This took so long because it was too big to travel with and also made me anxious to read. Does anyone recommend a particular translation? I read Pevear and Volokhonsky and I’m guessing I’d prefer something else. Might try again in ten years.

Well, what’s a global pandemic for if you don’t read the stuff you think you really ought to have read by now. Although I hope this strange circumstance will not result in me referring to Fyodor Dostoyevsky as The Corona Guy.Those yet to read this towering inferno of literature may wish to know what’s in the nearly 700 pages, so here is a scientific analysis :WHAT HAPPENS IN CRIME AND PUNISHMENTLong conversations between people who could talk the hind legs off a donkey: .....................53%P...

If you’ve ever committed an unjust act, as Raskolnikov does, you know now it would have been better right at the outset to confess your injustice and seek the absolution of clemency.For if you neglected to come clean you were probably racked with ruin within, and “delivered to the bondsman” of tortuous guilt. It happened to Raskolnikov, and it happened to me.Each one of us is a Raskolnikov, you know.No, not like you’re thinking - not a shabbily-dressed, impoverished murderer. But we all share hi...

Writing this was a crime and reading it was a punishment.

What can I add to 7000+ reviews (at the time I write)? I think this book is fascinating because of all the topic it covers. Like the OJ trial, it is about many important interconnected things and those things remain important today, even though this book was originally published in 1865.Sure, it has a lot about crime and punishment. But also insanity and temporary insanity, the latter a legal plea that could be entered in Russia of the mid-1800's. It's about guilt and conscience, long before Fre...

‘To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.’I have been giving a lot of thought to this novel lately. Despite the three years* that have gone by since reading Crime and Punishment—three years in which I’ve read some outstanding literature, joined Goodreads and written just over 100 reviews of the books I’ve journeyed through—Dostoevsky’s novel still resides on it’s throne as one of my personal favorite novels. Top 2 for sure along with Winterson’s The Passion whic...

I've come to the conclusion that Russian door-stoppers might just be where it's at. "It" here meaning general awesomeness that combines history, philosophy and readability to make books that are both thought-provoking and enjoyable. Up until this point, Tolstoy had basically taught me everything I knew about nineteenth century Russian society and its people. By that, I mean that everything I knew was about the drama and scandals of the Russian aristocracy. The difference here is that Dostoyevsky...

“Trying to untie the string and going to the window, to the light (all her windows were closed, despite the stuffiness), she left him completely for a few seconds and turned her back to him. He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the loop but did not quite take it out yet; he just held it in his right hand under the coat. His hands were terribly weak; he felt them growing more and more numb and stiff every moment. He was afraid he would let go and drop the axe…suddenly his head seemed to ...

There was a time in my life when I couldn’t get enough of reading Dostoevsky. Maybe because his books made me think so deeply about being human and how we choose to live our lives. I began with Crime and Punishment, probably the work he is best known for. What I remember is being fascinated by Dostoevsky’s brilliant understanding of human nature. I remember thinking what a deep study this book was; an incredible examination of a man who commits murder and how he is “punished” for it. I remember ...

I basically had to stop drinking for a month in order to read it; my friends no longer call. But it's great.