Cover image for

Crime and Punishment

Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Category Fiction
Language English
Published 1866
Notes

From the Russian master of psychological characterizations, this novel portrays the carefully planned murder of a miserly, aged pawnbroker by a destitute Saint Petersburg student named Raskolnikov, followed by the emotional, mental, and physical effects of that action. Translated by Constance Garnett.

Approx. 204,142 words.

Excerpt

he feeling inspired by Dostoevsky: "He was one of ourselves, a man of our blood and our bone, but one who has suffered and has seen so much more deeply than we have his insight impresses us as wisdom . . . that wisdom of the heart which we seek that we may learn from it how to live. All his other gifts came to him from nature, this he won for himself and through it he became great."

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

PART I

CHAPTER I

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge.

He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time he went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen,

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2006.05.30
Alan G

Not for every reader, this book has some long monologues. However, the complex characters provide philosophical insight and it's very interesting to see Russia in the 1860's. Besides the plotline of murder, there are other issues of family, society, desire, loathing, and pure humanity. I was so immersed at some points that I completely lost touch with my actual surroundings. If you aren't feeling captivated by this book, you might put it down and try it at another point in your life. This is a great book.

2006.04.18
Kurt

I read this book in my late teens and was stunned by it. Some of the scenes are still fresh in my mind years later. Rask's growing madness, the poverty which is never dwelt on but always present, the torment of the characters, their desperate lives, and the emotion that runs through the whole thing like electricity ... there is so much of life in this old book, and I think almost everyone knows the plot by now. A very deep book, and not something to take with you on the beach! One minor point though, re-reading the book today, it seems a little baggy in places, like his other great works, and could benefit from some modern judicial editing maybe. I tried reading his other works (The Idiot etc.) but none of them quite did it for me the way this book did.

This is his masterpiece.

2005.11.29
Steve

Great Book