I've never written a book review for my blog before, but after trudging through Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment I feel compelled to lay down some thoughts before they consume me. Warning: I very much want you to read this book, but I will not hold back on spoiling the plot if I want to talk about something.
First off, let me admit that this book took me several months to read - four, to be precise. Given my (typical) university student's schedule (classes, extracurriculars, studying and Netflix), this length of time might have been pardonable, taking into account that the paperback edition of the novel is 480 pages long. However, to be completely honest, the real reason it took me a third of a year to read C&P was that somewhere in between when Raskolnikov commits his crime and when Svidrigailov returns to the picture, I became bored with the incessant pages of philosophical dialogue and psychological musings Dostoyevsky weaved into his narrative. Please don't think me insensitive when I admit that I enjoyed, although with a dark kind of fascination, reading about Marmeladov and later Katerina Ivanova's deaths. Indeed, this book put me to sleep at times.
You might be wondering where I'm going with this. Reading C&P was not an enjoyable process. There is something distinctly morose about Russian suffering, so that it draws you in with an unadorned and unapologetic "Come on in." Perhaps the sole lighthearted scene in the novel was the one describing Razumihin falling head over heels in a bashful and drunken, but utterly pure, way for Dounia. Yet even Razumihin's love for Dounia was a source of pain to me, as his love for Rodion's sister only further reveals his utter devotion to and love for Raskolnikov. Indeed, his marriage to Dounia is a sad one, Razumihin being so determined to make a living and a life for his new family so that they might all be reunited in the future. Reading about Raskolnikov's cold and harsh behaviour towards his family and his friend even up to the very end of the novel (never even personally writing to them when in prison), I could not restrain my feelings of anger but also admiration, all permeated with a vein of cynicism.
More memorable still are the deeply disturbing scenes of forced or hysterical joviality. The consumptive Katerina Ivanova forces her fatherless children to dress up and perform in the streets. They are crying, and she beats them. Her pride, much like Raskolnikov's, drives her to cruelty, despite the fact that she deeply cares for her children. Her delusional ravings and constructed memories reveal how poverty and alcoholism tore apart one family, and reflect how fragile the psyche can be in light of uncompromising personal characteristics.
Equally disturbing is how deeply Dostoyevsky dives into Raskolnikov's mind. While the long passages describing the protagonist's inner turmoil, repressed guilt and sullen belief in the righteousness of his own world view were arduous to read, I think that Dostoyevsky was right in drawing out the descriptions of Raskolnikov's mental and physical disturbances. Objectively, we can summarize Rodion's nervous breakdown, fever, nightmares and silent observations of the aftermath of his crime from his cramped bed, but how much more vivid (if torturous) for the reader to have to explore every crevasse of Raskolnikov's mind with him! What with the dramatic irony and Porfiry's seemingly transparent (but terribly clever) mind games, I was taken in for quite the ride. Really, reading the novel felt more like following a stream of consciousness than anything.
The most captivating part of that long middle section during which Raskolnikov's guilt marinates is the scene where Rodion's article is first mentioned. His theory of Napoleonic men being able to do as they please is a grandiose, nihilistic and self-absorbed one, arguably the product of his impoverished environment but likely something deeper than that. Oddly enough, I can understand, if not empathize, with him. When the circumstances you and those around you live in are so inexplicably horrible, it's easy to want to find some way out. Some people dream of better days to come or that have past, like Razumihin and Katerina Ivanova. Some drink, like Marmeladov. And some imagine themselves outside of the system, of deserving better and having the right to fight for it. In a way, Raskonikov's theory is a coping mechanism sprung out of a life too absent of hope and too full of cynical hatred.
And of course, the epilogue. Much controversy exists regarding this short but revealing section of the novel. Personally, I'm glad that Dostoyevsky included it, in the same way that I'm glad J. K. Rowling tied up the ends to the Harry Potter series. Certainly the fact that Raskolnikov confessed at the end of Section VI, especially given the fact that he was aware of Svidrigailov's death and that Sonya was the ultimate reason he followed through with the confession, may make the epilogue seem redundant. However, the plot really picked up for me again after Katerina Ivanova's death, and at that point I wanted to keep reading. Additionally, I appreciated that Dostoyevsky added a layer of complexity by showing Raskolnikov's first year in prison, when he had not yet truly "repented" despite having already confessed. I add quotations marks around the word "repented" because I don't see Raskolnikov's emotionally-charged last scene with Sonya as necessarily Christian. That's certainly one interpretation, but in my mind it comes down to love, which is more general than religion. Had any other novel employed this type of ending, I would have gagged and made some snide remark about how "Disney" everything turned out (hey, I love Disney as much as the next 90s kid, but that doesn't mean I can't think about the messages they convey in a critical fashion). But again, the Russianness of it all absolves the ending of its lovey-doveyness. Raskolnikov's realization that he loves Sonya opens his eyes to the destructiveness of his unforgiving and deeply egotistical theory. Pride really is the worst sin of all, because it is the one that requires the greatest upheaval of the soul to overcome.
How very freeing it has been to chronicle my thoughts here, without needing to organize them into a cohesive text. Perhaps I shall do this again once I read Lolita. ~
