Crime and Punishment [Norton Critical Edition, 3rd ed.]

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 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 show more 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

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 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 show more 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

I've been known to read some books based on nothing more than the challenge or even someone making fun of it. The circumstances of my picking this up was the reading of it being used as a joke in a show I watched, likely based on the length of the book.

I can only say I wound up loving this book. I thought it would be rather difficult to get through based on the joke I can't even remember, but for all of it's weight (both mass and content) I found that I loved this exploration of good and evil and all that humanity entails.

I read this in college. And it was the only book I ever read in about 3 days with no trouble - and I was an English major. I thought this is a masterful story of psychology and guilt. A precursor to American Psycho. Okay, maybe stretching it. It's been 11 years since I read this. Time for a re-read.

“Enough!” he said solemnly and resolutely. “I’m through with delusions, imaginary terrors, and phantom visions! Life is real! Haven’t I lived just now? My life hasn’t come to an end with the death of the old woman! May she rest in peace—enough, time you leave me in peace, madam. Now begins the reign of reason and light and—and of will and strength—and we’ll see now! We’ll try our strength now,” he added arrogantly, as though challenging some dark power."
from Part II chapter 7

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"And what if I run away?" asked Raskolnikov with a strange smile.

"No, you won't run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable dissenter would run away, the flunkey of another man's thought, for you've only to show him the end of your show more little finger and he'll be ready to believe in anything for the rest of his life. But you've ceased to believe in your theory already, what will you run away with? And what would you do in hiding? It would be hateful and difficult for you, and what you need more than anything in life is a definite position, an atmosphere to suit you. And what sort of atmosphere would you have? If you ran away, you'd come back to yourself. You can't get on without us."
from Part VI, Chapter 2

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"With all Avdotya Romanovna’s natural aversion and in spite of my invariably gloomy and repellent aspect—she did at least feel pity for me, pity for a lost soul. And if once a girl’s heart is moved to pity, it’s more dangerous than anything. She is bound to want to ‘save him,’ to bring him to his senses, and lift him up and draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life and usefulness—well, we all know how far such dreams can go. I saw at once that the bird was flying into the cage of herself. And I too made ready. I think you are frowning, Rodion Romanovitch? There’s no need. As you know, it all ended in smoke. (Hang it all, what a lot I am drinking!) Do you know, I always, from the very beginning, regretted that it wasn’t your sister’s fate to be born in the second or third century A.D., as the daughter of a reigning prince or some governor or pro-consul in Asia Minor. She would undoubtedly have been one of those who would endure martyrdom and would have smiled when they branded her bosom with hot pincers. And she would have gone to it of herself. And in the fourth or fifth century she would have walked away into the Egyptian desert and would have stayed there thirty years living on roots and ecstasies and visions. She is simply thirsting to face some torture for someone, and if she can’t get her torture, she’ll throw herself out of a window."
from PART VI chapter 4

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"What wrong have I done them? Why should I go to them? What should I say to them? That's only a phantom.... They destroy men by millions themselves and look on it as a virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia! I am not going to them."
from Part V, Chapter 4

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"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..."
from Part V chapter 4

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"Crime? What crime?" he cried in sudden fury. "That I killed a vile noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!... Killing her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking of it and I am not thinking of expiating it, and why are you all rubbing it in on all sides? 'A crime! a crime!' Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice, now that I have decided to face this superfluous disgrace. It's simply because I am contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided to, perhaps too for my advantage, as that... Porfiry... suggested!"

"Brother, brother, what are you saying! Why, you have shed blood!" cried Dounia in despair.

"Which all men shed," he put in almost frantically, "which flows and has always flowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for which men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of mankind."
from Part VI chapter 7 show less

One of my fave's by one of my fave's. Must reread soon...