Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Certainly one of the best books ever written. I’ve got no doubt: this book is worth every minute reading it. Seriously. Read it, you’re not going to regret it.

Crime and Punishment was written by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky during the period from 1865 to 1866. This is somewhat important. Actually, we don’t have many books that bring us the Russia of the last decades of the 19th century. Reading Crime and Punishment is not only a literary pleasure, but also an opportunity to get to know more of that moment and place in History.

Before saying anything about the book, it’s important to remember who was the author. Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, in 1821, a period when Russia was governed by the tsars (or czars, depending on how we translate the Russian word царь...). The tsarist autocracy ruled Russia for a long period that spanned from the middle age until the revolution of 1917.

In 1849, 27 year-old Dostoevsky was arrested. His charge: being part of an intellectual group (the Petrashevsky Circle) which was said to oppose the government of the Tsar Nicholas I. That was considered quite a severe offense, so Dostoevsky was condemned to death. After eight months’ imprisonment, he and some other convicts were taken to a square to be executed. The ritual started: the guards made them wear the white shirts dedicated to prisoners condemned to death, disposed them in rows and waited for the order to shoot. That order, however, never came. Suddenly, they were untied and told that their sentence had been commuted to hard labour, to be conducted in Siberia. Their lives had been spared by the Tsar.

Now we have to stop and think about the intensity of this experience. What that must have been! Imagine the agony of waiting for the last minutes before being shot. Well, one of the prisoners, Grigoryev, went mad as soon as he was unbound — he never regained his sanity.

This subject, of course, pervaded Dostoevsky writings. “The House of the Dead”, written after his period of forced labour in Siberia, is another magnificent work, in which he describes not only the physical aspects of the imprisonment, but also its psychological facets.

In “Crime and Punishment”, Dostoevsky portraits the agony of a man haunted by his own ghost, a man tortured by his mind, a man torn down by the conscience of having committed a horrible crime. Besides that, the book depicts his struggle to overcome, to exorcise his demons and come back to life. That’s the journey of a mythical hero, if we take the concept developed later by the world-famous scholar Joseph Campbell. Marvelous journey, by the way.

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an ex-student of Law, lives in St. Petersburg with absolutely no money and no perspectives for his future. He constantly has to visit an unscrupulous pawnbroker who lives at the same building — she is the only way for him to get some cash, in spite of her abusive interest rates... Hatred starts to fill his thoughts. He cannot reason anymore — in short, he’s got to kill the woman and take her money, not only for the value of the gold itself, but also for being able to perform good deeds for other people with that wealth and liberate the world from a parasite like her... (Well, saying it like that, it seems to be crazy, what it really is indeed, but you’ve got to read the whole first part of the book... then you will dive into this mad man’s mind and get the idea...).

— I've brought something to pawn here — and he drew out of his pocket an old-fashioned flat silver watch, on the back of which was engraved a globe; the chain was of steel.

— But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day before yesterday.

—  I will bring you the interest for another month; wait a little.

— But that's for me to do as I please, my good sir, to wait or to sell your pledge at once.

— How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna?

— You come with such trifles, my good sir, it's scarcely worth anything. I gave you two roubles last time for your ring and one could buy it quite new at a jeweler's for a rouble and a half.

— Give me for roubles for it, I shall redeem it, it was my father's. I shall be getting some money soon.

— A rouble and a half, and interest in advance, if you like!

That’s curious to verify how antique is this profession of lending money through usurious interest rates...

Raskolnikov’s macabre desire is fed by a strange theory, which divides man into “ordinary” and “extraordinary”. “Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, don’t you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary”. (Again, it resembles me something quite familiar, e.g. those “enlightened” nation leaders that conducted their people to bloody wars and genocides, for considering themselves “extraordinary” men, sent by the heavens to change the world...) Well, bearing that in mind, he considers how important it is to have the woman killed and her money collected — he’s got a purpose for his attitude, after all... This is not supposed to be a worthless act...

So, it comes the day. Events don’t happen as planned, and Raskolnikov kills two women: the pawnbroker and her half-sister, Lizaveta. (Again, you’ve got to read this chapter, the narrative is fantastic). After murdering them, he is caught by an excruciating pain in his soul. His life turns into a hell of wandering, denying, thinking of confessing and struggling for survival. He spends days in fever and delirium, without knowing how to react to his own feelings.

That’s the moment when things start to happen — not only in the physical plain, but inside his mind. Above everything else, this book is about Raskolnikov’s mind, about the human mind, the deepest and most complex engine we will ever know. In my opinion, this makes Crime and Punishment so amazingly good to read — and so challenging too. The disintegration of Raskolnikov’s psyche is at the same time intriguing and afflictive for the reader (he is burning out, for sure, but he is also violently struggling to keep his sanity). Gradually he starts to loose track of reality, of his own memories and even of what really happened inside the pawnbroker’s apartment. The intensity of his actions had emptied all energy of his brains...

He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion and was at once shaken by another unbearable fit of shivering. Mechanically he drew from a chair beside him his old student’s winter coat, which was still warm though almost in rags, covered himself up with it and once more sank into drowsiness and delirium. He lost consciousness.

While fighting against his own ghosts, Raskolnikov meets interesting people. Besides his few friends and close relatives, he makes acquaintance with several others. They serve as magnifying lenses for us to understand what’s going on inside Raskolnikov’s mind. There is a lot to be harvested from these relationships.

Razumikhin, his old friend, is always nearby. Actually, he was one of the few friends of Raskolnikov’s. They studied together at the university, lost contact for a while, but met again in St. Petersburg. His name in Russian means “reason”. It couldn’t be more appropriate. Razumihin follows Raskolnikov’s saga, sometimes perplex and even disgusted, but always trying to offer him the best. He also proves to be of great value for Raskolnikov’s family when they need help.

Porfiry Petrovich is the detective assigned to investigate the murder of the pawnbroker and her half-sister. Porfiry has no evidences of Raskolnikov’s role in that horrible crime, but, through psychological strategy and long talks with him, he comes closer and closer, even contributing for his final confession. Porfiry’s performance is quite amusing for anyone who likes crime investigation stories.

Pyotr Petrovich, a successful lawyer, is engaged to Raskolnikov’s sister, Avdotya Romanovna (Dunia). Raskolnikov hates him and makes all efforts to destroy their relationship. He cannot support the idea of her sister marrying a wealthy man just to give the family a better standard of life. Raskolnikov’s ill temper blossoms when they finally met. Even the interventions of his mother (Pulkheria Alexandrovna) are not enough to cool down the angry man...

Another quite funny fellow is Semyon Marmeladov, a hopeless drunkard. “Marmeladov, a man over fifty, bald and grizzled, whose face bloated with continual drinking, was of a yellow, even greenish, tinge, with swollen eyelids out of which keen reddish eyes gleamed like little chinks”. For him, poverty is not a vice, drunkenness is not a virtue either, but beggary, honored sir, beggary is a vice... Raskolnikov manifests affection for this man and his family, which shows to be decisive for his fate.

The most important supporting character, however, is Sofia Semyonovna (Sonya), Marmeladov’s daughter. Raskolnikov first hears of Sonya when talking with Marmeladov: “Well, when one has no one, nowhere else one can go! For every man must have somewhere to go. Since there are times when one absolutely must go somewhere! When my own daughter first went out with a yellow ticket, then I had to go…” The yellow-ticket was a document which enabled a Russian woman to engage in prostitution. That made Marmeladov suffer intensely, possibly leading him to his unrecoverable drunkenness. Raskolnikov, however, gets acquainted to Sonya.

Although Sonya is victim of prejudice and anger from society (including, here, Raskolnikov’s family), he sees her as a valuable human being, someone of very special qualities. She corresponds to his feelings. With love and understanding, Sonya eventually leads Raskolnikov to confession. After his conviction, she decides to follow him to Siberia — her ultimate demonstration of love and care. Well, in my opinion, Sonya represents the salvation messenger who brings Raskolnikov back from the shadows and gives him new hope. Through her, Raskolnikov expiates his sins and starts his new story, “the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life.”. The relationship between them is quite touching. It’s pervaded, of course, by their handicaps, but also by their internal struggle to overcome the obstacles life put in their path. Raskolnikov suffers — probably his mind is his worst tormentor and executioner; Sonya suffers — imagine how difficult it was to her to be at his side during a journey like that. Hope, however, is the keyword that keeps their flame burning.

Well, there is much more in this book. We could keep discussing situations, places, characters and meanings for hours without covering even a fraction of its depth. Marvelous book, mandatory reading!

Rogerio Maciel,

April, 2010.