Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment is one of those novels that we all feel we should read but relatively few actually do. It is considered a classic of western literature but maybe despite or because of this, reading it can also seem a daunting prospect. THE STORY Raskalnikov a young Russian, a former student at Petersburg University has fallen on bad times, he is desperate and penniless. He is worried about the fate of his widowed mother who lives in the provinces and of his sister a governess in the house of a wealthy landowner who is trying to seduce her. He decided to solve his problems by robbing and killing an old woman moneylender, Aliona Ivanovna. He ...

Crime and punishment is an excellent book. It is about a young student Raskelnikov who has to give up his studies because of insufficient money. He is a lonely dreamer and decides to assassinate an old usurer to save the soul of his sister bound to marry an awful man to help her family to get out of the misery. This woman who takes advantage on weaker people to satisfy her own lust of wealth disgusts him. Raskelnikov tries to get some courage by persuading himself that human atrocity is real and is in a concrete jungle. But most of the time he tries to kill the thought of remorse by reading and using some of Napoleon war actions. One of ...

“Crime and Punishment” needs little introduction. Written by arguably the best and most influential Russian novelist, it is deeply affecting and a book that will make you step back and question what really is a “crime” and what a necessary punishment is. From the outset, the reader is plummeted into a grey world, in which a man called Raskolnikov, stricken with poverty and questionable sanity strives to clear his name after he murders a pawn broker. You will be immersed in Dostoyevsky’s sinister evocation of St. Petersburg and will be taken on a very philosophical journey that questions what determines right and wrong. It is a ...