First, this is the Google ad I’m seeing right now:
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I read Poor Folk, Notes from Underground, Crime & Punishment, The Possessed (or Devils), and The Brothers Karamazov all in one semester with the most awesome professor. I loved all the books, but my favorite was probably The Possessed.
I think these books would be kind of difficult to read without a discussion group of some kind. Especially if you’re new to Russian literature, the naming system can be confusing.
Cisco, I’m surprised that you thought nothing interesting happens in the early part of C & P. Plotting and carrying out a murder doesn’t catch your attention?
I’m finally, finally making it to the end of The Idiot now, because I finally I wised up and chucked my Garnett translation in the bin and got the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation, which is worlds and worlds better than that Garnett nonsense. With Garnett, I could barely follow the bare bones of the plot, she was so dry and convoluted.
I’ve found, though, that the middle of The Idiot really does fall to pieces (it’s not all Garnett’s fault), but when Ippolit reads his Necessary Explanation, all the magic comes back in force. His descriptions of the Holbein painting and his ruminations on the nature of evil are worth the price of the book by themselves. And Nastasya’s letters to the Prince are also brilliant. (“God knows what lives in me in place of me.” I shivered.)
Besides The Idiot, I’ve read Crime and Punishment (loved it), Notes from Underground (vaguely remember liking it), and Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (non-fiction). I would consider myself a friend of Fyodor.
I read Crime and Punishment while briefly (and accidentally) imprisoned in the basement of the Lubianka.*
It is a book I’ve always struggled with. I’ve read it in fits and starts over many years, but I’ve never loved it. I just can’t relate to anyone, least of all Raskolnikov. The Brothers Karamazov I took to immediately though, so it’s not like I just don’t like Dostoevsky. I might have to file it away in the pile (along with Proust) marked “keep chipping away - you might eventually get it”.
I think he alluded to the fact that he might be thinking about maybe eventually doing something bad to someone at some undisclosed point in the future - if the proper mood struck him at the right time of day, perhaps - but nothing resembling “plotting and carrying out a murder” happened.
Hmm. Raskolnikov murders Alena Ivanovna on page 65 and Lizaveta on page 68 in my edition (a Norton). I know how difficult it can be to give a book a chance when one is not impressed by the first few chapters. I feel guitly about wasting the time when I know that there are thousands of other, possibly better books I could be reading instead. I felt drawn in immediately by Crime & Punishment - but to each his own.
I’ve been trying to get my brother to read C & P for a few years because I imagine he might think a bit like Raskolnikov (hopefully without the murdurous impulses), but the copy I gave him just sits on the shelf. I bet if he’d “discovered” it himself, he would love it - some people just don’t take kindly to recommendations.
I’ve read “Notes from Underground” and “The Double.” I prefered the playfulness of the latter. And come on, who doesn’t like a good “is he crazy or is there a Doppelgänger” story?
Is yours abridged? I’m almost positive I was beyond page 100 and I’m not exagerrating when I say NOTHING had happened. I’ll look up which edition I had later; I got it from the public library.
Author: Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881.
Title: Crime and punishment / Fyodor Dostoevsky ; translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett ; with an introduction by Ernest J. Simmons.
Other title: Prestuplenie i nakazanie English
Edition: Modern Library ed.
Publisher: New York : Modern Library, 1994.
Description: xxiv, 629 p. 20 cm.
Series title: Modern Library of the world’s best books
Word up. After 100+ pages of homeboy shuffling around St. Petersburg with a fever doing absolutely nothing, I just gave up. If there’s a shorter version of this somewhere I’d like to give it another shot.
I read C&P, the Brothers K, Notes from the Underground, The Gambler, the Idiot, The Double and a collection of other novellas while I was living in a 14-foot travel trailer 7 miles down a dirt road with no electricity or running water the winter that the Soviet Union disbanded.
I was really impressed with C&P. Was I the only one who thought the detective was the model for Columbo? The Brothers K felt like a rehash of the same themes, while Notes was the most depressing story I had read to date, while the Gambler was dryly, existentially humorous.
I think part of my liking his work was being 27 years old at the time, and it was my year of contemplation & hermitage. It was a big part of me ‘finding myself’.
Heh. He does, doesn’t he? Just like Colombo keeps on ending the interview with the suspect, and then, on the treshold, waits and says: " oh, just one more question".
Detective Porfiry knows Raskolnokov murdered the old lady, but instead of just arresting the student, he keeps on visiting Raskolnikov in his room…looks at him funny…while Raskolnikov keeps on talking, digging himself in deeper and deeper, with every rambling line of philosophical self-justification he can muster. You can smell the crazy from those pages. It’s terribly cruel
Outside of the murder, nothing happens in the book.
The point of the novel (in my reading) is to consider the idea of whether murder can be justified, what all sorts of effects commiting a murder could have on a person, and how he can redeem/absolve himself. All the nothing you see there is the “something” to be read. The events that take place are window dressing.
No, it’s not abridged. It’s a Norton Critical Edition (Third Edition) translated by Jessie Coulson and edited by George Gibian. Now that I look again, there is quite a lot of text on each page. The total page count of the narrative is only 465. So I see where you’re coming from with the frustration over nothing happening.
I agree with SageRat’s description of the point of the novel, but I would add that it’s a keen examination of madness - very internal/psychological. Also, it’s a fascinating take on the Byronic/Napoleonic hero, and Dostoevsky hashes this out further in The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov. And it’s a commentary on the westernization of Russia and the pitfalls of liberal rationality. More philosophy than action, certainly.
It’s a good idea to get a grasp of Dostoevsky’s philosophy first by reading Notes from Underground. Reading that first definitely enriched C & P for me.
Maybe it’s the translation. I’m reading it now and am enjoying it, though my first time through 20 years ago I, too, found it unreadable. The one I’m reading now is a brand new translation; reviews have been quite favorable.
I’ve tried to read Brothers Karamazov twice (failed twice), the Idiot (gave up just after page 100) and made a half hearted attempt at Crime and Punishment but quit after 30 pages or so. I’m really not a fan of Russian work at all which galls my mother as she loves them. I think one of the things that makes it hard for me is the cast of thousands in each book and the fact that everyone has three names which are used almost interchangeably.
I got to a point in the Idiot where I was having to check back to see who a character was because I didn’t recognise the name and realised it was just the familiar variation. I know it’s something you have to accept in Russian literature but it just makes a difficult job even harder, in my opinion.
