Kuritöö ja karistus (Eesti Päevalehe romaaniklassika, #2) By Fyodor Dostoevsky

Kuritöö

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.

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube 9788498198607 ‘To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.

I have been giving a lot of thought to this novel lately. Despite the three years* that have gone by since reading Crime and Punishment—three years in which I’ve read some outstanding literature, joined Goodreads and written just over 100 reviews of the books I’ve journeyed through—Dostoevsky’s novel still resides on it’s throne as my personal favorite novel. No other web of words, brushstrokes or music melody has ever struck me so deeply and consumed me so completely as this book did. The author’s collection of works as a whole has left such a mark on my soul that I felt it necessary to permanently affix his likeness on my arm. Over a century has passed since its initial publication, yet Dostoevsky’s message is still as poignant today as it was when it was first inked onto paper. Crime and Punishment features an immensely engaging blend of intrigue; philosophy; political, social, moral and religious commentary, that all thread together to create a masterpiece of literature that captures the deep, raw core of the human condition when it is at it’s most gruesome and vulnerable. The exquisite literary genius of the novel evoked a strong emotional resonance in me and the timing of my reading was just right to forever wed me to my love of books.

Initially envisioned as two separate novels, one following the inner turmoil of a murderer and the other chronicling the melancholic destruction of a family due to a flighty, alcoholic patriarch, Dostoevsky deftly weaves together a multitude of unforgettable characters as they interplay through their tangle of plotlines. There are some incredible scenes that will forever haunt and delight me in my memory, such as the narrow escape from the scene of the crime which had me holding my breath in anxious anticipation, the darkly comical disaster of the funeral feast, or the emotionally charged and grim meeting between Dunya and the vile Svidrigaïlov. Each character is carefully balanced with their foil, each character is written with their own unique style of speech and language, and the novel seems to tie every thread together with such perfection and care as it churns forward, raining destruction on the lives of it’s characters to bring them toward their own personal redemption or demise.

This was a book that I was unable to put down as the words flowed from their pages to deep within my heart. Dostoevsky brilliantly straps the reader to the emotional states of his characters and is able to create seamless transitions between scenes or from the minds of one character to the next by riding the wings of an emotion. Most often this emotion is guilt, and the murder scene and it’s feverish follow-up is so expertly crafted that the reader feels they must share in Raskolnikov’s guilty burden. During the course of reading this book, I was overwhelmed by a crushing sense of guilt that was disconnected to any of my own actions. Yet, had police officers confronted me at any given moment, I would have held out my hands in surrender since I was so burdened by the guilty residue of the novel. What further linked me to the book was Raskolnikov’s illness following his crime. Maybe it wasn’t the novel taking root in my soul, perhaps it was due to the cold fall weather that was creeping in at the time, or perhaps it was due to my lack of sleep and early rising to embark on 10-12hr shifts in an unheated factory where I would work away amidst a cloud of aluminum dust, but I felt feverish and ill alongside Raskolnikov and his fever dreams. I don’t think I felt well again until after finishing the book.

I believe I read Crime and Punishment at the ideal moment in my life. I had spent the summer going through several of Dostoevsky’s other novels and falling madly in love with his writing. Then my whole life was uprooted. At the time I began C&P, I had moved across the state away from all my friends, family, and everything I knew and recognized, to live in Holland with my brand new baby daughter and work in a factory that could easily serve for a modern day sequel to Sinclair’s The Jungle. Looking back, I think I can see why I so easily soaked up Raskolnikov’s feelings. Dostoevsky shows how we are a product of our choices, and it is how we deal with our consequences that makes us who we are. I was placed in the new situation because of choices I had made, like choosing to skip class to smoke and read by the river, and Raskolnikov was faced with the guilt of his own actions. It was the most dramatic shift in my life and I am not a person who enjoys change, yet here I was without a familiar face and nobody to talk to. Crime and Punishment was there in my hand every morning and night as I walked between my home and car, like a friend holding my hand to comfort and encourage me in my exhaustion. It rode shotgun on my hour commutes like a faithful companion, and was the friendly face in which I could take refuge in on my breaks. When stripped of all I knew, there was literature to keep me sane and give me something to hold on to as my world spiraled out of control around me (my daughter was also a tether of sanity for me, but fatherhood was still new and intimidating at the time). Dostoevsky and his beautiful words became my friend and my passion, and in my solitude (because, let’s face it, I was very much an oddball in that factory and it took awhile to find my place there) I plunged myself deep into books, something I am very thankful for and feel that all the strangeness and loneliness of the existence is washed away by the glow I feel from grappling with my favorite authors. Then I discovered Goodreads and you all became incredibly dear to me. I don’t think I would have survived my time in that dark pit without you all, so, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I apologize that this isn’t really much of a review, I’m very excited for this review, as it was seeing this GR friend—one of which I hold in the highest regard and am always incredibly impressed by—reading Crime and Punishment that brought back a flood of memories of my times with the book as if I were Proust with his madeleines. I highly recommend this novel, and firmly stand by my choice of it as my favorite. Recently, I had to make a list for work of my top 5 favorite books, which was difficult to do, damn near impossible, but I realized how simple it was to put a book down in the #1 slot. I have read some incredible books since, Hunger (my love of which stems from the similarities to Dostoevsky I noticed in the book), Gravity’s Rainbow, or To the Lighthouse to name a few, yet nothing has ever left as deep of an impact on me as a reader and as a human being as this book. This is a fantastic book about the human spirit, about our deepest, darkest impulses, and shows that our own inner consciousness can dish out a far greater punishment than any legal system can. Now I need to sleep and sober up.
5/5

*It has now been eight years since I've read this novel and I remember it less as a book I once read but as a moment in my life I once lived. When I read C&P, admittedly at the right time for such an excursion of thought, it was like a companion that went along with me on a new adventure in what was a seemingly empty and lonely landscape, a friend that chatted with me throughout the day, a book that shared my emotional state with me for better or for worse. I feel like I entered this book as much as it entered me and I'm not entirely sure what I mean by that but I know that I mean it. All I can say is that eight years later no book has ever meant as much to me as this book did and I feel it more as a moment in the timeline of my life than a book upon my shelf.

I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.

9788498198607 What can I add to 7000+ reviews (at the time I write)? I think this book is fascinating because of all the topic it covers. Like the OJ trial, it is about many important interconnected things and those things remain important today, even though this book was originally published in 1865.

Sure, it has a lot about crime and punishment. But also insanity and temporary insanity, the latter a legal plea that could be entered in Russia of the mid-1800's. It's about guilt and conscience, long before Freud. In fact, this book was written at a time when psychological theories were coming into vogue. It's about false confessions. It's about poverty and social class and people who rise above their class and people who fall from the class they were born into. It's about the wild dreams and the follies of youth.

There is also mention of many social theories that were in vogue at that time, so, for example, if you want to, you can click on Wikipedia to find out about Fourier's system and his phalansteres. There is attempted rape, blackmail, child labor, child prostitution, child marriage and child molestation. There is discussion of marrying for money. There are ethnic tensions between Russians and the Germans of St. Petersburg. Should you give to charity or should you give to change the conditions that caused the poverty? Like me, you may have thought that was a modern idea, but here it is, laid out in 1865. There's a lot about alcoholism. Stir in a cat-and-mouse detective and a bit of Christian redemption. No wonder this is a classic. 9788498198607 “Trying to untie the string and going to the window, to the light (all her windows were closed, despite the stuffiness), she left him completely for a few seconds and turned her back to him. He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the loop but did not quite take it out yet; he just held it in his right hand under the coat. His hands were terribly weak; he felt them growing more and more numb and stiff every moment. He was afraid he would let go and drop the axe…suddenly his head seemed to spin…”
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

(My raging, Raskolnikov-like conscious could not rest without warning you of potential spoilers ahead!)

The problem with being a high school student with average intelligence is that you can get fairly good grades with fairly minimal effort. It is an invitation to cut corners and utilize only one half your ass. This happened to me in English class. I'd sit back, take good notes, and bluff my way through various tests (this was back in the day before Google, when my family only had an AOL dial-up connection and all the answers, right and wrong, were on the internet). For these sins, I am now fated to read the classics long after I was supposed to read them.

On the plus side, coming to the classics on my own volition has given me a better appreciation than having to read them with a figurative gun to the head. This has allowed me to enjoy certain works to a higher degree.

However, I don't think any number of years will allow me to appreciate or enjoy or even suffer Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

First published in 1866, Crime and Punishment is the excruciatingly-detailed psycho-epic about the murder of a pawn shop owner (and her sister). The murderer is named Raskolnikov. He is a former student living in a wretched little closet apartment. He is utterly unlikable: smug, arrogant, temperamental, condescending and self-delusional. Today, we would recognize this person as having a serious mental illness (and the book would be called Inability To Form Criminal Intent and Involuntary Commitment instead of Crime and Punishment). Dostoevsky, though, presents Raskolnikov's malady as spiritual, rather than mental. In a way, he is just like every grad student you've ever met: shiftless; over-educated and under-employed; haughty, yet prone to bouts of self-loathing. I imagine if this book was written in the next century, Raskolnikov would have shaggy sideburns, wear a t-shirt emblazoned with Che's image, and have a well-hidden addiction to prescription pain pills.

Raskolnikov has some interesting theories. He's a Nietzsche-inspired proto-Nazi who believes that the world can be divided into two classes: an elite, Napoleonic class, free to do what they wish; and a second class comprised of everyone else. This former class, because of their elevated standing, don't have to follow the rules.

Armed with this self-serving worldview, Raskolnikov, in need of money, determines that the pawn broker Alyona Ivanovna is a louse who deserves to die. So he takes his axe and a fake pledge to her apartment and bashes her head in. The crime is suitably graphic:

He took the axe all the way out, swung it with both hands, scarcely aware of himself, and almost without effort...brought the butt-end down on her head...Because she was short, the blow happened to land right on the crown of her head. She cried out, but very faintly, and her whole body suddenly sank to the floor, though she still managed to raise both hands to her head...Then he struck her again and yet again with all his strength...Blood poured out as from an overturned glass...


Once the murder is complete, very early in the novel, the long, slow, excruciating psychological unraveling begins. Some of Raskolnikov's madness is displayed through seemingly-endless internal monologues. Is this what it's like to be a crazy person? Maybe, maybe not. But it's effective in its way, because it drove me insane reading it.

Raskolnikov's deterioration is also presented via his relationships. Despite being an utter jackass, he has a lot of friends and family who care for him. Among them is the doting Natasha, a housekeeper at Raskolnikov's apartment; a doctor named Zossimov; and Raskolnikov's “best friend” Razumikhin, who is a bit like Milhouse from The Simpsons, though a bit more refined. He looks after Raskolnikov, tries to get him a job, and suffers all Raskolnikov's verbal abuse with unflagging patience. I couldn't decide what annoyed me more: Raskolnikov's monomania or Razumikhin's spinelessness.

Complicating this picture are several uninteresting plot threads that eventually, finally, after hundreds of pages, merge. One thread deals with Marmeladov, a wrecked old drunk whose daughter, Sonia, is a prostitute (with a heart of gold!). Raskolnikov is eventually redeemed by Sonia and Sonia's faith. A second thread has to do with Raskolnikov's mother and sister. His sister, Dunya, has come to St. Petersburg under a cloud, though things are looking brighter for her and the family, as she is engaged to Luzhin. Luzhin has money, and a keen eye for beautiful, vulnerable women. Raskolnikov rightly senses Luzhin's ill intent, and the animosity between the two men does not help Raskolnikov's troubled mind.

On top of all this, there is a clever, Dickensian police inspector named Porfiry Petrovich. He knows immediately that Raskolnikov is the murderer, yet insists on playing a lame game of cat-and-mouse. One of the few enjoyments I got from this novel was the cold irony of a Russian police officer patiently waiting for his suspect to confess. In Dostoevsky's Russia, the law is clever, intelligent, and implacable. Of course, just a few decades later, the NKVD and KGB would be breaking down doors in the middle of the night and hustling people off to Siberia for no reason at all.

To Dostoevsky's credit, all these characters intertwine, and all the stories pay off, such as it is. In order to do so, however, there are plot contrivances piled atop plot contrivances. Dostoevsky relies heavily on characters overhearing important bits of information.

The only Russian novels I've read have been by Tolstoy, so I don't have much to compare this to. I'm not fit to analyze Crime and Punishment against other works of Russian literature, or even against Dostoevsky's other books. All I know was that this was a drag to read. There are paragraphs that go on for pages, and the density – unleavened by any action – is numbing.

One of the most common complaints when reading Russian literature is the names. It's almost become a cliché. Well, in this case, it's true. At least – for the benefit of English speakers – Tolstoy gave his characters American nicknames. Here, you have to deal with both the patronymics and identical-sounding or near-identically-named characters. The easiest task you have is not mixing up Raskolnikov with Razumikhin. It gets a little harder trying to keep Alyona Ivanovna (the pawnbroker), Katerina Ivanovna (Sonia's mother) and Amalia Ivanovna (Sonia's mother's landlord) straight. Also remember that Dunya goes by the name Dunechka or Avdotya Romanovna (but that Porfiry Petrovich is not the same as Ilya Petrovich). These complaints are childish, I know, and I have no excuse. Yet I feel the need to unburden myself now, as I missed my chance in high school many, many (many, many) years ago.

More confusing than the names is the culture shock. When I first tried to read Crime and Punishment as a teenager, I chalked my confusion up to a poor translation. Well, this time around, the translation is in the incredibly capable hands of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. They managed, in Anna Karenina and War and Peace to be both faithful and readable. (They are recognized, by people far smarter than me, as the best Russian-to-English translators around).

Here, again, I have no complaints with the translation; but I also had a revelation: I don't get Russians. I don't fully grasp their social hierarchy; I don't get why they like mustaches on women; and I certainly don't understand their interactions. They get mad for reasons I can't comprehend; they are insulted for reasons I do not fathom. In Dostoevsky's hands, Russians are hopelessly operatic, incapable of having a subtle or nuanced reaction to anything. Every emotion has an exclamation mark. You get Dunya trying to shoot Svidrigailov one second, and then tearfully embracing him the next. Characters fall on their knees before each other, and laugh at inappropriate times, and have opaque motivations. I am not trying to be culturally insensitive when I say I am confounded by the Russians in Crime and Punishment.

Of course, there are enjoyable moments, including a classic set-piece following Marmeladov's funeral (imagine a Russian version of Clue, in which accusations are followed by counter-accusations, and everyone is shouting and fainting). Surprisingly, there is also a good bit of humor, such as this interaction between Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov regarding the morality of eavesdropping:

In that case, go and tell the authorities; say thus and so, I've had this mishap: there was a little mistake in my theory. But if you're convinced that one cannot eavesdrop at doors, but can go around whacking old crones with whatever comes to hand, to your heart's content, then leave quickly for America somewhere!


When I was young, I often gave up on challenging books like Crime and Punishment. If I managed to finish – or at least come close – I treated them with snark, which was obviously a self-defense mechanism, hiding an unspoken belief that maybe I just wasn’t smart enough to get it (whatever it was). When I got a little older – when I was no longer a kid, but didn’t have kids of my own – I went back to those classics I had dismissed, as a way to test myself. Older still – with kids of my own who don’t have their own kids – I circled back again, a strange sort of revisiting in which I tried to remember my past self through literature. Sometimes, I found myself revising old opinions. The Scarlet Letter, for instance, worked for me as an adult in a way it never had when I barely skimmed it in my youth.

Crime and Punishment, however, is never a classic I am going to love (and I’m unlikely to give it another try). Yet, in the perverse way of classics, it is utterly memorable, if only because I struggled so hard to get through it. Believing this a worthwhile hill to climb, I did not give up, even though I could have finished three others books in the time it took me to slog through this one. Heck, despite not liking this the first time, I even gave it an entire second reading. Thus, even though I can’t stand it, Crime and Punishment will be somewhere in my headspace forever, a vague recollection of mustachioed women, strong emotional reactions, and a know-it-all with an axe. 9788498198607 There was a time in my life when I couldn’t get enough of reading Dostoevsky. Maybe because his books made me think so deeply about being human and how we choose to live our lives. I began with Crime and Punishment, probably the work he is best known for.

What I remember is being fascinated by Dostoevsky’s brilliant understanding of human nature. I remember thinking what a deep study this book was; an incredible examination of a man who commits murder and how he is “punished” for it.

I remember thinking that here was a master storyteller. Not only able to create complex characters, but able to take the reader deeply inside a character’s mind. Best of all, I remember that I would stop reading periodically and think; not a mindless read, but an absorbing one.
9788498198607

I have been bested... 9788498198607 If you’ve ever committed an unjust act, as Raskolnikov does, you know now it would have been better right at the outset to confess your injustice and seek the absolution of clemency.

For if you neglected to come clean you were probably racked with ruin within, and “delivered to the bondsman” of tortuous guilt. It happened to Raskolnikov, and it happened to me.

Each one of us is a Raskolnikov, you know.

No, not like you’re thinking - not a shabbily-dressed, impoverished murderer. But we all share his nature. To a T.

That, in essence, is the key to understanding Dostoevsky’s tortuous, convoluted, anxious prose - it’s the one message that Fyodor Dostoevsky takes anguished pains to drum into our insulated and isolated little heads!

Not that, hey, Raskolnikov’s not such a bad guy after all... no - it’s that he is inwardly bad and so are we, potentially at every moment, bad inside - and that that that will never change.

We don’t change our inner lives; but we CAN constantly be making amends for our mistakes - and starting our life anew in others’ eyes at each moment, though never perhaps to our own complete inner satisfaction.

For our selves aren’t static and we all invariably tend towards moral entropy.

There are no easy answers in Dostoevsky!

I remember so well the time I finally quit smoking - cold turkey, 22 years ago. I was lucky I did it, I guess; but to face the indefinitely long rest of my life - stretching out before me like a vast restless desert - without smokes, seemed unbearable back then!

It was just like the Zen Master says - reaching the top of a thousand-foot pole, and then, CONTINUING TO CLIMB. In empty air. Yikes!

Panic City! The flames of utter hopeless anxiety threatened to engulf me entirely.

So I started to pray. Nonstop. Like a dog chewing a meatless bone! It must have worked... so saith the Preacher.

And I escaped from that Inferno by the very Skin of my Teeth.

So likewise, there are few pat answers in Faith, no matter what we’ve seen or heard: “Ours is only the trying,” Eliot said. Trying to make the best of a mess!

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if C.S. Lewis is right, and there remain plenty of challenges in Heaven.

So, there is no finality in this life, Dostoevsky is saying. We can’t rest on our laurels.

Or our guilt, either, for that matter!

The best way I can sum up my thoughts on this Everest of a novel is by quoting W.H. Auden:

“Faith, while it condemns no temperament as incapable of salvation, flatters none as being less in peril than any other... Christianity is a way, not a state, and a Christian is never something one IS, only something we can pray to BECOME.”

And if Raskolnikov is not a Christian, neither are we.

But we must never give up the trying, just like Raskolnikov...

And for us, too, in time there may come Redemption.

And a Peace that passes all understanding, after the intolerable Shirt of Flame is extinguished, in

A condition of complete simplicity
Costing not less than EVERYTHING. 9788498198607
6.0 Stars. One of my All Time Favorite novels. In addition to being one of the first works of Classic Literature that I suggest when asked for recommendations from others, this story holds a special place in my heart as it was the story, along with Moby Dick, that began my love of the “classics” for which I will always be grateful. So often we are forced to read the great works of literature for school or at times not of our choosing and I think it tends to lead to a lifelong aversion to them...like being forced to eat vegetables as a child...yuck.

I was fortunate enough to come back to these stories on my own terms while I was in College. My parents, at my request, bought me a subscription to several Easton Press library collections including the “100 Greatest Books Ever Written” and “Books That Changed the World.” Two of the first three books I received were Moby Dick and Crime and Punishment.

So I took a weekend off from getting drunk and running naked through Downtown San Diego and decided instead to get drunk in my apartment and read Crime and Punishment….and I fell head over heals in man-love with Dostoyevsky. I loved this book from the opening scene in which Raskolnikov is convincing himself about the rightness of committing the murder of the money-lending pawn-broker all the way through the bittersweet end and the beginning of his redemption.

Powerful, brilliant, insightful and surprisingly engaging despite the fact that it is far from being a light read in either prose or content. The central theme of this story is not really the crime (i.e. Murder) or punishment (i.e., incarceration) in the formal sense of the word. The real crime is Raskolnikov’s arrogance in placing himself above his fellow man and thus is not bound by the rules of society (i.e., his belief he is like Napoleon). Likewise, the punishment is the deeply felt, and unexpected from his standpoint, guilt over what he has done.

It is Raskolnikov’s personal, internal struggle with the evil he has perpetrated. His mind, his body, his very essence rails against his actions and leads him down the path that will eventually lead to the possibility of redemption. It is such a deeply personal, emotionally evocative journey that it was impossible for me not to become intensely invested in the story.

Something that struck me as I was reading about Raskolnikov’s struggle with his conscience was the thought that everybody does things that they are ashamed of or wish they could change. That is part of being human. It is our ability to feel genuine remorse over our bad actions and voluntarily take steps to rectify those mistakes that leads to growth and character. I think this is why I have always loved stories of redemption because it is such a classic theme of being human.

On the other hand, I also realized why I get so bat shit crazy with anger when I hear of certain kinds of what people terms non violent crime. Rapists and murderers when they get caught are punished and sent to places I have nightmares about. Whether or not it is enough, we can debate, but it is defintely not a fun place.

What bothers me are the slime balls who steal and pillage millions and billions of $$$ from people who need it and end up spending time in cushy federal prisons with cable TV and other amenities. I see these crimes as bad as most violent crimes because they lead to real severe pain and devastation for many of the victims and yet the punishment never seems commensurate. And yet, these “white collar” criminals get off so much easier and you NEVER (or rarely) see genuine remorse over the destruction they have caused. It lead me to do a little justice fantasizing and I came up with this that I thought I would share...


Sorry for the less smooth segue, but it was something that came to me while I was reading the book. Anyway, unlike those above, Raskolnikov’s story is one of true growth and redemption and is definitely a story that I think everyone should read. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!

P.S. The second time I “read” this I listened to the unabridged audio as read by George Guidall and he did his usual AMAZING job. I think his narration is superb and truly enhanced the experience of the story.
9788498198607 Well, what’s a global pandemic for if you don’t read the stuff you think you really ought to have read by now. Although I hope this strange circumstance will not result in me referring to Fyodor Dostoyevsky as The Corona Guy.

Those yet to read this towering inferno of literature may wish to know what’s in the nearly 700 pages, so here is a scientific analysis :

WHAT HAPPENS IN CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Long conversations between people who could talk the hind legs off a donkey: .....................53%
People going mad and running about wildly or quietly chewing the wallpaper in their tiny room : .........11%
People being in debt :.................. 41.7%
People being unsteady on their legs due to vast consumption of vodka :.................... 51%
People being ill (physical) :.................... 34%
People being ill (mental) :...…...…...…...……37%
People contemplating suicide :...………………19%
People enjoying a pleasant stroll in the countryside : .....0%
People having a friendly chat over a cup of coffee :... 0.03%
Men figuring they can force a poor woman to marry them :.....……...……………. 36%
Women being terrified :...…...……………..………………. 39%
Horses being beaten :...……………...…..……...…...……...……... 2%
Nothing exciting happening :...……...……...………….. 0%

This all adds up to more than 100%. That is because C&P is a very excessive novel. It has more than 100% inside it.

INTERVIEW WITH F DOSTOYEVSKY, 18 March 1867

FD : You see, in my books...the numbers all go to eleven. Look...right across the board.

V. M Vorshynsky: Ahh...oh, I see....

FD : All other novelists, they only go up to 10. But I go up to 11.

V. M Vorshynsky:: Does that mean you have more emotion in your books ?

FD: Well, it's one whole notch more, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most...most novelists, you know, they don’t know eleven exists. I get my characters all the way to ten with their emotional situations, and then...push over the cliff. See?

V. M Vorshynsky: Put it up to eleven.

FD: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

And it’s really true. If they are not about to jump into a river, they are going to fall in love with a prostitute, or they are going to get roaring drunk because they have fallen in love with a prostitute and will later jump into a river.

CAN WE GET SLIGHTLY MORE SERIOUS PLEASE

C&P surprised me. It was like a Dardenne Brothers movie with the camera tight up to Raskolnikov nearly the whole time, and the action shown in detail almost hour by hour over a couple of weeks. Yes it’s a whole lot about th psychological disintegration of this arrogant twerp who thinks he might be some kind of extraordinary person destined to improve the human race by sheer power of his brainwaves & so therefore is justified in bashing in the head of some horrible old woman pawnbroker to steal her money and kickstart his wonderful career. And bash in the brains of her sister who unfortunately comes in the door at the wrong moment. Bad timing.

But it seemed to me that at least half of C&P was all about the horrible powerlessness of women and how they are forced into marriages which are no more than licenced prostitution. An antidote to Jane Austen, indeed.

And it was about how the arrogant twerp murderer can also be a guy who perceives this injustice and wants to revolutionise society. And to do that he starts by bashing in the brains of two women.
So you see this is a psychological minefield we are in.

Like Macbeth and An American Tragedy by Dreiser the murder is contemplated beforehand, then committed, then acts like acid on the mind of its perpetrator, and the reader is along for the excruciating ride.

Thre are hundreds of connections that trigger like flashing synapses as you go through this big ass book… Freud, Leopold and Loeb, the philosophy of the Nazi Party, Camus, Beckett…

I do admit that there are probably three windbags too many in C&P and I could think of snipping a chapter here and a chapter there to get the whole thing down to a tight 500 pages of ranting and caterwauling. But all in all, this novel rides all over you like an out of control ox cart & will leave you gasping and discombobulated.

Conclusion : excellent pandemic reading 9788498198607 I basically had to stop drinking for a month in order to read it; my friends no longer call. But it's great. 9788498198607

Romaani peategelane endine üliõpilane Rodion Raskolnikov elab äärmises vaesuses. Ta on näljas, pesemata ja räämas, riided on tal seljas räbaldunud, tema vilets toake sarnaneb vähe inimese eluasemega. Viibides päevade viisi oma toakese üksilduses, küpsevad tema peas kõige fantastilisemad plaanid. Ta otsustab tappa liigkasuvõtjast vanaeide – vastikuse ja kurjuse kehastuse.

Sooritanud kuritöö, rüvetas Raskolnikov koos sellega ka oma hinge ja kaotas oma rahu. Kirjaniku sõnade järgi on hingepiinad kõige rängemaks ja kohutavamaks karistuseks. Kuritöö ja karistus (Eesti Päevalehe romaaniklassika, #2)

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