Rating: 
Summary: Is it me, or the translation?
Review: I didn't finish "Crime and Punishment". The reasons I'm about to give made me think twice about typing up a review. My decision has been made however, and some may disagree with my reasons; probably with a disgusted "who do you think you are?" spoken in my direction. Well, I'm sorry, but do read on if you like.I am not a Dostoevsky newbie. Previously I read "The Brothers Karamozov" as well as "Notes From Underground", and both demanded my full attention to grasp what Dostoevsky was trying to put across. He's a very thoughtful writer, and a self-styled philosopher as well. Many times through "The Brothers Karamazov", he would go for page after page, thinking out loud about whatever subject came up, be it infidelity, God, friendships, gambling, social classes, you name it. The same can be said for this novel, although I was getting confused throughout "Crime and Punishment", so confused in fact that I had to put this book down, and will not likely return to it. The story is not confusing, really. We follow Raskolnikov, a nearly-useless beggarman while he tries to live his pathetic life in 19th century Russia. Dostoevsky paints a bleak picture of the country at that time, with most people being filthy, drunken, poets and "intellectuals" eeking out a living by begging and mooching off everyone in sight. Raskolnikov (rascal?) is no different, and spends much of his time leeching off relatives and pawning off anything of value to the local pawnbroker. Shortly into the book, he murders said pawnbroker and we follow the wretch as his inner torments get the better of him over time. No, that's not a spoiler; it's right there on the back cover glurge, silly. A simple concept for a book, something we're all familiar with in one form or another, and the way his conscience affects him after the murder should lead to a satisfying novel. Instead, all I got was confusion. I was able to follow the action, but too much of my time was spent piecing together what I THOUGHT was happening, rather than being taken for the ride the writer intends. Asking myself why I was confused, I picked up "Brothers" again and opened the book randomly. Reading ten or so long-winded pages of that monsterous work, I was NOT confused. So what was my problem with "Crime"? Was the book written earlier, when Dostoevsky was a lesser writer? No, that can't be it since I read "Notes" with no problem, and it had been written many years before "Crime". Then it dawned on me. Translation! Each of these three in my collection have been written by a different translator. In this case the translator is a person named Constance Garnett. Looking into other books in my "unread" pile, I noticed that Ms. Garnett's translations are considered "definitive". I gulped. Could it be that this nonsensical style is what Dostoevsky really intends to put in front of his readers? Was my version of "The Brothers Karamazov" NOT translated as it was intended? How, then, to reconcile the fact that I LOVED the novel? I don't read Russian. I am personally incapable of translating a novel from ANY language into English. Maybe I am completely off base. But this novel, as translated by Ms. Garnett, is nearly UNREADABLE. It makes very little sense. These characters behave like lunatics, and can't seem to express their thoughts in anything resembling coherency. Razumihin, Raskolnikov's best friend and essentially a 19th century "beatnik", is incomprehensible in everything he does. Was this intentional? I don't think so, as the characters who interact with him only find him a "little" strange. I couldn't understand what Raskolnikov was trying to accomplish, WHY he thought the way he did, nor HOW he was able to pull the wool over everyone's eyes without even trying. This CANNOT be how Dostoevsky imagined his work would be read. He styles himself a deep thinker; not a clown. And Ms. Garnett makes him a clown though this very poor translation. Grammatically, it is as atrocious as anything I've ever read as well. A new reader to Dostoevsky would probably be pushed toward reading "Crime and Punishment", as it is his most famous work and considered to be his first important novel. But when presented with this sloppy and unreadable script, it's likely to turn them off for good. I know I would have been. It is a crime, no pun intended, for his most important work to be translated as ham-handed as this. Is it possible that poorly-translated Dostoevsky paved the way for other Russians like Tolstoy to steal the center stage of Russian literature? I think that IS possible, and that is an unforgivable crime as well. If anyone should know of a different English translation of this novel, please let me know. I am unable to finish it in it's present form. In my opinion, Garnett is a very poor translator, and this novel is in dire need of a new, readable translation. New readers to Dostoevsky should steer clear. Buy "The Brothers Karamazov" instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Read
Review: This book is one of my favorite novels. The psychological developments of the main character are rich. I think the question of the novel applies to any era governed by the rule of law: If one commits a crime that kills or utterly injures another thinking that the eventual benefits of the crime outweigh the consequences of the injuries of the crime, then one must still cope with knowing one has stepped outside the path of being a modern human; that is, the book's premise is that we are all connected and our conscience may or may not (I don't want to entirely give away the books plot) be able to cope with stepping on the roots of our common human experience. Exceptional read and well-worth buying, even if to simply say you have a penchant for Russian novels.
Rating: 
Summary: good detective novel, bad philosophy, bad religion
Review: c&p is first and foremost a pyschological thriller/detective novel. yes, it's also about some ideas that were floating around at the time, but novels aren't about ideas, and if that was all there was to this book we wouldn't be reading it 150 years later. the literary merits of the book are, first, dostoevsky's talent for writing dialogue, and second, his special insight into the neurotic mind, the latter probably because he himself was a deep neurotic. raskolnikov, the main character, is certainly a serious neurotic - the guy belongs in a hospital - but he's not the only crazy character. marmeladov, petty official who falls under the wheels of a carriage, and his wife, katerina ivanovna, are also nutcases. in fact, the scenes with these two characters are off-the-wall hysterical - and i don't mean as in funny, i mean pathetic. d really overdoes it here. these scenes were painful to read. and i can't figure out what his point was except that he enjoys wallowing in this kind of misery. he believes this self-abasement, this suffering is necessary for spritual rebirth. great, if you agree with him; but unbearable if you don't. his so-called great ideas - ie, his political/philosophical satire/polemics - are often tiresome, as, for example, in his satire of the new ideas of the younger generation in the figure of lebyaznikov, luzhin's companion, who's made to espouse some silly ideas about 'free love' and 'open marriages'. dostoevsky's at his best when he sticks to his story. when he goes off on these idealogical tangents, he becomes a russian bore. a pretty good read - if you can overlook the histrionics and polemics. some more after thoughts. the symbol of moral redemption is sonya. sonya's a woman who's fallen in the face of christ, but through her ardent belief and her suffering she hopes to atone for her sins and still enter the gates of heaven. she is also raskolnikov's savior. like her, he has fallen from grace. sonya alone understands his suffering, and through her devotion she hopes to bring him around to her own understanding. this is all well and good, but there's a problem here. are we meant to believe that the girl who sold her body to help her family is really as big a sinner as a man who kills a human being as an experiment, just to see if he could do it? is sonya's charity and self-sacrafice really going to be placed side by side with raskolnikov's egoism? d tries when he has raskolnikov say, "you stepped over too". but what the hell did she "step over"? what theoretical point was she trying to prove? none. she was simply trying to save her family. there's no parallel here. sonya is a true saint, raskolnikov a true sinner. the two can never be put side by side, morally speaking. she is infinitely above him. yet dostoevsky tries to do this when he sits the two down to read the bible. this is the weakest part of the book, the salvation rhetoric, the salvation mechanism. two sinners suffering together to atone for their sins which are nothing alike at all. whatever. stick to the detective novel and you'll be fine. as soon as you stray into the hysteria and polemics and religious rhetoric, you'll be in trouble. like porfiry who's a very sensible man, that is, until he starts to preach to raskolnikov about the benefits of suffering. you know that at this point porfiry isn't really speaking for himself anymore, but that the author has hijacked his character and is mumbling jumbo for him. you can guess how the results look. just stick to detective story and ignore the carnival sideshows.
Rating:
Summary: Raskolnikov vs the World
Review: Dostoyevsky's my new champ. We have here in Crime and Punishment a really intense novel. Raskolnikov is a rival to Ivan Karamazov in the running for "Best/Most Interesting Literary Character Ever." (not to overstate anything, hehe) We've got some really awesome characters running around on the pages; (please forgive spelling errors) Raskolnikov, Porfiry, Svidgrailov, Sofia, and Razimukhin. The conversational duels between Sherlock-Holmesesque Inspector Porfiry and the guilt-addled Raskolnikov are awesome. I like Razimukhin's declaration: "I love nonsense! Talking nonsense is man's only priveledge that distinguishes him from the other organisms. If you keep talking big nonsense, you will get to sense! I am a man, therefore I talk nonsense. Nobody ever got to truth without talking nonsense fourteen times first." Razimukhin is probably the most level of the characters (also a pretty minor one), Svidgrailov is definitely the most fascinating one other then Raskolnikov. He notes: "Reason is Passion's slave, is it not?" Dostoyevsky gives us hope and optimism- depite Raskolnikov's heinous crime, the fact that he tortures himself shows that he maintains some morality and since he eventually "Does the Right Thing"TM it suggests that maybe everything can work out. Religious faith plays a role in Dostoyevsky's tortured characters- when Raskolnikov doesn't believe in God, he is effectively carrying the entire world on his shoulders. And thats a fairly crushing weight. At its most base level, the novel is a good murder mystery, on its literary level, it ties in all sorts of themes. But I won't run on further, suffice it to say that you ought to read this book. Sure beats watching TV.
Rating:
Summary: Taut, morbid, depraved, mind-boggling
Review: Hailed as one of the greatest novels ever written in all times, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment tells the tale of an ex-law student's meticulous, calculated murder of a pawnbroker woman and his showing no remorse for his atrocious crime. In this particularly vivid translation by David McDuff, the words "morbid" and "rabid fury" appear at least 5 times, respectively throughout the book. Such stylistic choices invariably set the mood. The dark and morbid prose ominously sets the foreboding tone of the novel as though the act of murder is indeed a preordained announcement of fate noted by Raskolnikov from the beginning. The murder occurred at the very beginning of the book and proceeded which was Raskolnikov's meticulous planning and "rehearsal" of the perfect crime. He would paid a visit to the pawnbroker, made careful notice of the setup of her apartment, listened for the pitch of the notched key she used to unlock the chest, and sewed a piece of cloth inside his waistcoat to hold the axe. Whether the crime was destitute-driven, the origin of his action could be diffuse and was somehow associated with certain morbid sensations. Indeed Raskolnikov subsequently conferred on his theory about the psychological state of a criminal's mind throughout the entire process of committing the crime. In his audacious "ordinary vs. extraordinary" statement, the latter could commit the most atrocious crime to whom law did not apply. To Raskolnikov, the morbid theory justified the act of committing atrocious acts upon morally corrupt individuals (the loutish, loathsome, filthy old moneylender woman per se) for the benefit of society. The rest (five-sixths) of the book dealt with Raskolnikov's psychological aftermath of his crime-the intermittent moments of remorse, the excruciating physical suffering (seized with fear that he might give away his murder in his delirium), the howling of his own conscience, and the to-confess-or-not-to-confess struggle. Indeed Raskolnikov's own qualms of conscience had given him away-that investigator Porfiry infallibly identified Raskolnikov as the murderer by employing psychological tactics to play with Raskolnikov's mind. Porfiry contemplated that no less cruel was the punishment from one's own conscience. It was the formidable suffering that led Porfiry to purposely send an artisan to the street and randomly accused Raskolnikov of murder, to make him panic. That's why he wouldn't worry about arresting him imminently. An interesting notion that kept repeating throughout the novel was redemption. Raskolnikov might have found his redemption through Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute who prayed and read the bible. But Sonya herself was asking for mercy and redemption for her own sin to which Raskolnikov deemed as moral suicide. Sonya's father Marmeladov in his deathbed asked for forgiveness and died in Sonya's arms. Svidrigailov, the landowner in whose home Raskolnikov's sister Dunya was ill-treated, offered to cover the cost of Katerina's (Sonya's stepmother) funeral and endowed each of the children with 1500 roubles to be paid on their maturity. In a sense, Svidrigailov hoped to find redemption of his sin (the killing of his wife and servant) through a good deed. Not until in Siberia did Raskolnikov truly begin his repentance. One would be mistaken to think Raskolnikov had felt remorse for his crime when he confessed to Sonya. At that point all he did was nothing but recounting the whole murdering event, from the rehearsal, the timing, and the actual murder from which he was emotionally detached. He simply wanted to make the dare and thus never availed himself of the pawnbroker's treasures. It was the Devil who killed her, he claimed. It was the kind of theory; the sort of argument that said a single villainous act was allowable if the central aim was good. Whether he truly found redemption from his depravity and perversity would be left to readers' judgment. A gloomy, melancholy, and taut air hovered above the entire novel and the language of which could become overwhelming and awkward at times. The plot itself was not so much suspenseful as the most jolting event took place in the beginning. What really gripped my mind were the conflicting emotions of fear, guilt, remorse, and courage. Whenever he was haunted, Raskolnikov would search his memory for some hints he might inadvertently gave away evidence of his crime. You might question how Dostoyevsky could penetrate the mind of a murderer so thoroughly and verbalize those freaky delirious thoughts. Every single character in the novel exerted some sense of agitation which, again, permeated throughout the book. The persistent destitute chased after Sonya's stepmother who already suffered from tuberculosis and hacked up blood. The children starved for days and were forced to perform street dance and begged for money. The inebriated men consumed huge amount of alcohol and paid numerous visits to brothels and indulged in debauchery. The most repugnant of all was Pyotr (Luzhin) who took advantage of women's glooming poverty and wielded the constant reproach over them that he had done a favor, making them forever indebted to him. He would manipulate in hope that Dunya and her mother would fall out with Raskolnikov out of his slanderous remarks. His would slyly slip a 100-rouble note into Sonya's pocket, falsely accused her stealing the money among a ghastly audience, and hopefully made her feel indebted to him. Crime and Punishment is not an easy book to read. You will be rewarded with a sense of fulfillment that is so promising when you manage to finish. No sooner when you open the book than it provokes your mind. The whole novel is about morbidity that gives rise of a serious crime. That means you have to persevere with the psychotic nature of a murderer. It is impossible to do justice of all the implications and historical meaning underlying in this book with just a few paragraphs. Do read it for yourself. 5.0 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: This books is a glorious Example of Human Psychology.It is always very difficult to depict or bring forth a human mind but Dostoevsky's illustration has been marvelous
Rating:
Summary: his best book
Review: fyodor writes alot about religious crisis, which is completely uninteresting for me. this is also a theme in this book. but not the central one. all in all i should hate this book. religion, the criminal must pay, ideas from man are not so important as religious ideas, these are some of the authors thoughts, and good reasons why i should hate the book. but i love it. perhaps because the psychology is so important, or the great plot. i cannot honestly say who the character is raskolnikov, or the main event the murder. it goes deeper, the main theme perhaps being how man changes through suffering.
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Summary: Dostoyevsky Relates to Solomon
Review: This is the second book I've read by Dostoyevsky, the other being The Brothers Karamazov, and I must say that both books ultimately come to the same conclusion. Both Alyosha and Raskolnikov give the final words to their stories. True, these two characters are very different from each other with Alyosha representing pure, unfettered faith in God and Raskolnikov giving a voice to the young, intellectially rich but spiritually confused community that was ever growing in power and influence in 19th century Russia. However, I found it very interesting that both characters come to basically the same conclusion: Life is worthy of praise and intellect can't be counted on to provide all of the answers to existence. Raskolnikov's epiphany in the very end of the story, much like Alyosha's ending monologue mirror the same conclusion that Solomon reaches in the last chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes. Love of life and God are the only things that ultimately matter. I'm certainly not saying that Raskolnikov became a religious person in the end but he certainly did rise above his dreary, disheartening doctrine of dry intellectual self-rationalization. Is Dostoyevsky stating his agreement with Solomon in these two great works? Just a thought. For the record, this was a wonderful book. The characters, especially those who are in conflict with Raskolnikov, are tricky, clever and intriguing. I really enjoyed this.
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Summary: A Mysterious Tale of Woe
Review: Little is known about the reclusive author of this fine book. We know that he ws a Russian dissident and spent some time in a Siberian labor camp, but beyond that details of his life are incredibly vague. Speculations vary wildly. Some suggest that he was a Russian aristocrat, some argue that he is still alive today, and others will contend, well, other things. No one will disagree, however, that this book is a rollercoaster ride of crime, punishment, and general antics.
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Summary: A veritable study in moral depravity
Review: Having just read the autobiographical A Moveable Feast in which Hemingway discusses Dostoevsky(I wish they would decide upon a definite spelling) and notes how Dostoevsky is undeniably great, however one can only read his works once due to the utterly grave and morose manner in which they inevitably are written. I am in concurrence with this having just finished Crime and Punishment. While I highly recommend this seminal and profound work to all, as Raskolnikov would say, extraordinary individuals outside of the lowly laboring class of the abysmally inept proletariat, I must say that I do not plan on rereading it anytime in the near future. The dark and morbid cover of the book omniously more than sets the foreboding tone of this deep look into the morose psyche of a tainted and morally depraved intellectual. The ubiquitous gloom and pervading despair permeate throughout Crime and Punishment as we witness the pestilence endured in St. Petersburg in the 19th Century. The continuous coughing of blood by the perpetually sick, the heavy vodka drinking, the gloom of poverty, the virtual starvation of many, the using of "the yellow passport" by Sonia solely in order to maintain sustenance for her family, as well as the remorseless murder of the pawnbroker and Lizveta all contribute to the dissolute debauchery and moral depravity exuded by Dostoevsky. Is it jusifiable to commit heinous acts on morally corrpt individuals for the betterment of society? Does the despicable means of murder of the dirty, old pawnbroker justify the taking of rubles and jewelry to distribute to those less fortunate who are of good moral standing? Raskolnikov adheres to this belief using reason over conscience thinking great men such as Napoleon are allowed to overstep the laws of man for the betterment of society. After the murders, Raskolnikov finds himself "trapped in dreary solitude from which there was no escape." It is refreshingly profound, and altogether surprising, when Raskolnikov undergoes an epiphany of sorts and finally feels genuine and unadulterated remorse while banished in Siberia. While very dark and macabre, Crime and Punishment comes as a highly recommended, albeit a highly provocative and involving work. Be prepared to put on your proverbial thinking cap, so to speak. Enjoy.
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