George Gibian (1924–1999)

One (unsurprising) word: heavy. Let me be up front, this is not an easy read, and not a pleasant one either. For 600 plus pages Raskolnikov (spoiler?) undergoes the literal, moral, and existential fallout of the crime he commits early in the story. And for good and ill, the reader feels and experiences every. single. thing. Every thought, every sensation, every consideration, every urge, every bead and drop of sweat. We feel the collective weight of Russian history coupled with the complete show more dread of Raskolnikov as poster child for the learned but emotionally stunted and psychologically desolated intellectual, and as I read it became more and more evident to me just what Nabokov meant when he referred to this book as 'Slime and Punishment' and Dostoyevsky's epithet as 'The Mad Russian'.

The book itself is 'mad' because, to put it simply, it's schizophrenic. So much so in fact there were moments I thought I'd get whiplash from the jarring changes in mood. Really, I have to say this is one of the most tonally inconsistent books I've read, maybe ever (and that includes the nested and clustered insanity that is postmodernism). There are moments that read comically when it's clear it shouldn't be, moments that should be lighter but come off as even more tragic, and everything in between. (Characters sweating all the time, eyes bulging, marching around offices, pounding their chests, all I can say is Russia of the 1800's was a much different place than I ever thought...)

And of course I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the issue of translation. I can't speak for other (especially more recent) translations but I have to say that mine almost seemed to collapse under the weight of its own verbiage, trying, struggling, almost screaming to prop up the morass and impending fall.

But, in the end, this makes the novel something incredible. Human psychology and, just as importantly, the psychology of ideas is on full display here, and what Dostoyevsky does, taking one of these ideas (Raskolnikov's horrifying and fascinating philosophy of the gifted and the normal people and how the law applies only to the latter as the former will be the ones who through their superiority will make the law, with no one less than Napoleon as the embodiment of the idea) and laying it bare from top to bottom in a combination Greek tragedy/Christian redemption tale, is indeed off the rails crazy..but also wonderful in its pathos and intensity, and even because of (maybe despite) its, to me at least) unbalanced and even gruesome nature, makes it a work of raw unadulterated force that secures its place in the world canon with the blunt side of an ax. show less

There are a lot of great reviews for this book out there and if I wanted to be writing one of them, I would have to put a lot of time and effort into breaking down the major themes, the moral ambiguity, the consummate REALITY expressed in these pages, the tragedy, the hope, the searching of one's heart... and the amazing blindness of it.

Then again, I guess I can express that quickly. But this novel really should not be dismissed so blithely, either.

Anna might have the title, and this woman show more might be full of life and passion and desire and we might sympathize with her to a degree and sigh with her plight against the patriarchy of the time, but on an entirely different level, she is pretty horrible. There is no caricature here. She has a love of life, wanting to break free from the stultifying dullness of reality, to discover love with another after she's already been married. Pretty tame by today's standards, maybe, but this isn't even the main point.

The constraints are the point. The society that gleefully ruins us with its culture, mores, laws, religiosity, and the parts of that that seep in under our skin. She slowly ruins herself, hating her husband for his virtues, blinding herself to her own state, and spiraling down to her own ruin by tiny degrees as her desire for passion wars against the reality of her life.

And the other main character of this book, a much more sympathetic character, IMHO, Levin, expresses so many of Tolstoy's own views and devotes a ton of page-time to the very societal norms that destroy Anna. It's VERY Russian literature. High ideals writ large, explored in grand fashion, developed and grown like a garden featuring ripe and rotten fruits that we, as readers, are forced to eat.

We see all the big concerns of the day. Marxism is something that the contemporary people live and breathe, after all. Let's just ignore what happens a few decades later when the actual revolution comes around and read all about the idealistic hunger that suffuses the society. How to destroy inequality, how make things Just for all men and women, how to live a good, quiet life to the best of our abilities? It's all here. From Atheism to turning back to the old ways. From righteousness to total acceptance of the moral greyness.

And no character is truly evil or good. It might be nice to fall into the PoV of anyone for a while and try to see their suffering as a direct consequence of another's evil, but what we learn here is pretty simple.

The evil lies in the half-lidded eyes.

It lies in not seeing things clearly. Yourself, others, your state, your life. Lying to yourself. Carrying on like nothing is wrong. Believing what you want to believe.

Every single tragedy in this book comes from the blindness.

For that, I really love this book. A gorgeous, sprawling, immensely detailed and fleshed-out book. Well worth the praise. :) show less

A text to be studied consistently rather than read. What particularly made my night was 14 essays presenting literary critique on Gogol and Dead Souls at the end of my Norton Critical edition; among them, such astounding giants as Herzen and Belinsky. Ever since finishing it, I find myself incessantly exploring various interpretations of this masterpiece by Gogol's interlocutors. One reading is of course not enough for a serious reader interested in Russian literature and social criticism. I show more guess it will be a completely different book if I read it again after being more informed. show less

This is my favorite among Dostoevsky's last great novels. In it, the reader finds a man filled with fear, desperation, and anguish. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is a shockingly intimate tale of a murderer and a murderer. Raskolnikov is a man seemingly on the brink of madness as he plots and carries out a grisly killing. Although he evades the police, Raskolnikov's dark deed weighs heavily on him (in a way reminiscent of Poe's The Tell-tale Heart). The aftermath of his crime takes the show more young man on a journey through a range of human emotions and experiences. Good and evil, guilt and redemption, agony and joy—this novel is an invitation to explore and question many of the ideas and judgments we take for granted.The characterization and discussion of ideas in both this novel and Dostoevsky's final work, "The Brothers Karamazov," are as good as any in literature. If you like Hamlet, Les Misérables, or War & Peace, you will like this book.

The main character of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (1866) is a fictional figure named Rodion Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov, an impoverished student who kills a pawnbroker and her stepsister, represents the author's conviction that atonement is the only path to salvation. show less