Crime and Punishment: Book Review

Crime and Punishment: Book Review and Discussion

I just finished reading Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. For reference, I read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, which is apparently the most accurate translation. It replicates the rough syntactic structure of the original Russian text that other translations often try to smooth over for the sake of readability, and they also apparently selected vocabulary and turns of phrases that existed in English predating the original release of the book in Russian in 1866. The result is a fairly dense and very raw read, but one that is also very engaging, if you are willing to give it a chance. You have to push through paragraphs that last four pages, perhaps even longer, and infamously long rants from characters—but I actually got used to it rather quickly, and by the end, it was like reading anything else.

This novel, rather famously, involves a man (Raskolnikov) who believes he is justified in killing a corrupt pawnbroker with an axe, on the judgement that she is an active drain on society, and that he has potential that is being stunted. What follows is an expansive novel that covers criminal psychology and family affairs and many other things, as the main character deals with the consequences, both internally and externally.

Prose

I want to start out this review by talking about the prose, because it is what stands out when you actually work through the novel.

I

This novel was written in 1866, so you can imagine how the prose of the novel is affected by the mere strain of time. Older novels were written in longhand, they were harder to erase and rewrite in the moment, and this was reflected in how the sentences were constructed. They often rambled and were, on average, much longer than the sentences that we see today. In fact, as I was writing the very sentence starting with the words "Older novels," I had to stop and retract some words because I thought of a better way of writing that sentence. It is easy to take for granted how writing might be affected by the advance of technology.

The reason I attribute this to technology is because it's so widespread and noticeable as a trend over time. Basically anyone who has tried to read a novel from a long time ago knows that this is the biggest hurdle they will have to overcome: how the novel is written, from the outset.

And it's not just the sentences, but also the paragraphs that extend longer and longer. As I mentioned at the beginning, there are some paragraphs that take up multiple pages at a time. This can be overwhelming. But what I found was that a lot of this comes down to expectations. I came in expecting a tough read, and, if anything, it was not nearly as difficult as I anticipated. When the paragraphs came along, I was able to mentally break up the information and push through without losing my place or any of the information. Genuinely, it was all really interesting.

II

Another thing that I wanted to mention is the dialogue, which tends to take the form of long blocks. Characters often rant at one another, or even at no one, for extended periods of time; they go on tangents, and it all reminded me of another medium, actually.

It reminded me of plays. In particular, it reminded me of Shakespeare. Monologues, or extended dialogues, in Shakespearean plays are distinct from dialogue that we see today, because they are essentially an art piece in their own right. They can be isolated and analyzed as a form of poetry, and they stand out as central points in the play. Similar things can be said about the speeches in this book. While they are not poetic, they don't follow any strict rhythm, like the iambic pentameter, they do draw attention in the sense that the character occupies the "stage" for time—and they are often incredibly thrilling.

Another feature of the dialogue that led me to make this connection was the way in which character actions, whether they were other characters or the speaker, would be communicated through the dialogue. A character might be giving an extended dialogue, only to interrupt their speech to say something like "Ah, I see that you're angry! But no matter," and then they would go on to continue their speech. The point is that the anger of the character is communicated by the dialogue itself, whereas the norm today is usually to interrupt the dialogue itself and describe the anger of the person, and then return to the dialogue. I remember something very similar in plays, though I confess I haven't read them in a while.

Structurally, I thought that this was an interesting point to make, because it might be a part of a transition away from performance art, where speeches were common, to written art, where the dialogue became more pared down and realistic. There are reasons to doubt this, however. I am comparing Russian literature to English plays, after all. There was cultural transmission, but I am not knowledgeable about this period or how any of this developed, so I'm not wholly sure.

III

So far, I am not actually talking about the quality of the writing. This is mainly because I do not know about the extent to which I can, when I understand that the nature of writing itself changes over time. This is like reading some old philosophical text from John Locke. Add onto that, the fact that the writing is translated. To what standards do I actually evaluate the writing?

A critique that is often levied at the book is that it is bloated, which is downstream of the fact that Dostoevsky was paid by the word to write. He had an incentive to stuff as many words into the manuscript as he could. This is fair, but I would be lying if I said that I was annoyed by the writing or thought this was a major problem for me. The elaborate writing, the extensive scenes, these were all part of the charm, for me. There was a strange effect where I had a hard time getting into the book, and had an easy time falling off of it, but when I was engaged, I really, truly was engaged. Dostoevsky's willingness to draw out the scenes, the dialogue, and make the interactions stick to show the absurdity of the situation ended up working for me.

Story Structure

I want to briefly talk about story structure, because this book has a brief and telling progression of scenes, where he retrospectively recalls his plans to murder his pawnbroker with the axe. The way the scene was written, it was almost like Raskolnikov had a revelation that he ought to kill the woman, and then as you move forward in the story you learn that he's actually been planning it for a month or so. This was rather glaring, and it happened noticeably at the very beginning of the book but not at any other time.

It kind of reminded me of when I write my own novels. The first part of the drafting process is always the most difficult, because I am still trying to piece together what I am trying to do with the story; naturally, I outline and draft simultaneously. And as a direct consequence, the first part of the draft will require the most editing and the last part will require the least. I imagine Dostoevsky had similar problems going on, where he was still piecing together the story in the beginning, but had a much better picture by the end. The one catch is that he couldn't go back and edit, like I could. He released this book in parts.

Plot

The plot of this book is expansive. I went into this book knowing about the basic premise. I knew that a young man plotted to kill an old woman he deems unworthy based on her immoral actions. But this story extends far beyond this. Involving Raskolnikov's sister and mother, it pulls in other whole plots. There is Luzhin, a man who seeks to marry the sister for his own interests, and Svidrigailov who also sought to marry Raskolnikov's sister, embodying an even darker philosophy than Luzhin's self-interested lifestyle. There is Marmeladov and his family, the patriarch of which relentlessly torments his family by drinking all their money away and driving his own daughter into prostitution to compensate. There is Razumikhin, Raskolnikov's best friend, who wants nothing but the best for him and his family. Finally, there is Porfiry Petrovich, the detective who singles Raskolnikov out as a suspect and confronts him directly, providing much of the tension in the novel.

The various threads that I laid out in this novel all weave together into a sprawling narrative that comes together into what I thought was a mostly satisfying end.

None of the plotlines felt like they just dropped off the page for no reason. The closest would be Luzhin, but I think that was handled as well as you can expect. Where my critique does start to come in more sharply is at the end, where we get the epilogue. Much of the actual end is essentially dictated to us. There are no more scenes, no more interesting developments, we just get a long, long narrative summary to close out the story. The problem is that it goes on way too long for it to be a real summary. And that is putting aside the fact that a narrative summary like this is kind of lazy, anyway.

The critique is sharp, but it didn't really kill my enjoyment of the novel, as a whole, if only because I thought the more important climax came at the end of part six, rather than with the epilogue. In fact, when I talked with my brother about the book, he did not even remember the epilogue, and agreed that the ending of part six was great. Take that how you will.

Tone

One critique that I saw thrown at the book was that the messaging, and especially the bleakness of their lives, was heavy-handed. I honestly did not get this impression, however. I thought that Dostoevsky did an excellent job balancing the bleakness with a certain black comedy that brought about cynical levity. Maybe a better phrase for it is "comic absurdity." I never got the impression that the author was beating me over the head with the bleakness, but inviting me to share in the ridiculousness that is life. Maybe this is partly because I understood that this was Russia. Russia is bleak, man. What do you expect?

Themes

Talking about the themes in this novel is going to be rather interesting, if only because I disagree with them, and knew that I would going in. In fact, it ties to one of my principle critiques of fiction, itself, when analyzing morality. The Paths We Have Taken (my fantasy novel pair) was actually a preemptive rebuttal to what was presented in this book.

To start, people who use fiction to inform their morality often fall victim to unrealistic, or outright utopian, ideologies. They read books where certain ideals are upheld, and the outcomes affirm those ideals, when reality would never do so. This is one example of fiction being used to confirm one's biases. Another example would be this book.

What we have here is a man who professes a theory suggesting that there are two types of people in the world. There are the lower people who simply follow the crowds and the laws of society, and then there are the exceptional people, the people who are able and willing to break the rules of society in order to make it better. The general idea is that people like Napoleon are exceptional. Naturally, Raskolnikov thinks that he is one of the exceptional people, and he uses this theory to justify the murder that he commits.

The catch is that he feels guilty and suffers frequent fainting spells as a result of his actions. He clearly cannot deal with what he has done. But there are technically two ways to interpret this progression. Does this refute the theory that he presented, or does it refute the idea that he is exceptional? By looking at the other plotlines in the story, I think we can get an idea of what Dostoevsky is going for. He does not think the great men exist, at least in the way we idealize them. Svidrigailov is one man who seems to have no care in the world, but his fate is not one that affirms that of an exceptional man, nor does his life. Luzhin is another man who is rich and successful, but he is shamed and shunted aside. I don't get the impression that Dostoevsky is all that friendly to the notion that exceptional men exist.

But Napoleon did exist. As did Genghis Khan. And Magellan. And many more, besides.

One critic mentioned that he thought Dostoevsky did not really grapple with the problem of evil in this book. I would word the criticism in a different way. As I wrote above, Dostoevsky seems to be constructing his narrative in such a way that it affirms his themes. And I think it does suffer for it.

At the same time, I went into the novel expecting this. I wrote The Paths We Have Taken in response to what I thought this book was about, and I was not far off. In my pair of books, I focused on the relationship between guilt and morality. I took it a step further than what we even discussed here. Dostoevsky seems to take for granted that Raskolnikov's reaction to his actions, namely his guilt and his fainting, were signs that he committed an immoral act. What I did in my novel was question even that assumption, showing that nothing could be taken for granted.

I have another literary fiction novel planned that will pull from this book, The Stranger, and Blood Meridian. We'll see when I actually get around to writing it. I have too many other projects on my plate, at the moment.

All of this said, my enjoyment of the novel was not really affected by my disagreement with the themes. This probably had to do with expectations and the fact that I can engage with material that I disagree with, as long as it is engaging and well written.

I could comment about numerous other themes, especially ones that are more obvious, but those have been commented on by others in countless other places, so you can check those out, if you'd like.

Conclusion

Overall, I enjoyed this novel. It's considered a classic for a reason. I think I will give it an 8/10.

Video: https://youtu.be/OAB4tZsdGWs