Crime and Punishment

"Crime and Punishment" is not about either, but about the space between. Little time is spent dwelling on motive before the title's crime occurs. It must be murder, to drive the story to be told, but in order to render maximum sympathy for Rodian the motive remains obscured and his efforts clumsy without personal gain. The majority of the story by far is focussed upon what comes after. Mortal paranoia works against Rodian and he contemplates every form of escape: confession, being accused of his crime at last, or achieving the absolute certainty of avoiding justice. It is difficult to watch him thrust away anyone who would help him, be they friends or family. Guilt drives loneliness; with whom can he share his agony before madness show more descends? As his straitened circumstances progress, he cannot accept being close with anyone besides those who would regard him as a benefactor, and seeks some form of kinship among society's lowest strata.

When Rodian's motive becomes more clear, half the story is already done and the reader is no longer likely to pass summary judgement. By then we know his good side through how well-regarded he is by those who have known him best, and how protective he is of others even as he scorns them at the same time. It is impossible to hope that he will get away with murder, but it is something to hope that he will find the error in his thinking that led him astray. The question then is whether corporal punishment is required to see this realization through, or can a criminal arrive at redemption independently? Dostoevsky spent time as a political prisoner and had ample time to consider the purpose and impact of criminal justice upon society and those it punished. Reading into this novel the result of those musings, it seems to me he could not satisfy himself as to the answer. show less

تجربه به من ثابت کرده که آثار اگزیستنسیالیستی و آثار روسی خیلی بهم می‌چسبند و وقتی یک رمان هر دو رو داشته باشه می‌تونه خیلی خیلی بیشتر بهم بچسبه. راسکولنیکف، قهرمان جنایات و مکافات برای من یه جورایی همون مورسوی بیگانه‌ی آلبر کامو بود و تفاوت این دوتا فقط در این بود که مورسو به هیچ کسی اهمیت نمی‌داد اما راسکولنیکف برای دوستان و خانواده‌ی خودش اهمیت قائل بود. به همین خاطر این داستان همون فکری رو برای من به show more وجود آورد که قبلاً بیگانه برای من به وجود آورد... آیا وجدان به عنوان یک چیز درونی و نهادینه شده در ذات ما وجود داره یا فقط یک تعریفیه که فرهنگ به ما تحمیل می‌کنه تا از یک‌سری کارها مثل قتل دوری کنیم؟ show less

Crime and freaking Punishment. I went into this book thinking it was going to be confusing (Russian names—am I right?) and that it would either take me months to slog through or I would give up somewhere around the halfway mark. Instead, I devoured this book and hated every minute of my life that I wasn't reading it. The characters all had such depth, the story was original and fun, and while at times the decisions of some of the characters were perplexing, I'm so glad I read it.
What I liked: Getting to know all the characters, inside and out; the pace: I never felt like things were being glossed over, nor did I feel like it was dragging; that it took place well over 100 years ago and yet (for the most part) feels like it could have show more happened today; the dialogue; learning about Russia in the 19th century; the philosophy of Rashkolnakov (no idea if I spelled that right).
What I didn't like: That Russian people have so many different names. show less

Crime and Punishment has long been my favourite book. I have read the David McDuff translation for Penguin three times. The Pevear & Volokhonsky translation for Vintage, though, blows that one out of the water. It is more immediate, more human, simultaneously capturing the period Dostoevsky was writing in alongside the sense that life is timeless and modernity began in the 1860s. Crime and Punishment is the first true crime novel. As someone who reads a lot of crime, I can see how much Christie, Raymond, La Plante, Chandler, Conan Doyle, all of them owe to this one great novel. Even the writers of Columbo owe a debt to Porfiry Petrovich. There are so many universal themes in the book, too - religious and political fanaticism, science show more and logic versus faith, the portrait of a psychopath, the disintegration of society under the weight of excess. It is Dostoevsky's masterpiece and, for me, no other work of literature even comes close in scope or achievement. show less

Applies to the Kindle Edition of the Penguin translation by Oliver Ready. As readable as the one I’m most familiar by Constance Garnett, & I’m sure more accurate. Good, detailed notes that explain the cultural context & the St. Petersburg locations of the time. Insightful introduction. Has a “cast of characters” section which should be in more modern editions of long 19th century novels, or even contemporary ones, like Stephen King. Not simply a list, Ready also explains the implications of the names that are suggestive of theological & philosophical concepts that a non-reader of the language or the political & religious movements of the times would not be familiar with. Insightful introduction by the translator. Too bad he show more hasn’t translated more Dostoyevsky – I find the Peaver/Volkhonsky ones to be a slog. Another plus that isn’t always the case with the Kindle editions—this one has page numbers; the default location identifier in the Kindles is often just x digits of y total digits, which makes citations impossible. I was reading the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Little Dorrit even though I own a paperback copy of the same edition, because, at my age, the print of most of the Oxfords is way too small. I had to keep the hardcopy by my side for reference to get a better visual of where I was in the 900 p. Dickens novel.

The experience of the novel in Garnett (high school/college, read at least twice) & Ready is sensational, more gripping & faster moving than the Stephen King novel I finished the week before, and King thrillers move like a bullet train. I read D.’s Demons aka Devils in a Magarshack translation many years later, & I’d forgotten how much C&P anticipates it with characters addled by Chernyshevsky, and which might as well have been satirizing the progressives of the late 60’s early 70’s from my college years. The thing to keep in mind is that D.’s novels are funny in an appalling over the top way; he’s a master of scenes where things simply go off the rails. Consider the funeral supper for Marmeladov where his widow Katerina Ivanovna goes hammer & tongs with her German landlady and ends up out on the streets thinking she will make a living playing the barrel organ while whacking her dazed children to make them dance & sing. The grotesque black humor I can’t help thinking King re-imagined in the scene of the son’s funeral in Pet Semetery where Dad’s brawl with the in-laws knocks the child’s coffin to the floor. The other thing is he can be like Dickens on steroids – Svidrigailov could be the reincarnation of Quilp drooling over Little Nell when he describes his 16 year old “fiancée” to Raskolnikov: ”That lovely fair hair of hers, done up in those sweet little lamb’s curls, those chubby little lips, those little legs. Just adorable!” (576). And Sonya Semyonovna is more virtuously operatic than Little Amy Dorrit in her redemptive powers; the scene where Raskolnikov confesses to her truly brought me to tears. C&P: you’ll laugh – not to forget Luzhin, the latter day Uriah Heep -- you’ll cry.

Be that as it may, I agree with Ready that D.’s Raskolnikov protagonist is disturbingly ambivalent. Is he resurrected by Christian charity or has a legion of devils simply taken over our hero-murderer, jumping from Svidrigailov to the highly suggestible ex-student after D.’s surrogate, modernized devil commits suicide? Rascal Raskolnikov might be redeemed by his Mary Magdalene, but he could also be a conservative bete-noir, the murderer who skates by calling up all sorts of environmental excuses & acts of charity to get a reduced sentence. The doting mother who can never believe her son would do that but her subconscious knows; the sister who is shocked but “moves on” – characters you see on the Internet all too often. Even after sentencing he still thinks murdering the pawnbroker was justified (like killing the Jews in the 20th century) & he conveniently forgets he also murdered the pawnbroker’s pious, kindly, abused sister, the double as it were of Sonya. Does he ever feel any remorse for his deeds? Is D. using spirituality to give the audience a happy epilogue? Is D. being the devious politician who gives the libertarians and the evangelicals what they want even though what either party wants is exactly what the opposite party does not. I mean, if there was a kernel of remorse in the knave, why didn’t he turn himself in immediately? He doesn’t seem particularly afraid of “punishment.” But that would be a short story. Reading C&P is almost like looking over the shoulder of a novelist as actor, constantly asking himself, as they do nowadays, What’s my motive? What’s my motive?” For me, the motive issue is less about the decision to commit the crime, but more about the endless games R. plays to avoid admitting guilt, if he ever does, with Porfiry like a critic constantly hectoring the novelist about his various stratagems for delaying the inevitable conclusion. show less

Here's another review as I go! I suppose I just can't let go of Dostoyevsky's squalid, bleak, complicated, and spiritually vexing world, so despite having just finished The Brothers Karamazov, I find myself plunging headlong into Crime and Punishment, a book I last read 20 years ago.

I'm reading the new Oliver Ready translation, and it's wonderful so far.

I can well imagine how shocking this book must have been at the time. It depicts a world where everyone is either taking advantage of someone else or being taken advantage of, where most of the characters are engaged in a mean, petty, and morally bankrupt struggle for survival. Ironically, it's Raskolnikov himself who comes closest to espousing some idealistic notion of virtue among all show more the squalor, when he criticizes his sister for being engaged to someone she doesn't love, all for the sake of the man's money, with its potential to lift their family out of poverty.

***

Dostoyevsky is brilliant at depicting a character on the edge--one whose thoughts veer between lucidity and paranoia and whose passions overwhelm him even when he can hardly muster the energy to get off his sofa. What's interesting about his passion is the deep moralism that accompanies it--his sense of the world's injustice, as when he rushes to save Marmeladov, a drunkard who was trampled by a horse, and brings the man to his family and feels sorry for them all as he comforts them and gives them money. You get the sense here of a man who deeply feels all the depravity and injustice of the world, one who can hardly stand it, and yet he's the murderer and perhaps the most depraved one of all.

And yet.... Raskolnikov is also quite suspicious of "phonies," to use a Holden Caulfield term, as when he confronts his sister's fiance. Here's another complication in this fascinating character. Is he the most "honest" character in the book? In a way he is, but of course he's hiding the biggest secret. He constantly struggles against his own duplicity and is often on the verge of blurting out his crime. He even does at one point, yet his listener thinks it's a joke, and he plays along, but you can see how the act of dissimulation itself is so painful to him.

***

When Raskolnikov visits the disgraced Sonya, he becomes strangely Christ-like, kissing her feet and claiming he's bowing "to all human suffering." He seems to take all suffering on his shoulders, especially the suffering of children, as he constantly warns Sonya about what will happen to her young siblings should their mother die. But of course this is all complicated by Raskolnikov's avowed athiesm, which he makes clear to Sonya when she says that God would never let their mother die and leave those young children as defenseless and homeless orphans, and Raskolnikov responds, "almost with a sort of malicious glee," by asking: "What if there is no God?"

***

There is certainly no romanticizing of poverty here, as we see Katerina Ivanovna literally go mad and die from her circumstances. What a tragic and pathetic scene when, homeless, she drags her young children to the streetcorner, dresses them up like performers, and demands they sing and dance for coins, all the while they're crying and she's yelling and coughing up blood. Raskolnikov's premonitions come true, when he turns to Sonya afterwards and wonders what will happen to the children now.

***

Raskolnikov, for all his powers of empathy, seems to long for something more--for the power to achieve greatness, to become a great figure of history--and the murder is for him bound up in this quest. He rationalizes that if Napoleon, in order to fulfill his destiny, had to knock off a few lowly people, wouldn't he be justified in doing so? Passages like this presage all sorts of 20th century horrors, and it's fascinating to see them here, spoken by this most complicated character.

***

Hurtling toward the end now, with Raskolnikov having confessed to a distraught Sonya, and Svidrigailov overhearing from the room next door. Svidrigailov tries to use his knowledge to confront Raskolnikov's sister and get her in his power, claiming he'll take Raskolnikov away with him to America to save him, if only Avdotya will succumb to him. In a scene straight out of a pulp novel, she's shocked and pulls out a revolver and shoots at him as he approaches her, only to graze his head. But he realizes she will never love him, and even after she throws the revolver aside, he allows her to escape.

***

Some spoilers may follow, but I'll do my best not to give too much away:

The fate of Svidrigailov was for me the one false note in the book--the one point where Dostoyevsky took the easy way out. I wasn't at all convinced he'd use the revolver in the way he did, and I felt the author basically wanted this troublesome character out of the way.

Otherwise, wow, the ending was just brilliant--the drama of whether Raskolnikov would confess or not was drawn out masterfully. Then, in Siberia, we get what were for me some of the saddest and truest lines of the entire book:

"Existence alone had never been enough for him; he'd always wanted more. And perhaps the only reason he'd considered himself a man to whom more was permitted than to others was the very strength of his desires."

Only at the end, after a sickness, and Sonya's sickness, does Raskolnikov finally shed the torments of his ambition toward greatness--which in many ways was the driver of his entire crime. He becomes, finally, content, because he finally finds love--real deep spiritual love for this woman who'd given up everything to live near his remote penal colony. Love is what finally transforms him and gives him hope that, after seven more years, he'll be able at last to live.

And so ends this amazing journey--one that will remain with me for a long time, one that I'll ponder and dip back into, one that seems so modern and relevant today. In a way it really does presage the entire 20th century, with its exposition of how dreams of greatness can lead to sordid crimes, how greatness is a form of torment and perhaps even a form of demented thinking. I can't help seeing Raskolnikov as a "wanna-be" Stalin, or Hitler, or Mao, or any of those tragically self-aggrandizing men who see crime as simply a means to an end, who believe they're superior beings and are therefore entitled to use "lesser" people to service their own dreams. It's a terrifying mentality, and Dostoyevsky knew it well. If only we'd listened to him..... show less

Reading Crime and Punishment feels like being locked in a really slimy, sticky, smoky dive bar with your own conscience after way too many vodkas. Dostoevsky doesn’t write a story so much as he drags you by the scruff of your soul into the sweat-soaked brain of a man who thinks he’s smarter than morality, and then shows you what happens when the hangover kicks in.

Raskolnikov is not a murderer in the cinematic sense. He’s the guy we all secretly fear we might be on a bad day — overthinking everything, justifying the unforgivable, then spiraling into a swamp of guilt so thick you can feel the mildew. Dostoevsky turns the act of killing into a philosophical migraine, and by the time you come up for air, you’re questioning whether show more you did it too.

This isn’t a crime novel. It’s an autopsy on human arrogance, performed with a dull and rusted butter knife. The punishment isn’t the Siberian gulag — it’s the relentless self-awareness that comes after.

I’ve read it a dozen times and still can’t tell if it’s a confession, a curse, or a manual for losing your mind in slow motion. But it’s brilliant. Every page smells of poverty, sweat, and existential panic — the kind of prose that makes you want to wash your hands more than once and pour another very large glass of vodka.

If you’ve ever wanted to know what madness sounds like from the inside, Crime and Punishment is one of the best write ups of the internal monkey-mind madness that none of us really want to live. show less