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Crime and Punishment Book Review

Crime and Punishment is a psychological drama novel by Fyodor Dostoevski first published in 1866. It’s often regarded among the greatest novels of all time.

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“Pain and suffering are always inevitable

for a large intelligence and a deep heart.

The really great men must, I think,

have great sadness on earth“

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It follows the mental anguish of Rodion Raskolnikov, a young man who kills an older woman and struggles with what he’s done. The book is structured into six parts of around three to eight chapters along with an epilogue. Some parts worked better than others. The best has to be the epilogue, which is to some critics questionable, but in my opinion it is very inspirational in its anti-nihilist overtones and an ambiguous ending that still mostly felt optimistic.

The character development is one of the biggest strengths of this novel. Every character is superbly realized and a plethora of different personalities made for a very interesting, diverse read. Raskolnikov has to be one of the greatest protagonists in the history of literature. He’s incredibly developed to the point that he felt very much real. The novel through him explores self-loathing and also alienation along with the feelings of being superior to other humans. He is a complicated figure as he did commit murders, but he also showed genuine acts of kindness throughout the storyline. His inner conflict drives this entire narrative and is its heart and soul.

His relationships with everybody else are excellent as well, especially his moving romance with Sonya. She’s such a wonderful soul and also inherently likable and inspirational. Her serving as basically the catalyst to possibly Raskolnikov’s betterment was wonderful to witness and the author was clearly quite modern in painting his female characters strongly instead of writing them in an archetypal manner as was the case with most nineteenth century literature.

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Dunya is also a very interesting figure. The novel does explore poverty through its many characters, but probably in Dunya is that explored best as she has to at first marry a horrible man just to escape the clutches of poverty. Their mother is such a tragic figure and her death was sudden and so sad. Luzhin and Petrovna serve their purpose and so does Marmeladov, but unfortunately his entire subplot felt thrown in there for the sake of having a plot about drinking. I found it unnecessary and it lessened the impact of the first half of the novel for me.

Razumikhin is such a terrific friend to the poor Raskolnikov and they share some great moments together. Svidrigailov is a very intriguing presence and all of his dialogues with the protagonist were fascinating. His death was very moving as well. As for Porfiry Petrovich, he’s this very dangerous presence for our protagonist and their final confrontation was among the best parts of the novel as it was so intense and so brilliantly written.

Crime and Punishment is a classic example of a psychological drama done right. It was truly revolutionary for its time period as rarely before have readers witnessed such a meticulous probing into a person’s mind. The book is at its best when exploring Raskolnikov’s anguish. He gets to experience confusion, paranoia, disgust and so on and so forth. All of these inner feelings were definitely felt through his monologues and his interactions with all the other characters, thus he felt fully formed and truly a spectacular character.

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The book showcases that punishment itself is easier than the psychological torment that will undoubtedly follow after one’s commitment of murder, that is of course if one isn’t a complete psychopath, something that this man clearly isn’t as he is more complex than that and capable of great deeds. We do get to see the idea of the Superman explored too while showcasing just how ludicrous those Napoleonic feelings can get. The book depicts that all murders are wrong, no matter who the person is and what your justifications of said murders are.

Nobody should take it upon themselves to decide who deserves and who doesn’t deserve to live. In that area, the novel is clearly very Christian in its sentiments, which I was fine with despite being an atheist myself because the author depicted the best parts of this religion and its importance to people when it comes to doing good. I also really respected its very frank, brutally honest portrayal of nihilism and how utterly dumb and preposterous that concept is.

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The book features some very emotional, heartbreaking passages while continually hitting on many different tones and feelings throughout its span. The descriptive passages and some of the imagery were fine, but Dostoevsky writes dialogue and inner conflict much better and this is where he truly shines. I did find the structure of the novel to be solid overall, but clearly the pacing wasn’t the greatest, there were many parts where I felt the book was lagging as it focused on less important characters way too much, thus making those parts inferior and boring in comparison to the main storyline. But still, for such a long book, it is surprisingly mostly engaging and at the end of the day quite timeless.