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Crime and Punishment

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"Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky follows the story of Raskolnikov, a destitute former student who commits a murder without remorse, delving into the psychological and philosophical arguments behind his crime. The protagonist struggles with guilt, paranoia, and justification for his actions, ultimately facing the consequences of his crime before his punishment is delivered. The novel offers a deep exploration of the criminal mind, the complexities of morality, and the societal implications of one's actions, set against the backdrop of 19th-century Russia.

Dostoyevsky's writing style in "Crime and Punishment" is described as captivating, suspenseful, and multi-layered, offering an exciting and intriguing narrative with well-developed subplots. is praised for its ability to provoke introspection and raise thought-provoking questions, making readers consider existential crises, moral dilemmas, and the nature of sin. Despite some finding the book dense or challenging, many appreciate the novel for its depth, complexity, and timeless relevance in addressing profound themes.

Characters:

The characters are intricately developed, showcasing a range of psychological states, from Raskolnikov's despair to Sonya's compassion.

Writing/Prose:

Dostoevsky's writing is psychologically intense, combining deep philosophical dialogues with dense and sometimes convoluted prose.

Plot/Storyline:

The plot follows Raskolnikov's murder of a pawnbroker driven by a philosophy of exceptionalism, leading to his psychological unraveling.

Setting:

The setting is bleak 19th century St. Petersburg, mirroring the themes of poverty and psychological struggle.

Pacing:

Pacing is variable, marked by slow introspection and lengthy dialogues that serve to explore character psychology.
He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the stairs. His closet of a room was under the roof of a high, five-floor house and was more like a cupboard than a place in which to live. The land...

Notes:

The book explores complex themes of crime, guilt, and redemption through the mind of Rodion Raskolnikov, a former student.
Raskolnikov commits murder to test his theory that extraordinary people can operate above moral laws.
Dostoevsky's writing reflects the psychological turmoil that follows the act of murder, showcasing Raskolnikov's descent into madness.
The character of Sonia, a kind-hearted prostitute, serves as a moral foil to Raskolnikov and ultimately helps him find redemption.
Dostoevsky delves deeply into the psyche of his characters, presenting a vivid portrait of 19th century Russian society and its struggles with poverty and morality.
The novel is noted for its exploration of the conflict between rationalism and faith, especially in the context of Raskolnikov's plans and actions.
Crime and Punishment is sometimes classified as an early psychological thriller, with elements of suspense as Raskolnikov navigates guilt and paranoia.
The title itself raises questions about whether punishment is solely a legal consequence or also an internal struggle with one’s conscience.

Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings

Content warnings include discussions of murder, mental illness, guilt, poverty, suicide, and physical suffering.

Has Romance?

While the primary focus is not on romance, there is a significant plot element involving the relationship between Raskolnikov and Sonia, which contributes to his redemption.

From The Publisher:

A desperate young man plans the perfect crime - the murder of a despicable pawnbroker, an old women no one loves and no one will mourn. Is it not just, he reasons, for a man of genius to commit such a crime, to transgress moral law - if it will ultimately benefit humanity?

So begins one of the greatest novels ever written: a powerful psychological study, a terrifying murder mystery, a fascinating detective thriller infused with philosophical, religious and social commentary. Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in a garret in the gloomy slums of St. Petersburg, carries out his grotesque scheme and plunges into a hell of persecution, madness and terror.

Crime and Punishment takes the reader on a journey into the darkest recesses of the criminal and depraved mind, and exposes the soul of a man possessed by both good and evil...a man who cannot escape his own conscience.

Ratings (343)

Incredible (82)
Loved It (128)
Liked It (66)
It Was OK (42)
Did Not Like (13)
Hated It (12)

Reader Stats (856):

Read It (355)
Currently Reading (23)
Want To Read (329)
Did Not Finish (20)
Not Interested (129)

7 comment(s)

Loved It
1 week

Was little scared to do a re-read of this incase I wouldn't enjoy it as much as when I listened to this in the beginning of the year. But there was no reason to fear I very highly enjoyed this book not only dose it have a good plotline and great characters it's also weaves in so much into the story, humanity, madness and so much more. It is a big book but wasn't sluggish at all, always interesting, always intriguing

 
Hated It
1 month

the worst book i ever read. i can’t stand realism or russian literature.

 
It Was OK
3 months

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's this work is much much better than his [b:The Brothers Karamazov|4934|The Brothers Karamazov|Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1427728126s/4934.jpg|3393910].

Less Drama, less long conversations that point to the same thing in 1000 different ways, less kissing hands and less crying males.

Raskalnikov commits a dual murder in a brink of madness/illness/poverty-hunger driven mania (i don't know which) and tries to keep it secret as no evidence was turned on him. But he will go through an internal struggle with a conscience on what is right and wrong. Along with this there are others like his Mother and Sister, of whom he is worried of. His friend who is loyal to him. The people on whom he showed his charity even when he never had enough for himself.

Raskalnikov is a soul who contradicts himself with every next step he takes. As if there are several different natured people in him who choose to come out on different occasions.The narration was good though some parts were dragging and slow. Dostoyevsky choose to have less of melodramatic people in this story and it was totally bearable for a classic to have a bit of drama.

 
Incredible
3 months

Un libro de Dostoyevsky que no solo habla de los grandes problemas humanos como acostumbra pero que ademas tiene trama y que te mantiene en vilo (por la mayor parte).

El libro sigue principalmente los pensamientos del protagonista y sus cambios de humor. En ese sentido es muy psicologico y muy Dostoyevsky. Pero hay un asesinato y una investigacion criminal que forman la trama principal.

 
Did Not Like
6 months

Here, a strange thought occurred to him: what if there was blood all over his clothes, what if there were lots of stains, only he couldn’t see them, didn’t notice them, because his ability to think had been shot to pieces?

The pain I feel at giving such an acclaimed, objectively great novel two stars is only slightly less acute than the pain I felt while actually suffering through it. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration…but I was

really really bored by the majority of the middle. In the spirit of honesty, that makes

Crime and Punishment a two-star book for me, no matter how badly I wanted to like it.

The beginning is fantastic—fast-paced and dramatic, it had me thinking this might be a new favorite—and the ending is equally good, with a jump cut to the epilogue that felt quite modern. I really liked Oliver Ready’s translation, which felt like it could have been produced contemporaneous with Dostoyevsky’s actual novel (and props to him for finding a translation for the pun “No toiletering”). And I thought the themes were fascinating, and there were a lot of great plot moments that are great in theory and in hindsight. But still: I was bored.

Crime and Punishment isn’t a mystery: the who, the what, the where, the how, and the why are all abundantly clear from the moment the crime takes place. Instead, the novel is a thriller: will Raskolnikov get away with it, and—the bigger question—will he maintain his sanity?

It’s a great question, but it manifested primarily in Raskolnikov wandering around and having philosophical discussions with other people or himself, all of whom are emotionally unstable. Mostly those conversations rehash his theory of crime (which is basically that certain extraordinary people are not only above the law but are morally obligated to break it as they deem necessary). I know this philosophizing is a bit of a stereotype about Russian literature, which makes me think that I just don’t particularly care for the Russian approach to novel writing. It’s not inherently uninteresting, and in fact I enjoyed exploring these ideas in small doses, but it goes on for far, far too long. The bulk of the novel feels like it’s stalled.

In sum,

Crime and Punishment was a disappointing novel for me. Not only am I disappointed that I didn’t enjoy it, but I’m disappointed to find that I may not enjoy any Russian literature (in fact, this experience has me questioning how much I

really enjoyed

Anna Karenina—maybe I just

wanted to like it). Hopefully that’s not the case, but for the foreseeable future I’ll be giving the Russians a wide berth.

Some favorite passages:

‘My God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Will I really – I mean, really – actually take an axe, start bashing her on the head, smash her skull to pieces? . . . Will I really slip in sticky, warm blood, force the lock, steal, tremble, hide, all soaked in blood . . . axe in hand? . . . Lord, will I really?’

Subsequently, when he recalled this time and all that had happened to him during these days, minute by minute, point by point, mark by mark, he was always struck to a superstitious degree by a certain circumstance which, though in fact not all that extraordinary, had, he later felt, somehow predetermined his fate.

A strange idea was tapping away in his head, like a chick in its egg, occupying him body and soul.

Meanwhile, his entire analysis, in terms of a moral solution to the question, appeared complete: his casuistry was now as sharp as a razor blade and he could no longer find within himself a single conscious objection.

His first impulse was to wipe his blood-stained hands on the red silk. ‘Red – well, blood on red won’t show,’ he calculated, before suddenly coming to his senses. ‘God! Am I losing my mind?’ he thought in terror.

A gloomy sensation of excruciating, endless solitude and estrangement suddenly communicated itself consciously to his soul.

‘Where was it?’ thought Raskolnikov, walking on. ‘Where was it I read how a man sentenced to death, an hour before he was due to die, said or thought that if he were obliged to live somewhere very high up, on a cliff, on a ledge with room for a pair of feet and nothing more, while all around him were chasms, the ocean, eternal gloom, eternal solitude and eternal tempest, and he had to stay like that, standing on one square yard, for the rest of his life, for a thousand years, for eternity – then he’d rather live like that than die there and then? To live, to live, to live! No matter how – just live! There’s truth in that!

I like it when people lie. Telling lies is humanity’s sole privilege over every other organism. Keep fibbing and you’ll end up with the truth! I’m only human because I lie.

I’ll show you the kind of books they write: with them it’s always “the environment” that’s to blame and nothing else! They love that word! Their conclusion? The proper organization of society would lead to all crime disappearing at once, as there’d be no reason to protest and everyone would become righteous, just like that. Human nature is discounted, banished, surplus to requirements! With them it’s not humanity, which, having developed along its historical, living path to the end, will eventually turn into a normal society on its own, but rather the social system, which, emerging from some kind of mathematical head, will immediately organize all humanity and make it righteous and sinless, just like that, quicker than any living process, and without the need for any historical, living path! That’s why they have such an instinctive dislike of history: “mere chaos and stupidity” – stupidity being the only explanation required. And that’s why they have such a dislike of life as a living process: a living soul is the last thing they want! Living souls demand life; living souls don’t obey mechanics; living souls are suspicious; living souls are reactionary! Whereas here – all right, there may be a whiff of carrion about it, and you could make it from rubber if you had to, but at least it’s not alive, at least it has no will, at least it’s slavish and it won’t rebel! So all that’s left is to lay bricks for the phalanstery15 and arrange the corridors and rooms! Well, the phalanstery may be ready, but your nature is not: it wants life; it wants to complete its living process; it’s a bit too early for the cemetery! You can’t leap over nature by logic alone! Logic foresees three eventualities, but there’s a million of them! So cut them all off, the whole million, and boil everything down to just one thing: comfort! The easy solution! Seductively simple! No need to think! That’s the main thing – no need to think!

In short, I infer that actually all those who, never mind being great, diverge even a little from the beaten path, i.e., are even the slightest bit capable of saying something new, must, by their very nature, be criminals – to a greater or lesser degree, needless to say. Otherwise, how would they ever leave the path, which, of course, they cannot agree to keep to, by their very nature – indeed, I think it is their duty not to agree.

I didn’t murder a person, I murdered a principle!

A fly, waking up, suddenly hit a pane in full flight and began buzzing plaintively.

ghosts are, as it were, shreds and scraps of the other worlds from which they come.

The laws of nature won’t let him run away, even if he did have somewhere to go. Ever seen a moth near a candle? Well, that’s how he’ll be, forever circling around me, like a moth around a candle; freedom will sour, he’ll start thinking too much, entangling himself, worrying himself to death!

Katerina Ivanovna, moreover, was not the browbeaten sort: she could be beaten to death by circumstances, but for her to be morally beaten, through intimidation and the subordination of her will – that was simply impossible.

‘That, Sonya,’ he continued rapturously, ‘was when I realized that power is given only to the man who dares to stoop and grab. One thing, just one: to dare!

‘Oh, be quiet, be quiet!’ cried Sonya, throwing up her arms. ‘You walked away from God and God struck you and gave you away to the devil!’

Was it really the hag I killed? It was myself I killed, not her! I murdered myself in one fell blow, for all time! . . . And the hag was killed by the devil, not me . . .

‘Do you mean Siberia, Sonya? What, do I have to turn myself in?’ he asked, dismally. ‘Accept suffering and through suffering redeem yourself – that is what you must do.’

But this continuous anxiety and all this dread in his soul could not pass without consequence.

For Raskolnikov a strange time had begun: it was as if a fog had suddenly descended, trapping him in hopeless, oppressive isolation.

And when a girl’s heart is moved to pity, she thereby puts herself, as everyone knows, in the gravest possible danger. We all know what comes next: she’ll want to “save” him and knock some sense into him, and resurrect him and exhort him towards more noble goals, and restore him to new life and activity – the usual fantasies.

‘You’re right, she doesn’t love me, but you should never vouch for what goes on between a husband and wife or a pair of lovers. There’s always one little corner closed off to the rest of the world, known only to the two of them.

What we have here is – how can I put it? – a kind of theory, the kind of business where I might decide, for example, that a single wicked deed can be permitted if the overall aim is good. One evil deed for a hundred good ones!

Siberia. On the bank of a broad, deserted river there stands a town, one of Russia’s administrative centres; in the town, a fortress; in the fortress, a prison.

Here, incidentally, they were helped by the latest fashionable theory of temporary insanity,3 which is so frequently cited nowadays to explain certain crimes.

In the present: pointless, purposeless anxiety; in the future: an endless sacrifice by which nothing was to be gained – this was what the world had in store for him. And what did it matter that in eight years’ time he’d only be thirty-two and life could begin again? Why live?

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.

If only fate could bring him remorse – burning remorse that breaks the heart into pieces, that drives away sleep; the kind of remorse whose dreadful torments yield visions of the noose, the whirlpool! Oh, how glad he would have been! Torments and tears – that, too, is life. But he felt no remorse about his crime.

That was the only crime he acknowledged: that he hadn’t coped and had turned himself in.

Love had resurrected them, and the heart of each contained inexhaustible springs of life for the heart of the other.

But here a new story begins: the story of a man’s gradual renewal and gradual rebirth, of his gradual crossing from one world to another, of his acquaintance with a new, as yet unknown reality. That could be a subject for another tale – our present one has ended.

 
Liked It
7 months

characters

 
Loved It
1 year

Crime and Punishment is in the eyes of the beholder. Your interpretation may very well change after reading this book.

 

About the Author:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), one of nineteenth-century Russia's greatest novelists, spent four years in a convict prison in Siberia, after which he was obliged to enlist in the army. In later years his penchant for gambling sent him deeply into debt. Most…

 
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