Oh, Fyodor.

Who else could keep me up and awake night after night, even though I promise myself every morning to go to bed at a decent hour?

Who else can create such authentic human emotions that I feel I'm experiencing all of them myself?

Who else would make me subject my kids to dinners of grilled cheese sandwiches, scrambled eggs, or frozen waffles just to spend more time with you?

There is no one else. Only you.

I wish some books never had to end.

This will undoubtedly top my top 5 books of 2018. Guaranteed.

I've come to the conclusion that Russian door-stoppers might just be where it's at. "It" here meaning general awesomeness that combines history, philosophy and readability to make books that are both thought-provoking and enjoyable.

Up until this point, Tolstoy had basically taught me everything I knew about nineteenth century Russian society and its people. By that, I mean that everything I knew was about the drama and scandals of the Russian aristocracy. The difference here is that Dostoyevsky took me on an educational - but also gripping - journey around the backstreets and drinking dens of St Petersburg. He showed me the nitty gritty details of life in Russia for those less fortunate - drunks, prostitutes, the poor - and he painted a very vivid portrait of this time and culture.

Raskolnikov is a great protagonist; he really is. His head is one messed-up place and he constantly struggles with what he believes in, his conscience, and his desire to get what he wants. The reader is pulled so deep inside the dark depths of his mind that it's hard to avoid becoming completely absorbed in the story. He is at times nasty, at others funny, and at others pitiful. Dostoyevsky has created one extremely well-rounded and complex character. Crime and Punishment shows the human capacity for evil, but also for shame and remorse. And this latter is the real "punishment" for Raskolnikov when he is driven near to insanity by his guilt.

I don't really know how best to fully articulate my feelings for Crime and Punishment. I don't give many five star ratings and I rarely feel this strongly about what I've read. I actually had a dream about it!

Speaking of dreams, I want to use this one example of Dostoyevsky's ability to engage the reader so thoroughly: I read one particular scene in the book that made me seriously distressed. I was furious, on the verge of tears, and like a child who wants to jump inside the TV to make everything better... and then Raskolnikov awakes to discover it was just a dream. I swear that my sigh of relief fully eclipsed his! But that's how far I was drawn into this world, how much I really cared about it. That doesn't happen often.

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Una lectura difícil por culpa de su protagonista y el rechazo y angustia que me generaba... he estado casi el mes completo entre sus febriles pensamientos y he terminado por odiar profundamente a Raskólnikov.
Pero el libro me ha gustado, ¿Lo he disfrutado? No ¿Merece la pena? Para mi sí.
'Crimen y castigo' es un libro que te lleva a lo más bajo del ser humano, pero también a lo más noble y bueno. Representa un estudio apasionante de la mente humana y hasta dónde podemos llegar llevados por la desesperación, pero al mismo tiempo creo que le sobran páginas.
Ha sido una lectura extraña, no he amado este libro pero sí me ha generado muchísimos sentimientos contradictorios y me ha dado que pensar...
Seguiremos con Dosto pero me voy a dar un buen respiro ahora...

My star rating is purely subjective and means only what GR says it means: I didn't like it. It didn't mean anything to me, sadly, and I didn't even find it to be an interesting story. I'm not saying it's a terrible book; in fact, I'd be very interested to hear what others think (reviews are a bit light for this book here I see).

First, I have a confession to make: I got two thirds of the way through and skimmed the rest. Well, worse than that: I flipped through and got the gist, but such is the way it's written you can't even skim. I just really had to put the book to rest, and it made me feel miserable thinking about making myself keep reading it. Reading should never make you miserable, so I did something I rarely ever do, and it nags at me but, well, there you have it.

The premise sounds interesting, and I had high hopes it would be one that would suck me in and captivate me. It's not that I had particularly high expectations - I didn't really have any expectations, though I thought it might be heavy on the intellectual side of things - but it was apparent from fairly early on that it wasn't going to be my kind of book.

It's Petersburg and a young student, Raskolnikov, is pawning his only valuables to an old crone, Alyona Ivanovna, who lives in a small apartment with her sister Lizaveta. He hasn't been able to afford to go to uni in several months, and his dress and manner makes him seem even lower class than he is. In desperation he hatches a plan to murder Alyona and rob her. He carries this out, killing not just her but her simple-minded sister who returns home unexpectedly, and in his fear and haste flees the scene with only some pawned trinkets and a small pouch.

His guilt manifests itself in fever and delirium, and he behaves very strangely thereafter. His friend and fellow student, Razumikhin, puts up with an awful lot and generously gives his time and efforts to help Raskolnikov; his mother, Pulcheria Alexandrovna and his sister, Dunechka, come to town to prepare for Dunya's marriage to an odious man; and Raskolnikov becomes somewhat obsessed with the family of a poor alcoholic who dies early on, in particular his eldest daughter Sonya, who had to become a prostitute in order to make some money for her family.

There's a lot of twoing and froing, a lot of agonising on Raskolnikov's part, and a lot of exclaiming. I wouldn't even have minded but Raskolnikov became such a bore, I didn't even want to slap, I just wanted to ignore him. It comes down mostly to the way it was written, which I didn't care for and which made the book a real slog.

I know this is some kind of work of genius, but if that's true, then I just felt stupid. It all seemed pretty obvious to me. No doubt if I made the effort I could see something special here, but it's like The Red and the Black - other people find the psychological melodrama truly fascinating, but to me, it's just melodrama, which I loathe. There's also no mystery, and not much suspense. There's a somewhat clever police inspector investigating the murder, but the game of cat-and-mouse the blurb enticed me with fell flat pretty quickly, and there was nothing left to hold me.

The blurb describes the book as "a preternaturally acute investigation of the forces that impel a man toward sin, suffering and grace." Uh huh. You can tell I'm really impressed can't you? It reads more like an account of a man going mad and being really self-centred, but after my sorry lack of appreciation for the equally masterful The Red and the Black, is it any surprise that I didn't like this book at all? If you're looking for a good story, this isn't it.

cant... form.... coherent thoughts..... the brainrott....... [shakes fist at sky]

no but seriously i've completely lost my ability to think critically and write long-form reviews. typically i'd just write some short quip relating to the book, but i've sat staring at my screen for like 15 minutes and i cant come up with anything. so in advance, i apologize for this lackluster review. woops.

overall i thoroughly enjoyed this book, dostoevsky's writing has to be one of my favorites. i loved raskolnikov, he's just so silly. (hes a murder)

if you want to read an actual quality review on this book please please please go read leo's!! she's criminally underrated. leo's review<3

(instead of a long witty review i'm givnig you guys memes relating to the book, enjoy)


  




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