks, that he makes you care for! Is it their fault they are in such destitution? Well, sometimes, yes. See above.

Does it go on a bit long, like this [undrunken] review? Some say yes, but not for me. We need to know what is going to happen and why for Rask, but we also need to broaden the lens and see others who are also suffering in their own ways. We need foils for understanding Rask in a sociological sense. Luzhin, the self-centered lawyer who is for a time engaged to Dunya, he’s a world class jerk, but an interesting one. While Rask is never excused for his murders, these other men and their iniquities help us see what can be some goodness at times in Rask, and appreciate the remarkable end of the book.

The (also drunken) philanderer Svidrigailov is also a jerk, but he also takes care of Marmeledov’s consumptive widow, and after her horrific death, her children, including her step-daughter Sonya (she’s the one who has become a prostitute to help her family, whom Rask sort of over the course of the novel falls in love with, though simultaneously torments from time to time) (of course, because this is what relationships sometimes are) in part because he is trying to bribe her into marriage. He also tries to bribe Rask’s sister Dunya into marriage, though he is already engaged, and fails. He becomes a central character in the book because he (spoiler alert!) makes the decision to commit suicide, which makes him a foil to Rask, who also contemplates this, but instead, Rask chooses (spoiler alert) confession, hard labor in Siberia with Sonya able to come north with him and visit regularly.

Another great character is the Columbo-like (look it up! You have google! Peter Falk!) bumbling and rumpled old genius detective Porfiry, who finally convinces Rask to confess and give himself up. Unforgettable character! Rask’s great friend Razumikhin is also wonderful in defense of Rask against all evidence to the contrary, who also agrees to take care of his sister and mother. He’s a strange man, also a drunk (D knows drunkenness, it’s clear) but good where most men are not in this book.

The story is one of final and not easily achieved redemption, but we only see this in the very final pages of this long novel, as he finally fully accepts the love of Sonya, and understands it as a model for living. Sonya is the moral center of the book, with her unwaivering and not easily achieved faith in God. She’s convincingly Good, the closest thing to God's Unconditional Love we got in this tome.

Rask's sister Dunya and their mother are also really good, giving up everything for her love of her son. Nastasya cares for Rask, too, She's also wholly good. The late goodbye scene between Rask and his mother is affecting and powerful. The scenes between Rask and (totally good) sister Dunya are powerful, too. Do you see a pattern here? Sure, Sonya is a prostitute, but only in necessity for her destitute family, of course. Women are often saints here, they make the right choices, or most of them do. Maybe that is a kind of literary flaw, that D deifies women; this is a kind of cliché. But there are a couple weak and wicked women in this book, too. The women don't always seem quite as real as the men sometimes because they are a little one-dimensionally good, but they are still great, they do still seem real to me.

But it is LOVE that redeems Raskolnikov, the love of a woman, Sonya, and his mother and sister, too, but mainly Sonya, and while it seems like a stretch that she would care for him, she really does, and both he and we come to believe in her goodness and love.

Some favorite scenes? Sonya’s reading of the Biblical Lazurus story to Rask is ELECTRIC, unforgettable. The best scene in the whole book, for my money. I was once religious and I know that passage from the Bible; I say now that I am agnostic, but that scene, that felt like an indictment, a promise to me, in my own lost-soul-ness. The scenes with Porfiry are great and the scene in particular where Porfiry finally accuses Rask is also ELECTRIC, I promise, as is the final scene of the book. The lyrical final scenes with Svidrigailov are wonderful, powerful and surprising; I had NO idea he was going to do that. Anytime Mom and Rask or Dunya and Rask are talking with each other, these scenes are deeply poignant, trust me. Marmeledov's drunken talk with Rask is wonderfully comic early on.

When I first read this book I was “churched” in a Calvinism that seemed darkly consistent with Dostoevsky’s dark, angsty world view. Later, I came to like the work of D-influenced South African writer J. M. Coetzee, who actually wrote his novel The Master of St. Petersburg about Dostoevsky (yes, very much worth reading!). I still love these writers, though my views on matters of faith have shifted considerably. But as a veteran doubter, I liked D’s anguished struggles with faith and the meaning of life more than anyone else’s writing and thinking. And they once led me, in my existentialist period, into Kafka, Sartre, Camus, and others. Camus’s The Stranger and Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” owe things to C & P.

Hamlet and Macbeth are anguished precursors, as is D’s own “Underground Man." Anyway, doubt and anguish have always seemed more interesting to me than joyful faith and happiness, and still do. I think the world is more complicated than mere celebration, though I have much to celebrate, too. But the world is a dark place just now, as I see it, with a lot of ugliness in it. Dostoevsky resonates with the present for me as much as it ever did.

C & P is as much a psychological and sociological novel (about various forms of “madness” in nineteenth century Russia) as it is a philosophical renunciation of nihilism, though it is richly both, and much worth reading for these aspects. It’s a real thriller, too, a cat and mouse story with the focus on Rask and his interior experience of suffering, but it is also a novel the literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin would identify as a “cultural forum” on issues in D's times in Russia. Raskolnikov is a jerk, a wonderfully reprehensible character that D refuses to sentimentalize, but as much as we despise him for some of his ridiculous youthful views—his ideas about the superman display the worst of the intellectualism of his times—we also come to appreciate him in various ways. Dostoevsky is a thinker, but he is first and foremost a poet of the heart and what might still be called “soul” unapologetically.

The translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky is supposedly the best ever, much lauded, and I can’t say, not speaking the language, but it was fabulous to read. I read the Constance Garnett version 40 years ago. This is the one to read now, everyone says, so choose this one if you are going to read or reread. I also have read in the past couple years their translations of Anna Karenina and Underground Man and Brothers Karamazov, so I can attest they are wonderful writers/interpreters.

Finally, yes, it is (again) one of the best things I have ever read, and I highly recommend it. You may find it a tad long for contemporary tastes, but hey, you also have David Foster Wallace, who is very long. Pynchon is long. Ulysses is long. Sometimes great things are long! And maybe he is too nineteenth century modernist for you, finally. But for me he is great, deserving of his high status in the canon of world literature. It is just one hell of a read. Sorry this is so long, if you read this far!

For the love of Zeus, I have finished! I think we will be living on the moon with robots as our cooks by the time I write a review for this masterpiece, but I just want to let the world (or, at least, 118 friends and 79 followers; okay, the one that's reading this) know that I have finished it. I did it. I can rest in peace. Not now, anyway. I'm somewhat young and have many things to do. But, you know.

I do not know how to begin, I am utterly troubled. What to do? What to say? In my opinion, to write a review of Dostoyevsky's great masterpiece is a very hard undertaking. To write a decent one, even harder. A week ago, if you asked me what my favorite novel was, I'd greatly struggle with it. I might consider Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Nabokov's Lolita, or probably even Heller's Catch 22. I might give varying answers. It would probably depend on my mood, or the current focus of my stream of thoughts. But, alas! Now, now I have found it! A book, unquestionable enough to be the greatest novel and work of fiction that I have read. As I say this, please bear in mind that I have humbly read very few of the novels I intend to read. Let us say that I'm still a novice of the classical greats. Call me a classical dunce, if you must. I have scarcely pierced through the surface of the greatest literary works. Scarcely. So forgive me, if you think that I overpraise this. Bear with me. Deal with me as a wise and knowing adult would deal with an inquisitive child. What I ask for, is your indulgence, if you can give it to me.

Crime & Punishment. Two words. Cause & effect. Low & High. Evil & Justice. Two words that are intertwined, knitted cheek by jowl, and always associated with the other. Two words that are close yet far as possible. The title's two words is reflective of Dostoyevsky's great masterpiece itself. Of course, it certainly is about the psychology of a crime and the punishment it measures. But more than that, the novel features exceedingly contrasting views. These views, contrasting and even paradoxical, can sincerely confuse a man. But, these seemingly contrasting views when scrutinized is really just the product of a struggle inside a man's very being. A man's final struggle of whether to finally detach himself from society, from life, from his humanity, or to finally succumb to it. These struggles, or contradictory ideas can be noted several times in the book. We have Raskolnikov's Napoleonic belief that he is of the elite, and should step over obstacles without being affected even if blood is involved, as was hinted in his article. Then, later on he would admit to Sonya that he was not of the elite since he was terribly affected. But again, when he was in prison he would declare that he was not there because he was guilty of anything but rather because he was weak and confessed. Also, we have his being generous and charitable. He would give Marmaladov's widow, Katarina Ivanovna, all the remaining 25 rubles his mother sent him. Then there was his helping of his schoolmate and the crippled father, and the saving of two children in the fire. Here was a man acting as a savior to strangers yet could not even bear to look and much less talk with his mother and sister. Here was a man who believed that anything could be sacrificed for the success of his career, who killed two women yet refused that her sister be wed to a rich man for his sake. Here was a man who regarded religion as nonsense yet read the gospel and asked people to pray for him. Here was a man who didn't care if he died, didn't eat, didn't care about his illness, yet refused to commit suicide. Here was a man suffering. A man, who because of his crime, suffered his punishment of madness, of guilt, of never ending anxiety and anxiousness. I fancy that Dostoyevsky reiterates that this punishment that goes on through a criminal's mind is far more potent than the punishment of being contained in four walls. As he pointed out in the epilogue, that in prison, the convicts valued life much more. While in this state of madness, of insane ecstasy. A man would undergo extreme suffering and lose his mind and matter. In the words of Sonya, "Oh, what suffering! What suffering!"

“The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.”

This struggle inside Raskolnikov, is enhanced by his intellect. He cannot help but disdain what is going on inside him. His reason rejects his will. If anything, the more intellectual you are, the more you are prone to detach from your surroundings. You reason that feelings and relations are merely nonsensical. You think of dialectics instead of breathing fresh air. “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.”

As I give my conclusion, let me also give some remarks about my feelings towards the end of the book. It is hard not to root for a happy ending. I was glad that Rasumikhin and Dunya had gotten theirs. And after such pain and suffering, I have forgiven Raskolnikov and want for him peace of mind too. His final realization that he indeed had love for Sonya brought me intense joy. I do not know why. Maybe it was empathy, if anyone deserved happiness it was Sonya. Sonya whose happiness was only through Raskolnikov. Here was a Murderer and a Harlot. Two shameful transgressors who believed that their transgressions were justified. One out of vanity, the other out of charity. One who is vile and contemptuous, the other loving and loyal. Bound together by some irreversible force of nature. Intertwined. Like the words Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov and Sonya are two people who are far different but are bound together. They are allegories of the words themselves. Raskolnikov stands for Crime. He is a murderer who is unrepentant, he is contemptuous, menacing, vain, and indifferent. A man who believes he is above the law. All for self-gain. Sonya stands for Punishment. She is true, loving, loyal, charitable, a woman who deserved richly but lived poorly. A call for justice. Raskolinkov and Sonya, two utterly different people that are connected by suffering. Raskolnikov is crime, he cannot atone himself no matter what he does. Sonya is the atoning punishment. Only through Punishment, can Crime be atoned. Only through Sonya, can Raskolnikov atone himself.

This enduring masterpiece is a beauty to behold. A complex, broad, and psychological mastery of not only crime and punishment but also of life, death, sacrifice, society, intellect, love, and ultimately renewal and hope. As I end this review, let me leave you with these excerpts.

"Go now, this minute, stand in the crossroads, bow down, first kiss the earth you've defiled, then bow down to the whole world, on all four sides, then say aloud to everyone: 'I have killed!' "

"Accept suffering and redeem yourself by it, that's what you must do."

"He went on down the stairs and came out in the courtyard. There in the courtyard, not far from the entrance, stood Sonya, pale, numb all over, and she gave him a wild, wild look. He stopped before her. Something painted and tormented, something desperate, showed in her face. She clasped her hands. A hideous, lost smile forced itself in his lips. He stood a while, grinned, and turned back upstairs to the office."

"But all at once, in the same moment, she understood everything. Infinite happiness lit up in her eyes; she understood, and for her there was no longer any doubt that he loved her, lover her infinitely, and at last the moment had come... "

n  

“Crime? What crime? ... My killing a loathsome, harmful louse, a filthy old moneylender woman who brought no good to anyone, to murder whom would pardon forty sins, who sucked the lifeblood of the poor, and you call that a crime ?”

nJust a few scattered toughts, for I do not know how to begin. After revisiting Crime and Punishment I am utterly troubled. What to do? What to say? In my opinion, to write a review of one of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's great masterpieces is a troublesome undertaking. To write a decent one, even harder. So here are just a few toughts, backed by Dostoyevsky's own words so that I don't blunder it all. One caveat: my review today will focus on Rodion Románovich Raskolnikov, although there is much more to be said.

Ah, such fascinating despair. I had a period in my life when I went deep into Dostoevsky. Perhaps because his books made me contemplate about being human. This is a remarkable study in emotions, intense and anguished.
n  

“Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became more and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even stopped short, two or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought. When he was in the street he cried out, "Oh, God, how loathsome it all is! and can I, can I possibly… . No, it's nonsense, it's rubbish!" he added resolutely. "And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head? What filthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome, loathsome!—and for a whole month I've been… ." But no words, no exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling of intense repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. ”

n
Is it a miracle that I commiserated with Raskolnikov? That I resented his mother when he did and I loved her when he did? That I felt Raskolnikov's anxiety, and tried to tell him to turn back when he was climbing the steps to the old woman's apartment? But up he went. And that it anguished me because I new, as any reader would, what was bound to happen? Yes, his is not the kind of personality that I usually sympathize with. However, I could begin to understand him and his despair. Yes, Dostoyevsky created a very real character and I believed him enough to mentally immerse myself with his creation while submersed in his book. And this kept me turning the pages up to the last one.
n  

“No, I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it! Granted, granted that there is no flaw in all that reasoning, that all that I have concluded this last month is clear as day, true as arithmetic… . My God! Anyway I couldn't bring myself to it! I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it! Why, why then am I still … ?”

n
Raskolnikoff's justification for his act was that great and famous men, like Ceasar and Napoleon, were assassins absolved by history. He identified himself with those history figures. And that gave him the right to commit the crime. How could he explain the murder? I understand he just required a belief to explain it to himself. He was no Napoleon; he was not fighting in a war. And he knew it. What he needed was a moral argument that pushed him up the steps and lifted his arms in the final act.
n  

"And you don’t suppose that I went into it headlong like a fool? I went into it like a wise man, and that was just my destruction. And you mustn't suppose that I didn't know, for instance, that if I began to question myself whether I had the right to gain power—I certainly hadn't the right—or that if I asked myself whether a human being is a louse it proved that it wasn't so for me, though it might be for a man who would go straight to his goal without asking questions.… If I worried myself all those days, wondering whether Napoleon would have done it or not, I felt clearly of course that I wasn't Napoleon. I had to endure all the agony of that battle of ideas, Sonia, and I longed to throw it off: I wanted to murder without casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn't want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn't to help my mother I did the murder—that’s nonsense—I didn't do the murder to gain wealth and power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it; I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider, catching men in my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn't have cared at that moment.… And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.… I know it all now.… Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder again. I wanted to find out something else; it was something else led me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the right …”

n
You will question as I finish: where are the other characters? Where is Raskolnikov’s sister Dunya; and what about Sonia, the one that prostituted herself to help her family and whom Raskolnikov sort of falls in love with? Yes, the women in the story turn out almost consistently to be the stronger characters, the source of redemption. What about the patetic Marmeledov; the the self-centered Luzhin; the drunken philanderer Svidrigailov? They are all fascinating in their own right, and important to the story. A much more crucial issue: what was behind Dostoyevsky's novel? Where is God, religion? For that I would have to go back to his Russia, to his time and his life. Nevertheless, all that will have to wait for a possible follow-up-review, today all my effort was on Raskolnikov and how I felt reading Crime and Punishment.

An outstanding classic about the human essence, about our darkest and deepest impulses. The unequivocal voice of each character, the sharp study of society, the movements of Raskolnikov, of the extreme reduction of hate to the redemption of love. Ultimately it reveals that our own inner consciousness can stand a far greater punishment than any legal system can.

Brilliant!
___

Reading “Crime and Punishment”, was an incredible experience.
The Ultimate psychological thriller!!!
It felt contemporary & timeless.... it was even FUN at times - Have others called this a fun book? I doubt it! Lol
But that’s me. Sue me.

I listened to the Audiobook ( excellent narrator),
during the day- walking/working or soaking....
And read the ebook at night and early mornings in bed... or while spinning on the bike. I was living - breathing - and eating this book - little time to be online.
I purposely didn’t try to sync my reading with the Audiobook. I liked reading the ‘same’ text after hearing it. Digested the happenings deeper this way.
For my first run with “Crime and Punishment”, I think I did alright. I spent much time ‘thinking’ about the characters... and Raskolnikov’s madness.

The story and visuals - (both) - start right out.
Hooked me with the immediate descriptions- dialogue- and
atmosphere. I was getting that Russian feeling! I felt like I should go sit in a Tavern and drink. (I don’t drink- but thought about it) .

Two people are killed in Chapter one. No time wasted in getting down to business!
Raskolnikov justified his plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money. ( her daughter gets killed too - just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time)
Raskolnikov thinks he can balance out the evil with enough good. It’s ‘murder’.
Is that possible?

The horror Raskolnikov inflicted on himself left an indelible mark on his own psyche. Or at least I thought....
I later wondered.
The epilogue is fascinating!

For a long time - I kept wondering
“Why did he ‘really’ kill these women?”

Dostoyevsky explores morality.....one that no thinking person can ignore.
At times - I wondered if Dostoyevsky was a social scientist - as well as an artist - even a spiritualist.

Dostoyevsky explored the role of negative and positive motivation and the way they played out in the moral domain: guilt/shame over moral failings.
He explored moral truth and not just moral preference...

Stimulating thoughts about
good and bad.
Most of the characters in this book are neither all good or all bad - but the scale tips to one side - then another - then another again - twisty!

Raskolnikov’s crime ‘was’ murder!! The punishment??
That takes much longer to explore.
Not much escape for suffering.

The storytelling itself was wild -with crazy dreams - drama - mystery - Philosophy - religion - psychology- murder - prostitution- poverty - love - suffering - and definitely questions about morality.

Fascinating male and female characters.

At some point - I realized - this book is as relevant today as when it was written.
I thought of the Taliban. They seek well-being in this world but their religious beliefs have led them to create a culture that is almost perfectly hostile to human flourishing.


Thousand before me have written a more comprehensive review.
It was an accomplishment for me just to read it. I’m thrilled that I enjoyed it.
I got great value - and gained insights.

Many thanks to s.penkevich
His review was so passionate and personal.
It moved me to read it sooner than later.

Except:
“He could never have imagined such brutality,
such frenzy. In terror he sat up in bed, almost swooning with agony. But the fighting, wailing and cursing grew louder and louder. And then to his intense amazement he caught the voice of his landlady. She was howling, shrieking and wailing, rapidly, hurriedly, incoherently, so that he could not make out what she was talking about; she was beseeching, no doubt, not to be beaten, for she was being mercilessly beaten on the stairs. The voice of her assailant was so horrible from spite and rage that it was almost a
croak; but he too, was saying something, and just as quickly as indistinctly, hurrying and spluttering. All at once Raskolnikov trembled; he recognize the voice— it was the voice of Ilya Petrovich. Petrovich here, and beating the landlady! He is kicking her, banging her head against the steps— that’s clear, can be told from the sounds, from the cries and the thuds. How is it, is the world
topsy-turvy?”
“And, why, why had he come here!”

Raskolnikov “lay for half an hour in such anguish, intolerable sensation of infinite terror as he had never experienced before”.

Outside his bedroom the noise subsided and Nastasya came in with a bowl of soup.
Raskolnikov asked Nastasya about the horror outside his bedroom door.
She says:
“Nobody has been beating the landlady”.
“No one has been here. That was the blood crying in your ears”.
Whoa there a pony.

Raskolnikov was ill.....not completely unconscious, he was sometimes delirious and sometimes half conscious. That’s the way I liked Raskolnikov best!!!!!
Ha!

Thanks to this dead author and the thousands of readers before me!
Wicked Book!

I have few Dostoevsky fans in my friends list so my opinions here might not go over so well. I have been wanting to read this classic for a while and I had high expectations, but they were not met. I liked it okay but I found it to be a bit slow and drawn out. Ultimately not a whole lot happens in the story, but it takes 500 pages to get there. In fact, there are probably as many plot points in the 15 page epilogue as in the rest of the book.

However, despite this, I can say that parts of the journey were pretty good. Every few chapters there would be a high intensity event that would draw me in. In fact, if you graphed this book out with the high points followed by long lulls, it would probably look like an EKG.



Also, it was interesting to take in the classic Russian writing. Whether or not it was always super exciting, I did enjoy the feel of the narrative from the classic Russian perspective.

In summary, I would not recommend this as highly as some other classics, but if you are hardcore into completing your classic reading list, you can't miss this one.

È sempre difficile fare un commento a un opera del calibro di "Delitto e castigo". Basta dire che è uno dei migliori romanzi della letteratura mondiale e che tutti dovrebbero leggerlo almeno una volta nella vita.

Dostoevskij scrisse nel 1866 questo romanzo geniale (più di 150 anni fa e sembra scritto ieri), denso e scioccante in cui l'azione e il ragionamento si sviluppano in parallelo, l'una sostenuta dall'altra, in sovrapposizione, generando una tensione che aumenta gradualmente. L'azione e il ragionamento sono rappresentati da personaggi ben disegnati e profondamente umani.

L'idea alla base della storia ci fa riflettere in come la società possa spingere una persona verso il crimine. Ma, fondamentalmente, suscita il pensiero di come una tesi può ossessionare un uomo fino a trascinarlo a commettere un atto atroce. Raskolnikov, uno studente che ha abbandonato i suoi studi, vuole dimostrare a se stesso che non è un miserabile e che, in misura più piccola, può comportarsi come i grandi uomini che dirigono i disegni del mondo allo scopo di costruire la propria visione di come sarebbe un mondo migliore (L'impronta di Napoleone).

Commesso il crimine, Raskolnikov non soffre di rimorso per aver strappato una vita umana. La sua vittima per lui rimane un insetto che non merita la vita e la cui eliminazione favorisce alla comunità. All'improvviso capisce che il suo crimine lo separa per sempre dal resto degli uomini, che disprezza, ma tra i quali deve vivere. Una spirale di sentimenti confusi catturerà lo spirito del giovane che combatterà contro se stesso per finire arrendendosi alla certezza che ha bisogno di espiare la sua colpa per poter sentirsi di nuovo uomo.

"Sbagliare è l'unico privilegio umano su tutti gli altri organismi viventi. A forza di sbagliare si arriva alla verità! Sono un uomo appunto perché sbaglio. Nessuna verità è stata raggiunta senza aver prima sbagliato quattordici volte, o forse anche centoquattordici, e questo è a suo modo onorevole."

Dovevo immergermi nel mondo di Dostoevskij, i grandi classici non deludono mai. Da leggere con pazienza, disciplina e molta analisi. Poi capirai perché è un capolavoro così influente in Psicologia e nella letteratura universale.
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n  Link Babelezonn
n  Link Amazonn

If you’ve ever committed an unjust act, as Raskolnikov does, you know now it would have been better right at the outset to confess your injustice and seek the absolution of clemency.

For if you neglected to come clean you were probably racked with ruin within, and “delivered to the bondsman” of tortuous guilt. It happened to Raskolnikov, and it happened to me.

Each one of us is a Raskolnikov, you know.

No, not like you’re thinking - not a shabbily-dressed, impoverished murderer. But we all share his nature. To a T.

That, in essence, is the key to understanding Dostoevsky’s tortuous, convoluted, anxious prose - it’s the one message that Fyodor Dostoevsky takes anguished pains to drum into our insulated and isolated little heads!

Not that, hey, Raskolnikov’s not such a bad guy after all... no - it’s that he is inwardly bad and so are we, potentially at every moment, bad inside - and that that that will never change.

We don’t change our inner lives; but we CAN constantly be making amends for our mistakes - and starting our life anew in others’ eyes at each moment, though never perhaps to our own complete inner satisfaction.

For our selves aren’t static and we all invariably tend towards moral entropy.

There are no easy answers in Dostoevsky!

I remember so well the time I finally quit smoking - cold turkey, 22 years ago. I was lucky I did it, I guess; but to face the indefinitely long rest of my life - stretching out before me like a vast restless desert - without smokes, seemed unbearable back then!

It was just like the Zen Master says - reaching the top of a thousand-foot pole, and then, CONTINUING TO CLIMB. In empty air. Yikes!

Panic City! The flames of utter hopeless anxiety threatened to engulf me entirely.

So I started to pray. Nonstop. Like a dog chewing a meatless bone! It must have worked... so saith the Preacher.

And I escaped from that Inferno by the very Skin of my Teeth.

So likewise, there are few pat answers in Faith, no matter what we’ve seen or heard: “Ours is only the trying,” Eliot said. Trying to make the best of a mess!

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if C.S. Lewis is right, and there remain plenty of challenges in Heaven.

So, there is no finality in this life, Dostoevsky is saying. We can’t rest on our laurels.

Or our guilt, either, for that matter!

The best way I can sum up my thoughts on this Everest of a novel is by quoting W.H. Auden:

“Faith, while it condemns no temperament as incapable of salvation, flatters none as being less in peril than any other... Christianity is a way, not a state, and a Christian is never something one IS, only something we can pray to BECOME.”

And if Raskolnikov is not a Christian, neither are we.

But we must never give up the trying, just like Raskolnikov...

And for us, too, in time there may come Redemption.

And a Peace that passes all understanding, after the intolerable Shirt of Flame is extinguished, in

A condition of complete simplicity
Costing not less than EVERYTHING.