Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Crime and Punishment

It is hard to rate what one knows to be a tower of Literature. And I could not and would not attempt to compartmentalize the reading of the Book with the knowledge of its importance.

Dostoievsky sits with the absolute greatest of the Letters, and his Novels stand on pedestals. The pedestal of a trophy. The pedestal of a monument.

On the contrary, the knowledge of its importance was the driving excitement behind it. By reading it I felt to be swimming in the River of History, and swimming along the greatest minds, allowing myself to be passed the same Fire.

And it is Fire. One can feel the pages bursting through centuries of old form, as the thoughts of its characters are splattered into the pages like the splatter of an axe-murder and the crumbling of a thousand year dinasty, and the underground rumblings of a still far-off revolutions.

Reading the two Russians shakes the soul. What Tolstoy does in landscape strokes, Dostoievsky does in VanGogh-like manic splatters of thought.

And it is a perfect and complete novel, in the sense that it is absolutely closed and tied down. It does not have moments, but its full force only arrives at the very last word. And it makes the body tremble.

Content Warnings

miss22's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

the fact that the murderer was not the worst person in the book was shocking

if svidrigailov has no haters, i’m dead

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midwifereading's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I have now read at least three Russian classics: Anna Karenina, War & Peace, and now Crime & Punishment. Of the three, I think the latter is my favorite.

Opening with a bloody murder is a bold move, and watching the murderer struggle on the brink of madness for however many pages (a lot) was quite the journey.

My favorite characters where the two young women, Dunya and Sonya, along with Razumikhin (the murderer's BFF). They reflect all that is good in the world, while still carrying human flaws.

The main character (and murderer), Raskolnikov, was complex and interesting, and entirely unlikeable. And frankly, his "punishment" was pretty unsatisfying, and the ending was far softer than I thought it would be.

I did listen on audio to the unabridged version, and the narrator was amazing.

Content Warnings