Scan barcode
A review by millennial_dandy
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
<i>"Why, you have shed blood," cried Dounia in despair. "Which flows and has always flowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for which men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of mankind [...] I too wanted to do good to men..."</i> p.423
In comparing 'Crime and Punishment' to Dostoevsky's body of work up until this point, it is easy to see why so many of those earlier works fell into obscurity while 'Crime and Punishment' remains a part of the public conscience even 160 years later.
This novel feels like the culmination of a few other works in which he was still working out his exact moral compass and what message about it he wanted to impart. Specifically, 'Crime and Punishment' feels like the child of 'Poor Folk' and 'Notes from Underground.' We have the social consciousness of 'Poor Folk' in the plight of Sonia and her family (and even Raskolnikov and his family to an extent) with the theistic sensibilities he never quite spelled out (but indirectly implied) in 'Notes from Underground.
That is to say, 'Crime and Punishment' seeks to capture the sort of hopelessness of poverty and the misery and depravity of atheism while outright ending on the note that only a belief in God (or, at least, a morality based around a belief in God) can bring about absolution. And, moreover, that an absence of God in a person's life, in a society, leads to nihilism, leads to ego, leads to violence and depravity because without God there can be no consensus on what constitutes morality.
And I really think it's a shame that he lands so hard on this point (and, honestly, so suddenly) because much of the rest of the novel explores its themes, especially crime, in such a nuanced and interesting way.
At several points in the novel, Raskolnikov engages with why it was he made the decision to commit murder, see-sawing back and forth between it being an act of philanthropy and an act of ego. However, in the end, he breaks down and in laying out a theory of 'ordinary' versus 'extraordinary' men, he reveals that no matter how he tries to dress up the murder as a sort of 'Robin Hood-esque' raging against the machine, it really was just ego all along. As he explains to Sonia: <blockquote> <i>I wanted to become a Napolean, that is why I killed her [...]I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else, or a man.</i> p.337</blockquote>
That's all well and good, and has certainly been done before, but the addition of exploring the social construct of crime, and the hypocrisy in how the same act of killing another person can be considered just or unjust depending on the person committing it is certainly worth exploring. Especially considering the regime Dostoevsky was living under.
When directed by Sonia to give himself up to the police, Raskolnikov initially balks, pointing out that in sending criminals to Siberia, the regime "destroy[s] men by millions themselves and look on it as a virtue." (p.343)
As an anti-punitive justice girlie myself, I wish the exploration of 'the crime of punishment' would have been done in a more secular way, because I personally find the conclusion of 'murder is wrong because God says it's wrong' incredibly boring. Especially given that, to my limited knowledge, God does not in fact say 'murder is wrong', but rather 'murder is wrong unless committed under a certain set of parameters as determined by me because unlike humans, I can correctly make that calculation.'
How much more interesting it would have been to tackle this question through a more utilitarian lens. But, alas. This is Dostoevsky, so 'because God' was always going to be the answer.
That all being said, 'Crime and Punishment' leaves the door wide open for discussion, for critique, and it leans into most of Dostoevsky's better writing sensibilities and away from some of his worse tendencies.
His portrait of abject poverty and his critique of the class system of the day, specifically his critique of the linkage between virtue and class status, is still relevant today. The central question of 'what makes murder a crime' is compelling and (even if he didn't take it in this direction) makes for good fodder for a discussion of punitive vs. restorative justice, for a discussion of the interplay of crime and power (e.g. why <i>is</i> Raskolnikov viewed socially as a criminal while to many Napolean is a hero when both of them ostensibly killed people to make the world a better place?)
The women of 'Crime and Punishment' are largely written sympathetically, though with his typical lack of depth so that Raskolnikov’s sister, Dounia, and the prostitute, Sonia, bleed into each other at points. But at least we didn't have to slog through another 'selfish wench leads on nice guy' sub-plot, so that's probably the best we could have hoped for.
The descriptions of St. Petersburg through Dostoevsky's grey lens of depression are as evocative as ever, and though he is clearly taking 'Crime and Punishment' seriously, he never quite loses his dark yet campy sense of humor, which we can see in lines such as: <i> "I've come to you for the last time," Raskolnikov went on gloomily, although it was the first time. "I may perhaps not see you again..."</i> (p.257) or <i>"Of late he had often felt drawn to wander about this district when he was depressed, that he might feel more so."</i> (p.129)
All that said, who is 'Crime and Punishment' for? Certainly, it makes sense as either an introduction to Dostoevsky given the stew of his typical preoccupations, writing style, and architypes it represents, or as perhaps the only of his novels to be included in something like a high school curriculum. The plot is so over-the-top and the characters so heightened and its internal moral compass laid out so clearly that it presents a low barrier of entry as far as literary analysis is concerned.
I don’t think it’s his best, but the sum of its parts does make sense of why it’s perhaps his most ubiquitous.
Oh, and fans of 'Deathnote'. 'Crime and Punishment' would specifically appeal to them.
Having chronologically read 13 of the works leading up to 'Crime and Punishment' I feel like I 'get it' contextually, and this brings me joy, and I enjoyed the ride while I was on it, but it's not my favorite of his, and I'm curious, moving forward with this chronological read-through if I'll be inclined to agree that his last major writing project, 'Brothers Karamazov' is in fact where he peaks rather than here.
In comparing 'Crime and Punishment' to Dostoevsky's body of work up until this point, it is easy to see why so many of those earlier works fell into obscurity while 'Crime and Punishment' remains a part of the public conscience even 160 years later.
This novel feels like the culmination of a few other works in which he was still working out his exact moral compass and what message about it he wanted to impart. Specifically, 'Crime and Punishment' feels like the child of 'Poor Folk' and 'Notes from Underground.' We have the social consciousness of 'Poor Folk' in the plight of Sonia and her family (and even Raskolnikov and his family to an extent) with the theistic sensibilities he never quite spelled out (but indirectly implied) in 'Notes from Underground.
That is to say, 'Crime and Punishment' seeks to capture the sort of hopelessness of poverty and the misery and depravity of atheism while outright ending on the note that only a belief in God (or, at least, a morality based around a belief in God) can bring about absolution. And, moreover, that an absence of God in a person's life, in a society, leads to nihilism, leads to ego, leads to violence and depravity because without God there can be no consensus on what constitutes morality.
And I really think it's a shame that he lands so hard on this point (and, honestly, so suddenly) because much of the rest of the novel explores its themes, especially crime, in such a nuanced and interesting way.
At several points in the novel, Raskolnikov engages with why it was he made the decision to commit murder, see-sawing back and forth between it being an act of philanthropy and an act of ego. However, in the end, he breaks down and in laying out a theory of 'ordinary' versus 'extraordinary' men, he reveals that no matter how he tries to dress up the murder as a sort of 'Robin Hood-esque' raging against the machine, it really was just ego all along. As he explains to Sonia: <blockquote> <i>I wanted to become a Napolean, that is why I killed her [...]I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else, or a man.</i> p.337</blockquote>
That's all well and good, and has certainly been done before, but the addition of exploring the social construct of crime, and the hypocrisy in how the same act of killing another person can be considered just or unjust depending on the person committing it is certainly worth exploring. Especially considering the regime Dostoevsky was living under.
When directed by Sonia to give himself up to the police, Raskolnikov initially balks, pointing out that in sending criminals to Siberia, the regime "destroy[s] men by millions themselves and look on it as a virtue." (p.343)
As an anti-punitive justice girlie myself, I wish the exploration of 'the crime of punishment' would have been done in a more secular way, because I personally find the conclusion of 'murder is wrong because God says it's wrong' incredibly boring. Especially given that, to my limited knowledge, God does not in fact say 'murder is wrong', but rather 'murder is wrong unless committed under a certain set of parameters as determined by me because unlike humans, I can correctly make that calculation.'
How much more interesting it would have been to tackle this question through a more utilitarian lens. But, alas. This is Dostoevsky, so 'because God' was always going to be the answer.
That all being said, 'Crime and Punishment' leaves the door wide open for discussion, for critique, and it leans into most of Dostoevsky's better writing sensibilities and away from some of his worse tendencies.
His portrait of abject poverty and his critique of the class system of the day, specifically his critique of the linkage between virtue and class status, is still relevant today. The central question of 'what makes murder a crime' is compelling and (even if he didn't take it in this direction) makes for good fodder for a discussion of punitive vs. restorative justice, for a discussion of the interplay of crime and power (e.g. why <i>is</i> Raskolnikov viewed socially as a criminal while to many Napolean is a hero when both of them ostensibly killed people to make the world a better place?)
The women of 'Crime and Punishment' are largely written sympathetically, though with his typical lack of depth so that Raskolnikov’s sister, Dounia, and the prostitute, Sonia, bleed into each other at points. But at least we didn't have to slog through another 'selfish wench leads on nice guy' sub-plot, so that's probably the best we could have hoped for.
The descriptions of St. Petersburg through Dostoevsky's grey lens of depression are as evocative as ever, and though he is clearly taking 'Crime and Punishment' seriously, he never quite loses his dark yet campy sense of humor, which we can see in lines such as: <i> "I've come to you for the last time," Raskolnikov went on gloomily, although it was the first time. "I may perhaps not see you again..."</i> (p.257) or <i>"Of late he had often felt drawn to wander about this district when he was depressed, that he might feel more so."</i> (p.129)
All that said, who is 'Crime and Punishment' for? Certainly, it makes sense as either an introduction to Dostoevsky given the stew of his typical preoccupations, writing style, and architypes it represents, or as perhaps the only of his novels to be included in something like a high school curriculum. The plot is so over-the-top and the characters so heightened and its internal moral compass laid out so clearly that it presents a low barrier of entry as far as literary analysis is concerned.
I don’t think it’s his best, but the sum of its parts does make sense of why it’s perhaps his most ubiquitous.
Oh, and fans of 'Deathnote'. 'Crime and Punishment' would specifically appeal to them.
Having chronologically read 13 of the works leading up to 'Crime and Punishment' I feel like I 'get it' contextually, and this brings me joy, and I enjoyed the ride while I was on it, but it's not my favorite of his, and I'm curious, moving forward with this chronological read-through if I'll be inclined to agree that his last major writing project, 'Brothers Karamazov' is in fact where he peaks rather than here.