Rating: 
Summary: It will always be on my shelf.
Review: Absolutely marvelous! I think this book was probably the best work of Dostoevsky. In my personal view I believe that the beginning was much better then the end. The character of Roskolnikov was developed as an angry young man who sees world through morbidly vexed eyes. The ending was a bit disappointing since the character of Roskolnikov was stripped down from an angry young man to a creature that is morally and emotionally destroyed. Dostoevsky perhaps knew better what he intended to accomplish from this book, but in my humble opinion the book should have ended without capitulating Roskolnikov to a standards of the so called 'civilization.' But then Roskolnikov does mean the one who confesses.....
Rating: 
Summary: sin is complicated, redemption simple
Review: When I was a literature student in college, Ray Malbone, the professor who taught the English Novel said to us on the first day of class "You are here to save your souls." What he meant was, that great novelists are always aiming to persuade you to enter into and adopt their worldview. Dostoevsky was literally out to 'save the soul' of Russia from the corruption of alien thinking that had invaded her intellectual life and dragged her people away from simple orthodoxy.
One generally reads this novel as a young person, when one is, like Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, experimenting with extreme ideas. Don't be even momentarily deceived by all the excursions into Neitsche-like ideas of freedom from restraint. Instead, recognize that Dostoevsky was not just a religious conservative but an outright reactionary, and you won't lose your way in any of the tangled thoughts and specious arguments that tangle young Rodya's literally and figuratively fever-tortured brain. Make no mistake about it, Rodya has sinned against God and his neighbor, and he must be 'born again' to get out of the dreadful mess he's wandered into.
So what makes this novel not a tract that would bore us, but a deeply moving psychic journey that draws us with its tension and distress?
First, this isn't really a story about what a murderer is like. For that, go and read "The Devils" or "The Brothers Karamazov" in which you will see the disgusting and horrifying spectacles of lost souls working out their foul destinies. Rodion is NOT like a murderer. That is the most striking thing about him. Indeed, almost any reader will admit to having identified with him and feeling great sympathy for his anguish at almost all times during the novel. He deeply loves his mother and sister. We learn that he has done heroic actions in saving children from a fire. He finds himself again and again unable to restrain impulses of the deepest generosity--saving an abandoned and drunken waif from a predatory man, listening with compassion to a drunkard, carrying that same drunkard home when he is broken and dying, emptying his pockets to the last kopeck to help his family, treating the man's young, prostituted daughter with respect and honor. To Dostoevsky, Rodya represents the finest among young Russian intellectuals.
What happens to him then? He becomes possessed or obsessed with those French-German ideas that have invaded the motherland. It's not so much that he THINKS his way to this murder, as that the depraved philosophies of the west get into him like a bacterium or a virus and possess his will, until he is compelled to carry out an action he knows beforehand (as he realizes afterward) will make him know that he is 'no better than a louse.'
The true greatness of the novel is in Dostoevsky's astonishingly acute observation of every thought, grimace, and piece of behavior produced by Raskolnikov when he is in this sick state of mind and soul. Hard to remember that the novel was written well before modern psychiatric theory was propounded--so precisely does Dostoevsky distinguish each outward and visible sign of the unconscious drive toward truth, confession, and atonement that possesses Raskolnikov's whole being the moment the compulsion to do murder has its denouement in ghastly action.
I give this novel four stars not because it isn't great--it is--but because Dostoevsky went on to write far greater things. This is best read first among Dostoevsky's novels, because later ones are darker and more difficult to decipher. Readers won't be a bit lost in this straightforward wtory, as long as they hold fast to the knowledge that Christianity--specifically Russian Orthodox Christianity as opposed to Roman Catholicism--is where Dostoevsky keeps his moral center firmly fixed.
Rating: 
Summary: Psychology of a Killer
Review: Someone told me once that if you love Tolstoy, you'll hate Dostoevsky and vice versa. I don't know if that statement is universally true, but it held for me."Crime and Punishment" uncovers the mind of Rodion Raskolnikov, a man who kills a pair of innocents under the guise of needing their money. This ends up not to be true; he doesn't use the money at all, and instead justifies his killing by noting that there are "exceptional" people in the world who can simply get away with killing the "non-exceptional" people. If one exceptional person must kill someone else so that his "exceptional-ness" can be spread, the world is a better place. The entire novel develops Raskolnikov's twisted theory, and traces his internal turmoil after the murder. I found the book to be tedious, and I thought that some of the passages were lengthy without adding content. I never felt as though I knew any of the characters particularly well, and perhaps that is why it took me so long to get through this novel. There was nothing pulling me along -- after pages and pages of Raskolnikov's inner debates as to whether or not he should confess, I simply found I didn't care what he did. I just wanted the novel to end. It is rare that I yell out a celebratory "DONE!" to my husband upon finishing a novel -- after this one, however, I could not contain my jubilation! I am a devoted Tolstoy fan, and I guess I expected Dostoevsky to be a little more like him. I expected to feel a connection to the action and the characters, and I was disappointed at every page. I expected more of a sweeping tale, and instead got a few months in the life of an eternally-ill and tormented young ex-university student. I wanted desperately to like this book, but in the end have decided to pick up "Anna Karenina" (for the third time) and forego "The Brothers Karamozov."
Rating:
Summary: More than a novel of ideas, a supreme psychological portrait
Review: The ideas presented, of what it means to dream of ideals, and what it means to act on them, are no longer in the raw nascent stage they were in Notes from the Underground. Raskalnikov, unlike the Underground man, acts. Raskalnikov's crime is only murder, but this is enough to send him reeling the other way. The ideas are still not in the mature aspect they will come to take on in Demons, where all of society is at stake, and The Brothers Karamazov, where the crime is parricide. All in all, a good introduction to Dostoevsky. Just don't miss out on Notes from the Underground too.
Rating:
Summary: Arguably Dostoevsky's Greatest Work
Review: Only the Brothers Karamazov could possibly compete with Crime and Punishment for the title of Dostoevsky's best novel. Crime and Punishment is an amazing literary feat. In this story of sin and redemption Dostoevsky weaves a great tale. It is a theological novel, a philisophical novel and possibly the finest psychological novel ever written. He studies his characters motives and intent, his philisophical values and how Raskalnikov justifies his actions which by any normal measure is a sinful one. Eventually even Raskalnikov realizes that he is not above other men, intelligence doesn't create a special dispensation for crimes. It's Raskalnikov's journey from guilt to redemption which make this a great study. In some ways much of the angst of Raskalnikov can be understood better if the reader comes from a "high church" background such as (especially) Orthodox or Catholic. Much of the guilt and redemptives aspects of the story are framed in the theology of Dostoevsky's Russian Orthodoxy (easily recognizable to Catholics and Episcipalians). Nineteenth century St Petersburg comes alive. Dostoevsky based his locations on actual streets and apartments; today you can still tour parts of St Pete's and find the actual apartments still in existence (and being lived in). This is a deeply serious work and one not to be taken lightly. One of the few books that I can say may effect you life.
Rating:
Summary: This is actually an old book report:
Review: It starts with the hero of the novel, [Rodion Romanich] Raskolnikov, an impoverished young student in St. Petersburg (called "Petersburg" in the novel). With the prospect of yet another dinner-less night, a squalid apartment and his own miserable life, he becomes obsessed with an idea: to murder.
His target: the pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, referred to as "the old crone". Hateful and sinisterly-sweet, she became rich from taking other's valuables and giving them a pittance in return. A notorious miser, she is to Raskolnikov all that is evil in the world, and to kill her would not only be a right act, but a favour to all mankind.
Bringing along an axe, he goes to her flat late one night with a parcel. While she's busy unwrapping, he takes out his weapon and hacks her to death. While at first he escapes, as the novel reads on it becomes clear that he hasn't. He's got her money, true, but what to do with it was another matter. Should he give it to the needy, as planned? Should he keep it for himself? Or should he not use it at all? And while this goes on, things aren't made any better when he steps out of his anti-socialism with the arrival of his sister, his widowed mother, and the Marmeladovs, a family consisting of the wastrel, self-pitying father, the consumptive mother, three young children, and a daughter, Sonya, who's a prostitute. It only becomes worse as he gets caught into their problems. His father being dead, his family has no money; his sister is being pursued by her perverted employer (and is engaged to a rich man she neither loves nor cares for -and whom her brother despises- to support her family). He doesn't want his sister to sell herself to keep bread on the table, the way Sonya does, to support her family. So what does he do? Does he confess? Turn himself in? To me, the book wasn't so much about crime and punishment, but about redemption. It's not tragic, either, but more about rebirth. Not dated, the "superman" idea or being beyond good and evil is as relevant in his day as in ours, and there are many dimensions, and points of view (Nietzsche claimed that Dostoevsky was the only person he'd ever learnt from). A lot less religiosity than Dostoyevsky's other works (the Idiot, the Brothers Karamazov), and both a suspense, a thriller and a love story. Kind of. (Didn't know whether Sonya loved him or whether is was that "Christian Love" typical of Dostoevsky -note Myshkin, Alyosha, etc) There's also a point that no one, no matter how strong their sense of purpose, their ideals and the reasons to back up their actions, can commit a crime without answering to it at some point in their life -this or the next. Guilt tortures him, his conscience racks him day and night. At times, he wants to turn himself in, but at others, he keeps on telling himself that he was in the right, that he didn't commit a crime. Paranoia eats him up, and even more so in sight of police. Throughout the book, Raskolnikov isn't a very likeable person, though he has the reader's sympathy. He'd saved kids from a burning building. Supported a fellow student and his father in university. He wants everyone to live better. He doesn't want his sister to have a loveless marriage, and helps her break it off. Upon receiving some money from his mother, he gives it to the Marmeladovs when the father dies, for the funeral. And he's drawn to Sonya, someone worse off than he is, but is still so kookily religious and even accepting of it. For all the crime he committed, Raskolnikov is, at heart, a decent, compassionate man, and just as human as the ones he set himself apart from. All that is keeping him from loving and being loved is his doubt and self-disgust. It is only when he finally confesses (crime) and gets sent to labour camp (punishment) that he can love and be loved, having "atoned" for his crime.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: I absuletely loved this book! I have read it three times and always find something new and intriguing that I missed last time I was reading it. This book can be viewed in so many different lights. It's a book about a murder and moral and physical corruption (the movie "Taxi Driver" ia loosely based on it), it's a book about religion and ideas, it's a love story, it's a book about suffering and desperation. In my opinion, the book is about conscience. It is fuelled by conscience and its scariest, most monstrous character is conscience. The book really draws you in and makes you put your self in Raskolynikov's position, and that makes it scarier than any Stephen King novel.
On the other side, the book is slow (I always recomend this book to my friends and they always say that the first 100 pages are desperatelly slow) and "heavy". That may be true, but it's necessary, since it really depicts the torment Raskolynikov is going through. It does not describe it in words, in a flat, almost insulting manner, but it just gives he details of Raskolynikov's everyday life, and you get a sense of what he's going through. I prefer that (although I realize it's not necesserily "excting"), to mind-numbing, in-your-face approach.
Overall, this is my favourite book and I would recomamnd it to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: A True Classic
Review: Crime and Punishment is a true classic and is a book that is very easy to read. The story is told very well and is fast moving with several interesting subplots. For those of you who dislike the long rants on politics, religion, ect. that some classics contain then fear not because Crime and Punishment is free of those. Again, I found this book to be very easy to read. If you are skeptical about reading The Brothers Karamazov then I would suggest starting out with Crime and Punishment. If you throughly enjoy it then you will be ready for Karamazov which is a longer and harder read (and better in my opinion). Some of my other favorites are Atlas Shrugged, Les Miserable, and The Fountainhead.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: How can one determine which novel is the best ever written? I would like to say this is the best novel I have read, but how can I compare Dostoyevsky to Hemmingway to Tolstoy. They all have different styles, and are excellent authors. This is the best book I have read by Dostoyevsky. Reading his novel, I feel, is better than reading history of 19th century Russia, and he does not intend to give a history lesson, the culture reveals itself in his novel. Although I can not say this is the best book I have ever read, it has two conversations which are the best literature I have seen. Each time Rashkolnikov visits Porfiry, the novel becomes incredibly dramatic. This is the first time I have felt what a character in a novel (or movie) is feeling. I feel his nervousness being questioned. I felt arrogant that I could outsmart the cop. I became anxious over my possible punishment. I kept thinking, if I do not get found out this time, I will never do anything wrong again. Crime is to nerve racking. My final comment is on Russia itself. I was surprised at how some of the 19th century contempory ideas have correspondants in our culture. Crime and Punishment is a great novel, I recommend it to all who enjoy literature.
Rating:
Summary: An important book everyone should read.
Review: I read Crime and Punishment expecting an old fashioned book. A book with old ideas that everyone was already familiar with. I thought I would not be able to relate to the characters because the book would be so old fashioned. But I was wrong. Dead wrong. The book could have been written yesterday. The ideas in the book are just as relevant now, over one hundred years later as they were then. Of course there is the classic idea in the book that we can become punished without being locked up. The book shows how the main character (I won't try to spell his name now) suffered internally for the crime that he committed. He committed a crime, and he was punished, he was paranoid. He was constantly thinking about what others were thinking of him. He thought that they knew what he had done!
During the middle of the book I see that he is not as punished by his crime, why? Well because there are so many things going on in his life he doesn't think about his crime as much, but then once he starts thinking about it again, he is punished again, now worse than before. He is punishing himself. And I believe that another thing Dostoevsky was trying to tell us with the book was that the more we think about things, the more imprisoned we become. And he should be punished for the terrible crime he committed but, books always have universal meanings, and these universal meanings mean different things to all of us. The book tells us the more we think about the bad things we've done the less we can enjoy our life!
How much is an idea worth? Is it worth a life? What does ONE life mean to an idea that will affect millions of lives? This is a question that the main character struggles with. I don't believe he ever finds an answer for this question. He tells himself throughout the book that he believes the idea is more important, but his actions show that he does not. This is a question that I cannot answer, a life is very precious, but an idea is very important, the book challenges you to think about this, and I am still thinking about it. This book is very important because it brings up a lot of ideas and many questions. Don't wait another second to read this one, read it now!
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