Tuesday, April 12, 2016

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT






Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Vintage Books, 1993, 551 pp (translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, first published in Russia 1866.)
 
 
Summary from Goodreads: The poverty-stricken Raskolnikov, a talented student, devises a theory about extraordinary men being above the law, since in their brilliance they think “new thoughts” and so contribute to society. He then sets out to prove his theory by murdering a vile, cynical old pawnbroker and her sister. The act brings Raskolnikov into contact with his own buried conscience and with two characters — the deeply religious Sonia, who has endured great suffering, and Porfiry, the intelligent and discerning official who is charged with investigating the murder — both of whom compel Raskolnikov to feel the split in his nature. Dostoevsky provides readers with a suspenseful, penetrating psychological analysis that goes beyond the crime — which in the course of the novel demands drastic punishment — to reveal something about the human condition: The more we intellectualize, the more imprisoned we become.
 
My Review:
Another milestone in my reading history. A member of one of my reading groups (the one who got me to read Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol) convinced us to tackle Dostoevsky, claiming that Crime and Punishment was his most accessible novel, as long as we read the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation.
 
Thanks goodness for the character list in the front of the book and the notes in the back. The characters often have multiple names as well as nicknames (called diminutives.) Like Shakespeare, there are cultural and literary references in the text that were mostly unknown to me.
 
[One reader's oddity: The main character in Viet Hguyen's The Sympathizer often referred to a seminal communist text What Is To Be Done by Nikolay Chernyshevsky, 1863. The same book is mentioned in Crime and Punishment as an influence in both Dostoevsky's and Raskolnikov's time.]
 
I found Crime and Punishment to be very readable. I plowed through it in four days, covering over 100 pages a day. It is truly a study in the folly of youthful idealism, the psychological effects of guilt, and the investigation of crime. I imagined all of my favorite crime/mystery authors reading and absorbing the book into their psyches.
 
Melodrama and stereotypical female characters aside, it was a compelling read. I doubt I will ever forget it. 
 
A personal quirk: Many characters lived in small rooms called "closets." Some even lived in corners of other peoples' closets. I just kept picturing that actual closet where Harry Potter had to live when he was a child. Did J K Rowling read Crime and Punishment?
 
 
(Crime and Punishment is available in paperback on the shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.) 

19 comments:

  1. I haven't read the novel yet but I saw years ago a TV movie adaptation that was very faithful to the book. To this day the characters are very vivid in my mind. Dostoevsky certainly knew the human psyche!
    Have you read anything by Chejov? He also delves into the human psyche. I think that was an interest of writers of the era.

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    1. I believe you are right about Chekhov. I have read and seen the play The Three Sisters. I think I saw a movie adaptation. Wikipedia says Chekhov was influenced by Dostoevsky. And also I think I read that the author of Dracula was as well. It was a time when psychology began to be a factor in both thinking and literature. Another interesting fact is that Freud was born 10 years before Crime and Punishment was published.

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    2. Isn't all that what you call synchronicity? :-)

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    3. I've read short stories by Chejov. One of the ones I've never forgotten (whose title escapes me) is about a judge who kills his wife and details the crime as if somebody else had done it. Powerful stuff!

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    4. Ok, he goes on the endless list!

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  2. I need to try this book again! I started to read it a few years ago but didn't get very far with it. I do usually like Russian novels, so I suspect I was probably just in the wrong mood for this one at the time.

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    1. This was my second try as well. Now maybe I can someday read The Brothers K!

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  3. Good work Judy, making haste of it. I read C & P in 10th grade (which has been (quite) awhile) but I recall being compelled by how R becomes unhinged by guilt ... gracious you could feel aspects of that room, poverty & situation! I never really liked The Brothers K like I did C & P, but some of his short stories are quite good, such as White Nights.

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    1. I have heard others say the same thing about The Brothers K and about White Nights. Someday I will read that. My next Russian book is going to be contemporary: The Big Green Tent by Ludmila Ulitskaya.

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  4. This is one of those books that I honestly cannot remember if I have actually read or if the story is just so embedded in the culture and so familiar that I only think I have read it. I know I saw a movie version of it several years ago so maybe that's why it is so familiar. Perhaps I need to read - or reread as the case may be - it.

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    1. I know what you mean. Those "classics" just become part of the culture. It seems like it would make a good movie.

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    2. There is one movie adaptation for TV starring Ben Kingsley as the police inspector, Patrick Dempsey as Kolya Raskolnikov and Julie Delpy as Kolya's paramour. This version is quite good but I don't know if it is available in Netflix.

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    3. Thanks Carmen! BTW, I finally saw the adaptation of The Makioka Sisters. It was beautifully done, the acting excellent and the subtitles easy to read. Loved the cherry blossom scenes.

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  5. I was eager to know your opinion. As for me, I liked it ;-))) Anyway my review will not be as great as yours!

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  6. Hello dear Judy! Tks for your comment;-) My reply: Yes, I have heard of Sister Carrie, but I haven't read it yet. Have you reviewed this Theodore Dreiser book? Thanks you for your thoughts and your suggestions: this one and China Dolls are on my list ;-)
    Lastly, I am crurently reading a Margarida Rebelo Pinto book. I will present this writer next month ;-)

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    1. I have not reviewed Sister Carrie on the blog because I was not blogging yet when I read it in 2000. I just looked at what I said in my reading log. Once I got going it was a page turner for me, Carrie was indecisive, a dreamer, a woman who followed her feelings, and even so found success. I said she reminded me of the main character in Edith Wharton's House of Mirth.

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    2. Hello my sweet Judy!!! Got the book today “Sister Carrie”. Thank you dear. Have a lovely weekend :-)

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