Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Mesmerizing.
I actually gave serious thought to stopping right there, making this a one-word review, but then I got to thinking it might be possible that one or two people who read this review might not have read this classic already...although that seems unlikely. Despite the fact Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is often touted as 'the best novel ever written' more people have missed reading that than have bypassed Crime and Punishment. I for one am not surprised given that word with which I began. Perhaps it's the fact Dostoevsky focuses his attention not on Tolstoy's aristocracy or even Turgenev's landed gentry, but on the meanest, most downtrodden souls to be found in the poorest, grubbiest quarters of St. Petersburg...the very people he must have rubbed elbows with during his days as a revolutionary and a prisoner in exile. Perhaps it's his skill at revealing the minds of his characters in ways that strike familiar chords in the reader. I'll let the experts deal with the whys and the wherefores and just comment here that this is not simply a tale about one disturbed individual who commits murder and then suffers the pangs of conscience for so doing even as he and nearly everyone else, including the police, work hard at justifying his actions. Raskolnikov's tale is the centerpiece of the novel but Dostoevsky skillfully places those acts in a context which includes not only his beloved mother and sister, but also helpful and well-meaning though sometimes maddening and even destructive friends, a variety of antagonists, and even a few 'extras' that nicely round out the cast of pitiable and pathetic characters which are equally fascinating...and I for one find myself drawn into the whole of it each and every time I read this book.
Don Le Couteur
Ocotillo
18 March 2012
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Mesmerizing.
I actually gave serious thought to stopping right there, making this a one-word review, but then I got to thinking it might be possible that one or two people who read this review might not have read this classic already...although that seems unlikely. Despite the fact Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is often touted as 'the best novel ever written' more people have missed reading that than have bypassed Crime and Punishment. I for one am not surprised given that word with which I began. Perhaps it's the fact Dostoevsky focuses his attention not on Tolstoy's aristocracy or even Turgenev's landed gentry, but on the meanest, most downtrodden souls to be found in the poorest, grubbiest quarters of St. Petersburg...the very people he must have rubbed elbows with during his days as a revolutionary and a prisoner in exile. Perhaps it's his skill at revealing the minds of his characters in ways that strike familiar chords in the reader. I'll let the experts deal with the whys and the wherefores and just comment here that this is not simply a tale about one disturbed individual who commits murder and then suffers the pangs of conscience for so doing even as he and nearly everyone else, including the police, work hard at justifying his actions. Raskolnikov's tale is the centerpiece of the novel but Dostoevsky skillfully places those acts in a context which includes not only his beloved mother and sister, but also helpful and well-meaning though sometimes maddening and even destructive friends, a variety of antagonists, and even a few 'extras' that nicely round out the cast of pitiable and pathetic characters which are equally fascinating...and I for one find myself drawn into the whole of it each and every time I read this book.
Don Le Couteur
Ocotillo
18 March 2012
Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details
