Book Review: Crime and Punishment
- 4 mins*This is the first of many book reviews I hope to write. I want to write book reviews to become a more critical reader and to better connect what I’m reading to my personal experiences and the world at large. These reviews will contain spoilers and are all my personal opinions.
I’ll admit, the first time I “read” this book, I listened to it with x1.5 speed for the first ~100 pages and Sparknoted the rest. I didn’t really get into the plot, seeing that I dismissed Raskolnikov as being strange, depraved, narcissistic, and exceedingly arrogant. His theory that some people were just born extraordinary and were thus exempt from all moral justice didn’t appeal to me—I had gone through the nihilistic and egotistic phase in life, and came out realizing that no one person is above another. He was so delusional, and though I understood his motives on a rational level, I never saw his plight in an emotional way.
Despite this terrible initial impression, I chose to do Crime and Punishment as one of my rereads in my English class (mostly because of my guilt for never actually reading the book and partly because I read some raving reviews on Goodreads and was intrigued by how people found value in it).
Senioritis hit me pretty hard, and I finally sat down with a resolve to read the book after coming to terms that I only had three days left to write an essay on it. It was hard to get through the first hundred pages—I know it’s supposed to be a page-turner, but honestly, I was quite bored. Several times, I questioned why I didn’t just choose a shorter, less tedious book to write about (and one that I had already read and had pages of notes on). Raskolnikov got on my nerves and was remarkably two-dimensional for someone who commits murder. The book seemed to try to be deep without really being too philosophical.
It was only in the later half of the book when I started getting really into the novel. As I started reading slower—finally absorbing the book—I began to feel real sympathy for all of the characters: Raskolnikov, Dounia, Sonia, Katerina, Marmeladov, and even Svidrigailov. Raskolnikov’s murders, though the central focus of the novel, weren’t what I found the most interesting—it was the complexity of the side characters and what drove them to do such strange and unexpected things.
I saw Katerina’s dignity as she spent her last rouples on an excessive dinner that was well beyond her means—how she danced on the street and proclaimed her ties to aristocracy. Instead of dismissing her as overly proud and shallow, I pitied and respected her. I saw Marmeladov as a good-for-nothing drunk of a father who let his daughter sell herself to prostitution while he sucked her money away, but I also saw his deep love for his family and respected him for that. I saw the parallels between Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov, and between Sonia, Dounia, and even Lizaveta. I loved and admired Dounia—her strength, her unwavering love and devotion for Raskolnikov, and simple practicality. Though he was a vile man, I even sympathized with the despicable Svidrigailov, and the motivation behind his suicide fascinated me. As I continued reading, I saw the layers of the book and realized that these subplots and characters, interwoven together, were what made this book a powerful masterpiece.
There were so many things I could have written about for my essay, and had I more time, I may have thought more deeply about how poverty affected Katerina or about the role of women in the novel. (Instead, I wrote about the similarities and significance of Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov’s dreams—which were interesting in their own right, but not what gripped me when reading the novel.)
In all, though this book was extremely tedious (and had way too many long names), it was worth the effort. It was only when I let my guard down—when I turned off my rationalizing, judgmental brain and started to feel sympathy for the characters—when I actually started to comprehend the greatness of the novel. (Ironically, I suppose that is how Raskolnikov also became redeemed—through abandoning his over-rationalized theory.) This book challenged me in unexpected ways and made me think more deeply about poverty, justice, and morality. I’m thinking of reading this book again—this time letting it wash over me and without an impending deadline for an essay—and I’ll have no doubt that I will grow to appreciate it even more.