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Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Start date: April 1, 2016

Finish date: May 1, 2016

Discussion: Past Group Reads

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Feb 05, 2017 Misha rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-books, classics, russia, psychology-mental-health, tbr-owned, literary-fiction, purchased-2024, 19th-century

I overcame my apprehension of Russian literature with War & Peace last year. Having fallen in love with Tolstoy, I had to venture into reading Dostoyevsky as well. Needless to say, both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky have had very different impact on me.

Tolstoy made me hopeful in a time of personal crisis I had experienced last year. His world is wrought with sadness intertwined with so much hope. Every character of Tolstoy's no matter how wretched has the hope of redemption and finding a semblance of I overcame my apprehension of Russian literature with War & Peace last year. Having fallen in love with Tolstoy, I had to venture into reading Dostoyevsky as well. Needless to say, both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky have had very different impact on me.

Tolstoy made me hopeful in a time of personal crisis I had experienced last year. His world is wrought with sadness intertwined with so much hope. Every character of Tolstoy's no matter how wretched has the hope of redemption and finding a semblance of meaning. Dostoyevsky , on the other hand, made me feel so agitated throughout Crime and Punishment. He made me scared of the world, suspecting of my own actions, to the extent I even had a nightmare about the book!

But, in that, lies his genius, I suppose. In his ability to make you inhabit the character's psyche, make the reader feel all the emotional turmoil, rage, fear and paranoia. Dostoyevsky can almost be called the first great author of psychological novels.

Raskolnikov is such a hard character to grasp. I still don't know how I feel about him. At times, I was repulsed by his megalomania and at times, I was drawn to pity him through his humaneness towards the suffering of others. At times, he was so cold and clear in his logic and reasoning - 'psychopath' is the term that came to my mind. At other times, the chaos in his head brimmed to the top waiting to explode - and even that chaos permeates into the reader. St. Petersburg matches the chaotic state of his mind - the poverty, the cruelty, the injustice. Reality becomes diluted in his head, until there is no line left between his imaginations and real life.

This is a highly fascinating and deeply relevant look at the psychology of a criminal. There are no clear answers. And of course, one cannot trust the explanations of the criminal as erratic as Raskolnikov. What made him murder? Was it his social circumstances or was it because he genuinely believed that as a superior human, he was above all laws and hence morality? Was it because of his deteriorating state of mind brought on by his poverty? The reader is drawn into his turbulent mind, with little escape or relief. At the end, only at the end, there is hope, but the message I take way from the book is the bleakness of human existence and modern living, along with the chaos that is society with its injustices and inequalities.

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Mar 27, 2013 Cee rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, classics

Good, but a bit long. The Russian names weren't as hard to keep track of as I was expecting. Mr D clearly has a strong disliking for Polish people. His early foray into the psychological novel is interesting though, and Raskolnikov's journey is both nerve-wracking and uncomfortable. ...more

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