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Book Review: Crime and Punishment
Jul. 26th, 2018 01:53 pmI finished Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment! I feel accomplished but not necessarily enlightened: on the whole I’ve had better luck with the French authors than the Russians, partly because I tend to find the French authors’ moral points thought-provoking even if I don’t necessarily agree, whereas with the Russian authors I’m often left feeling - “Is that the moral point you wanted to make? Am I understanding you correctly? Well, I guess that’s a point of view. If I understood you. Which I don’t think I did.”
Actually, this is only true of nineteenth-century Russian literature. I find twentieth-century Russian authors much more accessible.
I also spent a lot of time mentally arguing with the introduction, which argues strenuously that Raskolnikov is not a madman, which - okay, if he’s defining madness strictly as delusionality, I guess he has a point. Raskolnikov doesn’t think he is Napoleon, he just thinks/hopes/wishes he might be like Napoleon.
But. He’s spent the last month lying on his bed in his filthy apartment, neither eating nor sleeping, obsessing over whether or not to kill an old lady because if he can do it without remorse he will prove that he is a great man, like Napoleon, who lost entire armies in the service of his destiny without batting an eyelash. His other hobbies include avoiding everyone he knows because the idea of interacting with anyone fills him with dread.
Even the other characters, who have no access to his internal monologue and don’t know that he’s killed someone in an attempt to work out his theory, are worried that he’s going insane. If Raskolnikov isn’t insane then I’m not sure if there are any literary characters who count. I think the idea that Raskolnikov is totally sane grows from the belief that he can’t be both insane and a commentary on the human condition, and, you know, I think probably he can.
But at the same time I think this is all a side note to whatever Dostoevsky is trying to get it, which is - Christian forgiveness? Redemption through suffering? Raskolnikov’s name, as the endnotes helpfully informed me, is related to the work raskol, which is the word for the splitting of the Russian Orthodox church following a set of reforms in the 1600s. The Old Believers, who refused to accept the reforms, were called raskolniks. So there’s an ongoing conversation here which is just going straight over my head. Clearly I need to read more.
Actually, this is only true of nineteenth-century Russian literature. I find twentieth-century Russian authors much more accessible.
I also spent a lot of time mentally arguing with the introduction, which argues strenuously that Raskolnikov is not a madman, which - okay, if he’s defining madness strictly as delusionality, I guess he has a point. Raskolnikov doesn’t think he is Napoleon, he just thinks/hopes/wishes he might be like Napoleon.
But. He’s spent the last month lying on his bed in his filthy apartment, neither eating nor sleeping, obsessing over whether or not to kill an old lady because if he can do it without remorse he will prove that he is a great man, like Napoleon, who lost entire armies in the service of his destiny without batting an eyelash. His other hobbies include avoiding everyone he knows because the idea of interacting with anyone fills him with dread.
Even the other characters, who have no access to his internal monologue and don’t know that he’s killed someone in an attempt to work out his theory, are worried that he’s going insane. If Raskolnikov isn’t insane then I’m not sure if there are any literary characters who count. I think the idea that Raskolnikov is totally sane grows from the belief that he can’t be both insane and a commentary on the human condition, and, you know, I think probably he can.
But at the same time I think this is all a side note to whatever Dostoevsky is trying to get it, which is - Christian forgiveness? Redemption through suffering? Raskolnikov’s name, as the endnotes helpfully informed me, is related to the work raskol, which is the word for the splitting of the Russian Orthodox church following a set of reforms in the 1600s. The Old Believers, who refused to accept the reforms, were called raskolniks. So there’s an ongoing conversation here which is just going straight over my head. Clearly I need to read more.
