Crime and Punishment (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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Book Summary Information
Author: Fyodor DostoyevskyTranslator: Richard Pevear
Translator: Larissa Volokhonsky
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1993-05-25
ISBN: 0679420290
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Book Reviews of Crime and Punishment (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
Book Review: A towering work of criminal psychology
Summary: 5 Stars
It's seldom that I root for the evildoer of a novel or movie, but Dostoyevsky definitely had me doing it with "Crime and Punishment". Early in the novel, impoverished student Raskolnikov murders two innocent older women in order to make a quick buck (and also for deeper reasons revealed later in the novel). We then accompany Raskolnikov through the tumultuous aftermath, during which his feelings towards his evil deed revolve between complete indifference, intense guilt, and a rational desire to hide from the law. A formal investigation by the city, led by the effusive and enigmatic detective Porfiry Petrovich, comprises much of the novel.
It's interesting that by a couple hundred pages following the murders, I'd begun to stop thinking of Raskolnikov as an evildoer but rather as someone who was simply insane half the time. At some point I began to sympathize with him and by the end of the novel I was positively rooting for him to escape apprehension and punishment. This is a testament to Dostoyevsky's skill at rendering his characters' thoughts and beliefs so well that the reader internalizes them to some degree.
I found the Penguin edition translated by David McDuff to be very readable, not stilted at all like I'd heard that many translations of Dostoyevsky into English can be. In addition to many humorous turns of phrase that came through fine in the translation, dialogue in general seemed to flow naturally. The sense of oppressive gloom so prevalent in Dostoyevsky's works seemed to also be faithfully replicated by McDuff, as was Dostoyevsky's detached matter-of-fact style of narration. Of course, it's difficult to remain cheerful when reading about murder and people driven to desperate measures because of the abject poverty they're in.
A must read for fans of serious fiction prepared to step away from the lighthearted for a while!
Summary of Crime and Punishment (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)Dostoevsky's drama of sin, guilt, and redemption transforms the sordid story of an old woman's murder into the nineteenth century's profoundest and most compelling philosophical novel.
Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, is determined to overreach his humanity and assert his untrammeled individual will. When he commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that, for its excruciating suspense, its atmospheric vividness, and its depth of characterization and vision is almost unequaled in the literatures of the world. The best known of Dostoevsky's masterpieces, Crime and Punishment can bear any amount of rereading without losing a drop of its power over our imaginations.
Award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky render this elusive and wildly innovative novel with an energy, suppleness, and range of voice that do full justice to the genius of its creator.
Mired in poverty, the student Raskolnikov nevertheless thinks well of himself. Of his pawnbroker he takes a different view, and in deciding to do away with her he sets in motion his own tragic downfall. Dostoyevsky's penetrating novel of an intellectual whose moral compass goes haywire, and the detective who hunts him down for his terrible crime, is a stunning psychological portrait, a thriller and a profound meditation on guilt and retribution.
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