does the end justify the mean (Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

Member Name: pontecaille

Product:	Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Date:	27/07/01 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: unforeseen scenes, great characters, lovely description of Russia

Disadvantages: n/a

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 those that stay in his memory is when Napoleon wiped out unarmed people. Unfortunately despite a perfect plan, nothing goes clockwork. Not only he assassinates the old woman but he also manages to kill her sister.
The frustrating part for him is when he discovers her possession is worth nothing.
An investigation is undergoing lead by Porphyre, a criminal judge.
Raskelnikov is considered as an important key of the crime and as a witness…
Porphyre already has suspicion on Raskelnikov who tends to be more nervous.
An extreme feeling of guilt pushes him to go and see the judge not to tell his act but to relieve his conscience. But Porphyre is now convinced of his guilt and looks for total confession.
In the meantime Raskelnikov meets a young prostitute Sonia. He is totally upset by this poor girl who has to sell her body for the sake of her relatives. He gets extremely close to her and confesses her his horrible crime. She makes him understand he has to go the Police and tell the whole thing. He is convicted to the deportation via Siberia.
It is very hard for Raskelnikov to accept his faith and the punishment. He knows he cut himself off from society because of his total alienation. Sonia succeeds in delivering him from his obsession and his
guilt and he finally has a feeling of human solidarity, something he was looking for all his life.
However he knows the world doesn’t change, the number of lice remains constant. And the bitter part is he became a louse himself remains constant.

It is a book painting the eternal theme of the Russian literature: the opposition between human conception and religious conception.
To be honest, it is quite a heavy book but you don’t need to be fully literate to go through it. I am not very keen on literature but I really enjoyed this reading. Dostoievski has a unique and sublime style. It is a simple but eloquent writing. He will put you at your ease as soon as you read the first pages.
It is a call of hate towards European or occidental countries as well. Dostoievski puts forward a winning capitalism to a middle class misery. He also points out the issue of alcoholism. However he doesn’t make an analyse of it but simply expose alcoholism and presents the effects on education, children, families, social lives and opens it to the world. It is a tragic novel full of emotional passages, unforeseen meetings, monologs, battle between the judge and the assassin.

The most important message Dostoievski tries to send us is probably the opposition between the principal of justice in man and the principal of injustice seen in the world. I mean it is a conflict between the body and the spirit and a question of moral and guilt. Because the feeling of guilt Raskelnikov experiences in the book is powerful and annihilating and will haunt his existence. This feeling tears him and it will make him have hallucinations. Raskelnikov becomes a ghost amongst living people and tends to loose his ideals.

I don’t know why but I seemed to have a pretty strong apprehension to read Russian writers. I think I was (and still am) impressed by all the big Russian names. I heard too many times people talking about them and using word
s I could even relate to my native language…but thanks to one of my friends my perception totally changed. This friend was undertaking a Degree in this field and often she was talking to me about her books. I just couldn’t understand a word of what she was saying as her vocabulary is far beyond mine. But she has an extraordinary way of telling things and making you part of the story, which I think is a brilliant sensation and it made me understand most of the books she read. And I started the reading of few books I will try to comment in other opinions if you don’t mind my style.

Anyway nothing more to say but I just deeply think you will be amazed by this book. It sounded terrifying to me at first but I am pleased I have read it.

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