Synopsis:
Mired in poverty, the student Raskolnikov nevertheless thinks well of himself. Of his pawnbroker he takes a different view, and in deciding to do away with her he sets in motion his own tragic downfall. Dostoyevsky's penetrating novel of an intellectual whose moral compass goes haywire, and the detective who hunts him down for his terrible crime, is a stunning psychological portrait, a thriller and a profound meditation on guilt and retribution.
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (1 of 47), Read 101
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Saturday, January 15, 2000 05:50 PM
In February, Classics Corner will discuss Dostoevsky's Crime and
Punishment.The discussion will officially begin on February 1. This
book was one of the most popular choices in the the voting for the
2000 Classics Corner list. I can guarantee that there will be lots to
discuss.
New participants are always welcome!
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (2 of 47), Read 82
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Sunday, January 16, 2000 05:25 PM
Last night, I finally finished Howard's End. I closed the book,
reached over to the nightstand and picked up Dostoyevsky's Crime
and Punishment and continued reading. "You're incorrigible," my wife says.
Looking forward to the discussion.
Dan
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (3 of 47), Read 85
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Sunday, January 16, 2000 09:48 PM
Dan,
You are obviously a true "constant" reader.
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (4 of 47), Read 87
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Tonya Presley (tpresley@swbell.net)
Date:
Monday, January 17, 2000 02:24 AM
"You're incorrigible," your wife says, and she's probably right
(again).
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (5 of 47), Read 92
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dottie Randall (randallj@ix.netcom.com)
Date:
Monday, January 17, 2000 03:17 AM
Dan -- I agree -- your wife is probably right.
Dottie -- thinking that if Tonya and I are correct in this then CR
could become IA (Incorrigibles Anonymous) though we aren't very
anonymous
ID is an oxymoron!
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (6 of 47), Read 81
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ian Marks (comfortably_numb@ecosse.net)
Date:
Monday, January 17, 2000 05:29 PM
"You're incorrigible," my wife says.
Dan -
A compliment if ever there was one!
Ian
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (7 of 47), Read 75
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Brian Bourque (bbourque@dttus.com)
Date:
Friday, January 21, 2000 08:17 PM
Now if I were to translate Dan's
wife's comment upon his effortless
transition between material, I suspect
things could get interesting...
Dan, so what did you say in response?
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (8 of 47), Read 77
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Saturday, January 22, 2000 10:42 AM
Brian: I don't follow your meaning, not at all. And, Brian: Since you
are here--what translation do you recommend for this novel? I
recall you saying you read this work from two translations
simultaneously. Which one was better?
I'm reading the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa
Volokhonsky and it is truly bringing Dostoevsky's work to life. Highly
recommended.
Oh where are my manners? Brian, this is everybody. Everybody, this
is Brian--a huge Dostoevsky and Melville man. I'm not sure how our
lives became entangled, but they are.
Dan
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (9 of 47), Read 78
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
R Bavetta (rbavetta@prodigy.net)
Date:
Saturday, January 22, 2000 11:34 AM
Hi Brian, glad to meet you. I'm looking forward to your participation
in Crime and Punishment. The book, that is.
Ruth
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (10 of 47), Read 79
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Sherry Keller (shkell@earthlink.net)
Date:
Saturday, January 22, 2000 11:49 AM
Welcome, Brian,
Any friend of Dan's, and all that.
Sherry
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (11 of 47), Read 87
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Tonya Presley (tpresley@swbell.net)
Date:
Saturday, January 22, 2000 12:10 PM
Ditto, Brian! Here I am, right next door in Arlington. You must be
one of the reasons for Dan's familiarity with this area!
Dan, I think we should mini-convene the next time you get over this
way.
Tonya
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (12 of 47), Read 82
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Saturday, January 22, 2000 01:20 PM
Hi Brian, nice to see you here. I sure hope you're planning to
participate in the February discussion of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.
I am always curious about translations. Sidney Monas translated
the Signet Classic version that I'm reading. To be quite honest, I
bought it because of the price. A local bookstore had 25% off all
books and this was the only version of C&P it had. It is in colloquial
English and reads smoothly. I have no idea how close it is to the
original Russian. Is this one of the translations you've read, Brian?
Dan, I have read that Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky are
highly regarded translators of the Russian classics.
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (13 of 47), Read 63
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ernest Belden (drernest@juno.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 02:11 PM
Ian, Daniel,
Looks like your wives got your number and so has mine. Incorrigible
turns out to be a great compliment when it comes to reading
classics. It would be different if incorrigible were related to other
vices. Well, I don't want to stand back behind these other
incorrigible guys. I am afraid that my wife Pat looks at me the same
way or even worse. A wise man once said that women love us for
our vices. Hey, aren't we lucky?
Ernie
(Who just returned from a cruising vacation gone wrong. No, the
ship did not sink, it was the flu that got us down).
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (14 of 47), Read 64
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ernest Belden (drernest@juno.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 02:20 PM
This may well be the 4th book by Dostoevsky that I have done
battle with. My recurrent thoughts are all pervasive chaos,
indecision, change, self destructiveness etc. Could all this reflect
some aspects of the author's personality? We do know he had a
seizure disorder and often was on the verge of poverty and debt.
He did not have a happy life by any means. So I will go on reading
and see what happens at the end. I did enjoy the Gambler which
we read not to long ago. Well something needs to be said about
Dostoevsky's view of human nature and society. I hope someone
will come up with an interesting discussion on that subject.
Ernie
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (15 of 47), Read 64
times, 1 File Attachment
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dick Haggart (law@haggart.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 02:51 PM
Ernie: Just to get the discussion off on the right foot, here's a
picture of Fyodor himself. If you saw him coming down the street,
you'd probably cross over to avoid him....
The Chilblained Lawyer Is... 
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (16 of 47), Read 65
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 03:38 PM
Ernie: This is the last "great Dostoyevsky" classic that I had to
read. I've read The Brothers Karamazov, The Possessed, and The
Idiot, and I find similar characters and events in all the novels. I
think you are correct to assume that quite a bit of Dostoyevsky's
biography within his fiction. There's similar events and situations in
all his fiction.
And I think Dick is correct: I would cross the street if I seen that
man a'coming.
Dan
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (17 of 47), Read 66
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dick Haggart (law@haggart.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 04:16 PM
You know, for starters, I'd be interested in considering whether the
Russians are really interested in deeply psychological fiction (as
they and many professors of literature would have us believe), or if
they just get off on dysfunctional losers as a kind of cultural motif?
Raskolnikov was one of the sorriest human beings I can recall this
side of some Cormac McCarthy's characters, plus he wasn't one bit
funny (which McCarthy's often are).
The Chilblained Lawyer Is... <IMG SRC=)
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (18 of 47), Read 68
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dale Short (dshort5005@aol.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 04:52 PM
Ernie: I love your description of the newest Dostoyevsky title as
the fourth you have "done battle with." That's exactly the way I
feel about the work of his I have read. Battle: win, lose, draw, with
much learned in the process.
And, yes...I don't think F.D.'s portrait would be found on the cover
of PEOPLE nowadays. Likewise for the Russians a century ago who
fought/aided the Nicholas & Alexandra regime. (Jo Lynn & I saw the
final U.S. showing of the "Nicholas and Alexandra" exhibit in Mobile,
Ala., a couple of weeks ago.) The portraits of Rasputin and his
many confidantes and ultimate assassins show pure-and-simple
madness, when not filtered through the diagnoses of today. But
didn't F.D., Tolstoy, and others turn out some timeless literature?
Dale in Ala.
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (19 of 47), Read 68
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
R Bavetta (rbavetta@prodigy.net)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 04:58 PM
I haven't reread C&P for this discussion, as I've read it at least
twice before. I think you'll find, fellas, that Raskalnikov out
Dostoevskys Dostoevsky---he's really over the top. Reminds me
somewhat of Poe's The Telltale Heart. Someone more inclined to
research than I am should look up their respective dates.
Ruth, who doesn't find D's picture that intimidating at all, in fact he
looks something like a friend of mine
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (20 of 47), Read 73
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 06:40 PM
I'm not quite finished with my reread of C&P, but I can't resist
making a few preliminary comments. First of all, I agree with Ruth
about the picture. Shave the 19th century beard and give him a
twentieth century haircut and he could fit right in. In fact, he
doesn't look nearly as scarry as the pictures of Tolstoy in his old
age.
Dostoevski suffered from severe epileptic attacks, but he was not
crazy. His second marriage was quite successful. He had a very
strong sense of duty and helped support his ungrateful stepson and
dead brother's family for years. He was sincerely religious. His
epilepsy, financial problems, and addiction to gambling added much
stress to his life and probably contributed to his understanding of
the darker aspects of the human mind.
That said, when I am reading his books I feel like I am in some kind
of emotional hothouse, where all the feelings are intensified and the
characters seem totally unrestrained. They can and do say
anything they feel like, and damn the consequences.
I like Dostoevski for his great psychological insight. Maybe you have
to be slightly off kilter yourself to appreciate it. Raskolnikov is an
excellent example of an obsessive compulsive personality. The term
hadn't been invented in Dostoevski's day, so he calls him a
"monomaniac." Once an idea takes hold of his mind, he can't seem
to escape it. After awhile the pressure gets so bad that he is willing
to do almost anything to escape it . In fact, he may have
committed the murder just so he could stop obsessing about it.
Obviously, this didn't work out the way he had planned. Later he is
repeatedly tempted to confess because he wants to bring the
mental torture to an end.
Dostoevski also has a masterful understanding of the psychology of
interrogation. The scenes between Raskolnikov and the investigator
Porfiry Petrovich seemed so up-to- date to me that I felt like I was
watching an episode of the old TV show Homicide.
I wonder what you all think about Raskolnikov's thesis: for special
people, acts which we would ordinarily consider wrong, like robbery
and murder, are not immoral if they are done for a higher good.
Those involved in revolutionary movements must justify their use of
terror and killing to themselves in terms very similar to those
arguments Raskolnikov used.
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (21 of 47), Read 74
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dottie Randall (randallj@ix.netcom.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 06:49 PM
Am toying with this even though I had decided not to do it right
now -- but must add that I didn't find the photo very strange or
frightening either.
Dottie -- who will be in the bookstore tomorrow so -- maybe
ID is an oxymoron!
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (22 of 47), Read 69
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Beatrice Soila (bpsoila@aol.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 07:32 PM
I really don't think Dostoevsky and Tolstoy have much in common
except their nationality. Dostoevsky is interested in the "abnormal"
personality while Tolstoy explores the "normal."
C&P is only my second Dostoevsky and I'm only about half-way
through. My first was Brothers Karamazov, which took me two tries
to finish. There's something so frantic and hysterical about these
novels that I can only handle them in small doses. That said, I'm
looking forward to an interesting discussion.
Bea
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (23 of 47), Read 66
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Barbara Moors (bar647@aol.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 09:20 PM
I'm running late on Crime and Punishment too because I snuck in
Tolstoy's The Cossacks when John Brownlee (my friend who posted
on Lolita) said he'd read it along with me. And, with that
comparison particularly fresh for me, I want to chime in with Bea
that Dostoevsky is very unlike Tolstoy. In fact, it's hard for me to
absorb the fact that they were writing at about the same time.
Tolstoy's writing is so wonderfully clear and clean. Dostoevsky, on
the other hand, seems very much a forerunner of modern
psychological fiction in which we travel around inside someone's
nightmare. I don't "enjoy" D's writing as much, but the two I've read
(The Idiot and The Gambler, both with CC) are still traveling around
with me in my head which I find significant.
Barb
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (24 of 47), Read 74
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Theresa Simpson (theresa.a.simpson@gte.net)
Date:
Wednesday, February 02, 2000 12:19 AM
The eyes are what you might call piercing, but D doesn't scare me
either.
I'm only on page 200 of a 600 page edition, but I love this book. I
read it many years ago in high school, and am surprised at some of
the main themes I'd forgotten, and some of the telling details that
stuck in my mind.
Barb, the story seems convoluted and dark, but the writing itself,
at least in my translation, seems very clean. I was struck by D's
ability to describe complex events and activities clearly, without
excessive verbiage and yet showing a great amount of the detail of
the occurrence (I know, I know, I'm guilty of excessive verbiage
here myself.) For example, the scene at the beginning where
Raskolnikov recalls seeing the peasants beat a horse to death as a
child. Contrasted with, for example, the description of similar events
in Cormac McCarthy's border trilogy, which I recently completed. I
think Cormac was intentionally trying to use words to paint a
detailed picture in his description of boys wrestling with the
wilderness, and animals, and each other, but it was too much and
detracted from the story. D accomplishes the same with much
greater artistry.
Theresa
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (25 of 47), Read 58
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
George Healy (malword@aol.com)
Date:
Wednesday, February 02, 2000 07:16 AM
I was astounded this time 'round when I read C+P how much of the
book turns on the concept of interpretation-- first we as readers
see the letter to Ras from his mother, then he desconstructs it for
us nearly line by line. Then we get interpretations of dreams,
scripture, motivations for crimes and failures, and even a step by
step look at investigative procedure. The book seems to move in
huge set-pieces that show that interpreting events leads back full
circle to an initial ignorance... what can really be known?
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (26 of 47), Read 58
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Wednesday, February 02, 2000 09:14 AM
Very interesting comment, George. In a similar vein, I once did a
paper on the use of allegory in D's The Devils. I noticed that many
times D's characters will exclaim: "This isn't an allegory--this is the
truth," or "reality," or something along those lines. It seemed D
wanted to break down the barrier between reader and text, wanted
the reader to understand that interpretation--especially
mis-interpretation--often leads one away from the matter at hand.
Everything is Dostoyevsky is in the details.
It's like Razumikhin's treatise to the ladies on "lying as a means to
arrive at the truth." It's paradoxical--one lies and lies and yet
achieves the truth. In a sense, this is the role of the novelist: He
lies and lies--none of the story is entirely "true," never "really
happened," yet in the end--if he is as good as D--the truth is there
shining.
Dan
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (27 of 47), Read 57
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ernest Belden (drernest@juno.com)
Date:
Wednesday, February 02, 2000 02:03 PM
Beatrice,
You are not alone when it comes to taking D. in small doses only.
The course of action that offers itself to me is to read two or three
other books at the same time. After a couple of days on this
harmless diet I am ready to face D. once more.
Ann, you described some of the actions in C&P as being in a hot
house. What an excellent description of various parts of the book.
Someone called Tolstoy saner and more concerned with the broader
issues of life. This is very much to the point. T. does not dwell on
crazyness, obsessions,etc., that I remember.
An interesting family memory came back to me the other day. My
father was not a formally educated person, but read a good deal
and in my teens we recommended books to each other. He had
read some of the Russian writers and told me how much they knew
about what's going on inside a person, how wise they were in
discussing human nature, etc. So began my interest in Russian
Literature. I may mention in passing that my father had travelled
extensively in Russia in the year 1914 just prior to the beginning of
WW I. He was lucky to return to his native Austria in time only to
be drafted into the army. But he survived and died at a relatively
early age shortly after I arranged for him to come to the US with
my mother. Incidentally he was a much more practical person than I
am and probably knew a great deal more about the world.
Sorry I got carried away by a personal memory. Ernie
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (28 of 47), Read 59
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dick Haggart (law@haggart.com)
Date:
Wednesday, February 02, 2000 03:04 PM
Ernie: Your story about your father brought to mind listening to the
grandmother of an old friend (some years ago now) who was a
young girl in Herzogovena (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire) at
the outbreak of World War I. She described how the bells rang and
rang that day, and how upset everyone was that war was breaking
out -- in contrast to the apparent public enthusiasm in the big
cities of Vienna and Berlin. Fascinating to hear live history from that
far back (at least in terms of human lifetimes). This woman
ultimately was betrothed long-distance to a young man who fled AH
to avoid the draft and ended up at the gold fields outside
Fairbanks, Alaska. In 1919 she took ship to join him, traveling
across the Atlantic and up the west coast to the mouth of the
Yukon River, where she then took a paddle-wheeled steamer to the
vicinity of Fairbanks. She arrived about freeze-up and ended up
being taken to her new home (a one room log cabin) by dogsled.
The husband's name was Stepovich and one of their sons became
the last Republican-apponted Governor of the Alaska Territory. Her
granddaughter remains a close friend today.
Sorry; just rambling there. Anyway, just to tie the discussion back
to Russo-Slavic literature, none of these people showed any signs
of the mental problems evidenced by Raskolnikov, et al. Perhaps
only those who remained behind had those kinds of problems.
The Chilblained Lawyer Is... , Read 58
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Sherry Keller (shkell@earthlink.net)
Date:
Wednesday, February 02, 2000 06:51 PM
I first read C&P when I was 19. It's amazing I remember as much as
I do. One thing that occurred to me (I'm about one-third through)
is that if this book were to be written in America, it would have
been about isolation and aloneness. Raskolnikov -- no matter how
loathsome he acts, how tedious and mean he is to his mother and
sister, how childish he is to his friends -- seems always to be
surrounded by people. The doctor, his friend, Natasha, the cook,
his mother and sister. He's certainly not lonely, even though at
times it seems like he deserves to be. Is this a Russian thing? Or
just a Dostoevsky thing?
Sherry
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (30 of 47), Read 60
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Wednesday, February 02, 2000 07:31 PM
Interesting notes, everyone.
Ernie, what do you think of Dostoevski's psychological insights? Do
they ring true compared to what you experienced in your practice
as a psychologist? In both The Idiot which we read last year and
C&P there are characters in the final stages of T.B. whom I think
we can fairly describe as demented. However, I find Raskolnikov
quite sane, although he definitely has psychological problems.
Theresa, I'm glad there is another true Dostoevski fan out there. As
a whole, I think that characters in Russian novels are much more
openly emotional than those in American or English novels. I find
this true of Tolstoy's characters as well. However, that frequent
note of hysteria that someone (Bea?) commented on in C&P is not
found in Tolstoy. I don't know about the translation the rest of you
are reading, but in the Signet Classic translation by Sidney Monas,
"he,he" often appears in the dialog, which seems to indicate
nervous or hysterical laughter.
Sherry, what an interesting observation about Raskolnikov and the
people who surround him. In spite of his terrible rudeness, they
continue to try to help him. You couldn't ask for a more caring
friend than Razhumikhin, Natasia is always trying to feed him, and
his mother and sister love him unreservedly. But you know,
Raskolnikov himself is also capable of generosity. He is always giving
away what little money he has and gives a very large sum of money
to Katherine Ivanovna when her husband dies.
It does seem like a more caring society than our own doesn't it? We
have progressed in many ways in the last century and a half, but I
think we may also have become more socially isolated.
Ann
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (31 of 47), Read 53
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
George Healy (malword@aol.com)
Date:
Thursday, February 03, 2000 09:48 AM
In Lolita, we had a pedophile that was nearly impossible to identify
with. In C+P we have a murderer it is almost impossible NOT to
identify with. What makes Ras empathetic? He doesn't believe in
what he is doing. Same with Sonya, Porfiry, Svidrigailov (maybe),
Marmeladov, Dunya etc., Who does believe in what they do?
Luzhin. Everyone of merit in this book is alienated from their societal
role. The scene where Ras correctly interprets the stranger
following the drunk soon-to-be whore shows the disgust of
knowledge: he realizes what's going on, is repelled by it, and every
step he takes to rectify the situation makes it only more absurd. I
re-translate the title in my head Crime(thought) and Punishment
(knowledge).
Imagine D's real-life execution experience, branded a subversive,
blindfolded, put up against a wall- he can hear the guns being
loaded, the countdown, the echoing clicks and no bullets flying! A
joke, a mind-game, and after the relief he must've felt the disgust
at the bestial element in man that let's us do these horrible things
to one another. The truth is worse than the lie...the truth is
messier and more slanderous than any fiction could be.
Luzhin is more a murderer than Ras because L is a spiritual killer,
taking advantage of his position to grind down whomever he likes,
all with full knowledge of what he does. The book ends with Ras
repeating his confession, as if at that moment and for the first time
he has sorted out the lies from the truth, unlike Svid who
half-thinks he is 'going to America'. A radical message, that the
hardest thing in life is to get an inner truth to survive contact with
reality. But the depth to which D presses the issue makes the book
a true classic...
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (32 of 47), Read 43
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Saturday, February 05, 2000 03:35 PM
George wrote:
"In Lolita, we had a pedophile that was nearly impossible to identify
with. In C+P we have a murderer it is almost impossible NOT to
identify with. What makes Ras empathetic?"
That is a very interesting observation. Is pedophilia more abhorrent
than murder? Do you think many of us have trouble feeling
sympathy for H. H. because the victim is so often on stage with
him? Unlikable as Lolita may be, Nabokov frequently reminds us that
she is, after all, just a kid. The old pawnbroker and Lizaveta, on the
other hand, make fairly brief appearances in C&P. Raskolnikov does
a pretty good job of repressing the murder of Lizaveta altogether. If
his only victim had been that louse, the pawnbroker, would the
robbery and murder still have been evil? In other words, can you
agree with any part of his justification of the crime?
Are there any readers who find it difficult, it not impossible, to
empathize with Raskolnikov? He is downright nasty to his friends
and family, but, for me at least, his obvious mental anguish arouses
considerable sympathy. And, Raskolnikov is occasionally capable of
generous acts. I can't think of anything Humbert does in LOLITA
that is unselfish.
I have a confession to make. Not only did I identify with
Raskolnikov, but sometimes I also found Svidrigailov sympathetic, in
spite of the fact that he is guilty of rape and three murders.
Perhaps this is possible because I did not really "know" his victims,
and because, like Raskolnikov, he is also capable of considerable
generosity.
I guess I don't find anyone in this book purely evil, although one
could argue that Sonia is unbelievably good.
What do you think?
Ann
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (33 of 47), Read 48
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Beatrice Soila (bpsoila@aol.com)
Date:
Saturday, February 05, 2000 04:30 PM
I just this minute finished Crime and Punishment. I started it with a
pretty dim view of Raskolnikov and, indeed, of Dostoevsky. As I said
before, the hysteria got to me. I kept asking myself why does every
single character in this book have to be insane? In short, I was an
unhappy camper.
Then, around page 300, something happened to me. I became
immersed in Raskolnikov's dilemma. He suddenly seemed totally
human and deeply sympathetic. I now think this is a very great
novel.
As usual, I need some time to sort out my thoughts before saying
anything meaningful here. Anyway, I felt compelled to get down
something now.
I am so glad to have found CC!
Bea
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (34 of 47), Read 36
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Barbara Moors (bar647@aol.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 08:13 AM
I am still only on page 220 but not because of any lack of desire to
read...because of "real" life interference. Like Bea, initially I wasn't
sure that I was going to like this one. The hysteria and generally
nightmarish quality in the beginning made it hard for me to connect.
However, after about the first 100 pages or so, I was hooked and
keep picking it up every chance I get. Unfortunately, the chances
have been limited.
Does anyone else like Razumikhun as much as I do? I find myself
reading his soliloquys carefully now because there is always some
interesting little nugget buried in all of the wordiness, like the lying
to come to the truth observation quoted earlier.
Also, Ann, I was interested that your translation punctuates often
with "he-he" to show the nervousness. I'm reading the Pevear and
Volokhonsky translation that someone else here mentioned. They
use the descriptive term "nervous laughter" but don't actually use
the laughter as part of the text. I get the sense that I like that
better though it's a very small thing.
And, Theresa, I agree with you. Dostoevsky's writing is very clean
in terms of the actual descriptions. However, his scenes and
characters are more complex than Tolstoy's, I think, though I'm
going to have to consider that a bit longer. I get the sense that
they are more a forerunner to someone like McCarthy though
McCarthy does sometimes lose that descriptive
straightforwardness.
I remember reading that Nabakov had a great deal of admiration for
Tolstoy but strongly disliked Dostoevksy's writing. Can those of you
who have done more Nabakov reading than I have elaborate on
this?
Barb
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (35 of 47), Read 36
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 08:46 AM
Barbara: I find the "nervous laughter" increases as one gets to the
end of this novel.
It is hard not to like Raskolnikov despite his murder. He sets out to
do it academically, almost like solving one problem: This lady must
die in order to bring at least some good. And during the actual
deed, I found I also caught my breath when Lizaveta is found in the
room "witnessing" the event. Whereas I would have broke down in
despair, Raskolnikov just kills two birds with one axe, sort of speak,
and proceeds ever onward. I also find that he does not think of
Lizaveta as victim very often, for that is the weakness within his
deed.
I found some of the scenes of poverty almost impossible to read, it
stirs up so much pity and disgust that you want to slap the author
for forcing you to look at it. The images of the children "trembling"
in the corner while their world falls apart is horrific. It is when
Raskolnikov gives money that one sees he is just deluded with his
ideas, not truly mad.
In fact, what is one to make of this giving away money? Svidrigailov
tries to atone for his "sins" with Raskolnikov's sister by giving her
money "no strings attached." One could argue that Raskolnikov
gives out money to help alleviate some of the guilt he is wrestling
with constantly. Only Porfiry seems to use money to deceive.
Dan
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (36 of 47), Read 37
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Beatrice Soila (bpsoila@aol.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 09:03 AM
Barb -
I have the David Magarshack translation. His version of "nervous
laughter" is "Ha, ha, ha!" I am seriously tempted to do my re-read
with the Pulvear version, but when?
You are right about Nabakov and Dostoevski. The following comes
from Nabakov's Lectures on Russian Literature. I highly recommend
this book, in which Nabokov discusses Chekhov, Dostoevski, Gogol,
Gorki, Tolstoy, and Turgenev.
My position in regard to Dostoevski is a curious and difficult one. In
all my courses I approach literature from the only point of view
that literature interests me -- namely the point of view of enduring
art and individual genius. From this point of view Doestoevski is not
a great writer, but a rather mediocre one -- with flashes of
excellent humor, but, alas, with wastelands of literary platitudes in
between. In Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov for some reason
or other kills an old female pawnbroker and her sister. Justice in
the shape of an inexorable police officer closes slowly in on him
until in the end he is driven to a public confession, and through the
love of a noble prostitute he is brought to a spiritual regeneration
that did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was
written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be
received a little cynically by experienced readers. My difficulty,
however, is that not all of the readers to whom I talk in this or
other classes are experienced. A good third, I should say, do not
know the difference between real literature and pseudo-literature,
and to such readers Dostoevski may seem more important and
artistic than such trash as our American historical novels or things
called From Here to Eternity and such like balderdash.
However, I shall speak at length about a number of really great
artists -- and it is on this high level that Dostoevski is to be
criticized. ...
My typing fingers are getting tired but Nabokov has more to say
about Dostoevski in general and Crime and Punishment in particular.
The main artistic crime with which Nabakov charges Dostoevski
seems to be sentimentality.
Bea
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (37 of 47), Read 35
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dick Haggart (law@haggart.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 10:18 AM
I think Nabokov has nailed it on Dostoyevsky. And I never warmed
up to Raskolnikov at all (from a reading a couple of years ago; I
haven't reread it for this cycle). My recollection is that he was poor
and struggling, gave away all his money to various people on
impulse, immediately regretted each act of generosity, decided to
kill the pawnbroker to reconstitute his dissipated purse (justifying
his act morally with a muddled analysis of the evils of lending
money), screwed up the theft and ended up killing an innocent
bystander. For all of this and after much very Russian gabbling and
soul-searching, he got a few years in Siberia instead of a noose.
Frankly, I found him a tiresome, loathsome little toad of a man in
almost all respects. Well-depicted as such, however.
I've never thought of the book exactly in the terms Nabokov
described it ("banal") but that is so true. The story has no great
theme or idea, it seems to me. Just a number of
not-very-interesting people, who spend inordinate amounts of time
not-very-successfully examining their not-very-interesting lives and
mental processes all coming to a not-very-satisfying conclusion.
The Chilblained Lawyer Is... <IMG SRC=)
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (38 of 47), Read 40
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Beatrice Soila (bpsoila@aol.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 10:32 AM
WARNING: THIS SHOULD PROBABLY NOT BE READ BEFORE AN
INDEPENDENT READING OF PART 4, CHAPTER 4 OF THE NOVEL
My typing fingers have recovered and I cannot resist citing another
couple of thought-provoking paragraphs on Crime and Punishment.
Need I note that I do not necessarily agree?
The flaw, the crack in it, which in my opinion causes the whole
edifice to crumble ethically and esthetically may be found in part
ten, chapter 4 (sic). It is in the beginning of the redemption scene
when Raskolnikov, the killer, discovers through the girl Sonya the
New Testament. She has been reading to him about Jesus and the
raising of Lazarus. So far so good. But then comes this singular
sentence that for sheer stupidity has hardly the equal in
world-famous literature: "The candle was flickering out, dimly
lighting up in the poverty of the room the murderer and the harlot
who had been reading together the eternal book." "The murderer
and the harlot" and "the eternal book" -- what a triangle. This is a
crucial phrase, of a typical Doestoevskian rhetorical twist. Why is it
so crude and so inartistic?
I suggest that neither a true artist nor a true moralist -- neither a
good Christian nor a good philosopher -- neither a poet nor a
sociologist -- should have placed side by side, in one breath, in one
gust of false eloquence a killer together with whom? -- a poor
streetwalker, bending their completely different heads over that
holy book. The Christian God, as understood by those who believe
in the Christian God, has pardoned the harlot nineteen centuries
ago. The killer, on the other hand, must first be examined
medically. The inhuman and idiotic crime of Raskolnikov cannot be
even remotely compared to the plight of a girl who impairs human
dignity by selling her body. The murderer and the harlot reading
the eternal book -- what nonsense. There is no rhetorical link
between a filthy murderer and this unfortunate girl. There is only
the conventional link of the Gothic novel and the sentimental novel.
It is a shoddy literary trick, not a masterpiece of pathos and piety.
Moreover, look at the absence of artistic balance. We have been
shown Raskolnikov's crime in all sordid detail and we also have been
given half a dozen different explanations for his exploit. We have
never been shown Sonya in the exercise of her trade. The situation
is a glorified cliche. The harlot's sin is taken for granted. Now I
submit that the true artist is the person who never takes anything
for granted.
Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Russian Literature.
Bea
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (39 of 47), Read 39
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dick Haggart (law@haggart.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 10:40 AM
Right on, Vladimir! C&P could have used a few good sex scenes. But
then what book couldn't?
The Chilblained Lawyer Is... , Read 41
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Beatrice Soila (bpsoila@aol.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 10:46 AM
Come to think of it, I am absolutely incapable of imagining Sonya,
as described by FD, "plying her trade." This has to be one of the
purest and most virginal characters in all literature. Surely, a
shortcoming in C&P.
Bea
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (41 of 47), Read 36
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
R Bavetta (rbavetta@prodigy.net)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 11:12 AM
Just sticking my head in to say that in my 2 or maybe 3 previous
readings of C&P, I don't remember myself sympathizing with
Raskalnikov one whit. The closest I came to liking the sod was
feelings of intense irritation that he could be so stupid.
Ruth
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (42 of 47), Read 36
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 11:07 AM
Barb,
Razumikhun is definitely the most likable character in the novel.
Would that we all had friends as kind and forgiving.
Dan, I agree with you about the scenes of wrenching poverty that
Dostoevski describes. The plight of the family of Katherine
Ivanovna, who truly is insane because the T.B. has affected her
brain, is heartbreaking. There was no social safety net in 19th
century Russia, and the consequences could be horrific.
Raskolnikov is not meant to be an evil person. I think that is one
reason why Dostoevski shows him giving away money so frequently.
It also demonstrates that money is not his motivator. Pride is.
Raskolnikov, who has no future because he lives in such abject
poverty that he cannot afford to continue his studies, longs to
believe that he is in fact special, a true member of the elite to
whom different standards apply.
Bea, like you I appreciated this book more and more as I read. I
was very interested in the information you provided about
Nabokov's opinion of Dostoevski. Nabokov is a favorite of mine, but
his style and subject matter are completely different from those of
Dostoevski. Perhaps that explains in part why Nabokov disliked him.
Nabokov was a master of beautiful prose, but Dostoevski rarely
turns a striking phrase and his writing is quite repetitious.
(Raskolnikov must describe himself as "vile" 50 times in my
translation). The power of Dostoevski's writing, for me at least, lies
in his exploration of ideas, the nature of the human psyche, and the
search for religious meaning. I don't think these were themes that
interested Nabokov.
Is Dostoevski sentimental? I guess you could describe the very last
pages of the novel that way. Sonia, the prostitute, with the heart
of gold, might also be termed a sentimental character. She is
one-sided and not very well developed. To me she seems more like
a symbol of absolute goodness and a reminder that society often
falsely judges people than a mawkish figure.
In general, I would disagree that Dostoevski is sentimental. Most of
his characters are very complex. They search for God and meaning,
but they question right to the end. There are no easy answers.
Bea, I think I need to get that book as I am also very interested in
Nabokov's opinions of Tolstoy. Both Nabokov and Tolstoy were from
the noble class, which gave them something in common. In some of
his later writings at least, after he got religion, Tolstoy could be
very sentimental himself. I am thinking particularly of a story Barb
and I read here on Classics Corner, Master and Man. I know that
Nabokov has a very high opinion of Gogol, in part because of his
facility with words and their many nuances.
Ann
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (43 of 47), Read 31
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 02:58 PM
It seems once again a writer is branded with that term
"sentimental" (that was Kent's term for Ray Bradbury). Could
someone please define this term and inculcate me in why this is a
"no-no" for any writer.
To concentrate on the plot alone does make this novel seem facile:
Young student decides to do the perfect murder and yield social
good but finds family with alcoholic father and prostitute daughter
and, in the end, discovers his heart and soul. Sure, it sounds like an
ABC After-School Special.
And Lolita?: Man marries to get close to young girl. When wife dies,
he kidnaps girl for sex and fun under the sun. When she escapes,
he finds the man who helps her and kills him too.
It's not just the plot we're dealing with here--it is how this plot is
constructed that is interesting. Dostoyevsky manages to bring into
the flow of his novel issues of morality and soul-searching that
keeps the pace both profound and provocative. I don't find the
spaces between the ideas literary wastelands.
Granted, this isn't his best work--I've always found The Devils his
best book. But I find Nobokov a bit too glib with his criticism,
especially what little I have seen of it so far. So he didn't like
Dostoyevksy over Tolstoy? Big deal.
Dan
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (44 of 47), Read 31
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Beatrice Soila (bpsoila@aol.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 04:25 PM
Dan -
So Nabokov's failing is glibness if Dostoevski's is sentimentality? I
think that's a fair assessment.
I think Ann has the right idea. If we look at Dostoevski on
Nabokov's terms, FD does come up wanting. Nabokov is looking for
artistic detail. Also lyricism. VN is an art for art's sake man.
FD is more a novelist of ideas and philosophy. Generally, I myself
don't like my nose rubbed in ideas either. I think that's why C&P
didn't initially grab me. I found Raskolnikov's ideas repugnant for one
thing and I couldn't figure out how he could justify the murder even
under his own philosophy. I kept thinking one would really have to
be insane to equate the old woman's murder with anything
Napoleon might have done.
But half-way through I realized that I wasn't supposed to like
Raskolnikov and everything came clear. Then I got swept up in the
message. I guess Raskolnikov is likeable not because he was
capable of the crime but because he was capable of being
destroyed by it. I'm still not being too articulate here, I know.
Anyway, I ended up thinking the philosophy was grand and the
book profound.
I'm glad that there is room for "pure art" like that of Nabokov and
Flaubert and (dare I say it?) Joyce and and the "sentiment" that we
find in Dostoevski and Dickens. (By the way, VN covers Dickens'
Bleak House in Lectures on Literature. He let Dickens off the hook,
though).
Sorry for rambling, Bea
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (45 of 47), Read 24
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 06, 2000 05:29 PM
I guess Raskolnikov is likeable not because he was capable of the
crime but because he was capable of being destroyed by it.
I like that very much, Bea.
We read BLEAK HOUSE here on Classics Corner, and it was one of
my least favorite selections. Dickens is more sentimental that
Dostoevski ever dreamed of being. I am surprised that Nabokov let
him off so easy.
I think that Dan has a good point. Sentiment is not necessarily bad.
It can, of course, become so if it is carried to extremes. If, for
example the scene between Sonia and Raskolnikov which was
analyzed by Nabokov ended in Raskolnikov accepting God and
religion, it would have been too facile. Instead, Raskolnikov is
temporarily attracted to God, but he continues to question and
resist accepting his guilt for almost the entire book.
WARNING-PLOT SPOILER
Dostoevski's characters long for certitude and religious comfort, but
it seems almost impossible for them to stop questioning. True, after
a long time, in the last two pages Sonia's love finally breaks through
to Raskolnikov. He decides to stop analyzing and start living. "Life
replaced logic." I wish him the best, but his creator did not
convince me that he would ever find true peace.
Ann
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (46 of 47), Read 5
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
George Healy (malword@aol.com)
Date:
Monday, February 07, 2000 10:29 AM
C+P's conclusion is undoubtedly weak and unconvincing. D's gifts as
a writer are undoubtedly not on the order of a James or a Dickens.
But they are equal or superior to, say, a Hawthorne or Poe or
Nabokov...and that makes him worthy of consideration I think.
Intensity of consciousness is where D excels (to me, anyway), and
the little touch of Lizaveta's hand helplessly rising as Ras closes in
is worth many chapters of Pnin or Tuesdays with Morrie. Ras's
actions are nowhere justifiable (even to himself, really) but all of us
can't be Razumikhin's, and at least Ras has the sense to be
tormented both by his own state and by the state of his country
and its people.
If the book has a devil, I think it would be Luzhin...he is the symbol
of what is worst in life to Dostoevsky, and in many ways I agree
with him. Callous and casual destructiveness of the type Luz
practices is something all of us face almost day to day, both (if we
are honest) in ourselves and in those around us. Hyper-awareness
of corruption of the sort Ras is afflicted with leads to many roads,
most of them cluttered with suicides and alcoholics and burned-out
shells of human beings... at least (through these characters) Dos is
groping his way towards possible solutions to the problem of how to
stay intense and open and aware of self and others without going
completely mad...
<BR>
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (47 of 47), Read 4
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dale Short (dshort5005@aol.com)
Date:
Monday, February 07, 2000 11:04 AM
George: Your note about R reminds me of a favorite quote--whose
source, as usual, I forget...
"The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the
over-examined life is not capable of being truly lived."
A tough balance to strike, in this world.
Dale in Ala.
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (49 of 61), Read 41
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dick Haggart (law@haggart.com)
Date:
Monday, February 07, 2000 01:02 PM
One aspect of this book that has always interested me is the
attitude toward the pawnbroker. She is )
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (64 of 75), Read 44
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Friday, February 11, 2000 11:11 AM
George and Dan,
I have enjoyed your discussion regarding the role of "thinking" in
this book. Dostoevski's interest in ideas is one of the things I like
best about his writing. I agree with Dan that, much as ideas
interested Dostoevski, he was well aware of the limitations of
rational thought. Emotion and human relationships are equally
important in our lives.
In addition, Dostoevski seemed to be always be searching for a
deeper meaning to life, a meaning that rational thought cannot
provide. This led him to explore religious faith as a possible answer.
His characters express so much doubt that I don't think he every
arrived at an unqualified acceptance of faith, but it is his journey,
rather than the destination, that most interests me.
George mentioned that Raskolnikov was caught in a kind of "mental
loop", which is a very apt description of his thinking patterns. His
theory regarding the rights of exceptional people (supermen?) to
commit crimes may have been based on cold logic to start with, but
his illness made it almost impossible for him to think productively
once he had become obsessed with this idea. Obsessive thinking
confused him and made it difficult for him to make decisions,
especially once the crime had been committed. He was constantly
weighing competing alternatives in his mind. Should he try to outwit
the police investigators? Or was it really better to confess and put
an end to the mental torment? His inability to think of almost
anything else, along with the uncertainty of his situation, drove him
to a frenzy.
Raskolnikov was not a good subject to test his theory. He was not
a rational man. Or maybe it is fairer to say that his rational side was
overwhelmed by his emotional side. What about truly exceptional
people? Napoleon, for example. Do you think he ever lost any sleep
over the crimes he committed to rise to the top? Do you have to be
amoral to start with in order to feel that the greater good justifies
the evil you commit on your way to obtaining it.
****PLOT SPOILER***
So why did Raskolnikov confess?
Was he too fundamentally decent to commit a murder and live with
the guilt? Did he think that he was going to be charged by the
police and confession would mitigate his sentence? Was Sonia some
kind of emissary from God whose "insatiable compassion" convinced
him to do the right thing?
*** Question for the lawyers in our midst****
Is it common for murderers of strangers to feel guilt and the need
to confess?
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (65 of 75), Read 46
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dottie Randall (randallj@ix.netcom.com)
Date:
Friday, February 11, 2000 11:25 AM
Ann -- Not reading this one but enjoying the discussion just the
same -- your question regarding Napoleon and his losing sleep over
crimes committed in his rise and the question of needing to be
amoral to feel justified in evil as a means to the greater good -- led
me to think of The Prince -- how would these questions fit into the
means to power outlined in The Prince and how would those ideas
fit into the story in Crime and Punishment?
This also has me calculating how this all fits with my own recent
reading The Poisonwood Bible and some ideas utilized in that tale.
Underlying themes of literature through the ages -- good versus evil
-- thinking versus feeling.
Dottie
ID is an oxymoron!
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (66 of 75), Read 50
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dick Haggart (law@haggart.com)
Date:
Friday, February 11, 2000 12:24 PM
occasionally, a murderer's guilt will prompt a confession; more
often, they implicate themselves bragging about the murder to their
buddies. In more modern parlance Raskolnikov might confess along
these lines, delivered in a dull monotone, with occasional shrugs:
"You know, I was just hanging, and, you know needin' stuff, you
know? So I go to the old lady's place and she come in on me, I had
to cap her, 'cause she was gonna yell or something', you know? Jus'
happened. Then the other one. Had to do her, 'cause she was
*there*, you know, lookin' at me. And so then I took the stuff and
split."
Modern criminals tend to cut out the psychological middle-man.
The Chilblained Lawyer Is...
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (67 of 75), Read 51
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Beatrice Soila (bpsoila@aol.com)
Date:
Friday, February 11, 2000 03:58 PM
POSSIBLE PLOT SPOILERS???!!!
******************************************
Ann and All -
I think the confession was prompted by a combination of things.
Ras confesses right after he is told of Svid's suicide. Svid told Sonia
that Ras had two choices, suicide or Siberia. Ras chose life, aided, I
think, by Sonia's love and faith. Anyway, Ras could not go on as he
had been -- it became time for him to lay his burden down, one
way or the other.
We read in the paper everyday about people who pick Svid's
alternative after a murder or mass murder. These are generally
people who commit the crime based on the same sort of distorted
theories that took hold of Ras.
I agree with Dick that your common criminal that commits murder in
the course of another felony is a sociopath whose victim gets in
the way. Such a person, I believe, would be unlikely to feel much
guilt or to confess.
Bea
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (68 of 75), Read 38
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ernest Belden (drernest@juno.com)
Date:
Friday, February 11, 2000 05:23 PM
Dick,
It always amazes me what strange things happen once we get to
know people and situations. I also had experiences like you, namely
running into the offspring of interesting or famous people. I could
give sufficient example to bore the heck out of most of our CC
people but I won't do this. I have too much admiration and respect
for Ann. But it is fascinating to get a glimpse of the inside of history
or eminent people on a personal basis rather than from books.
Just the same I recently read The Education of Henry Adams and
he does on occasion describes historical figures and how they really
act and what they think and say. The trouble with history and
historical works is what is left out and what is distorted. Did anyone
read the recent stories about Elenore Roosevelt and her supposed
radical GI lover. I read a story that FDR disposed of him forcefully
but who knows...
Ernie
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (69 of 75), Read 38
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Sherry Keller (shkell@earthlink.net)
Date:
Saturday, February 12, 2000 08:21 AM
I finished C&P last night. It’s amazing how the book has changed so
much since I was 19. I know I didn’t have the urge to tell everyone
to grow up and quit talking so much. When you are 19 "theories"
about life and what’s important are whirling around in your head and
you don’t care so much about trivialities like "how am I going to pay
for supper." I wonder if Dostoevsky was showing us what people
are really like in those times, or if he used a considerable amount of
artist’s license. I think some sections were absolutely brilliant. One I
especially enjoyed was Dunya and her mother’s interview with
Luzhin where she gives him the heave. I was glued to the book and
cheering her on. There was another small section that I thought
captured an essential aspect of human nature. Ras is in his room --
it’s early on right after the murder and some people are talking
about the horrible event. He focuses on a flower on the wallpaper
and studies it to distraction. Dostoevsky is deft at some of these
little nuances of human behavior.
But I’m still not sure I really understand Ras, or even what
Dostoevsky thought of him. At one point after his confession he
acted as if he thought he hadn’t committed a crime and he seemed
disgusted with himself that he had confessed. If he really thought
that, then I don’t see what all the agonizing was about. He kept
flip-flopping on the big issues. As if he could see the whole picture,
all the pros and cons, all the possibilities, but just couldn’t decide
which way to choose. Do you think Dostoevsky had a clear view of
what Ras was all about?
Sherry
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (70 of 75), Read 34
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Beatrice Soila (bpsoila@aol.com)
Date:
Saturday, February 12, 2000 12:18 PM
Sherry -
I am torn on your question. Either FD didn't have a clear vision of
Ras or he had a clear vision of an incoherent character.
Bea
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (71 of 75), Read 35
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Sherry Keller (shkell@earthlink.net)
Date:
Saturday, February 12, 2000 01:39 PM
I read a really old Norton Critical Edition and there are some letters
and notes about C&P from D at the end. I need to read some of
those. Maybe he'll tell us.
Sherry
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (72 of 75), Read 31
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Saturday, February 12, 2000 03:44 PM
Sherry,
Like you, I first read C&P when I was young, when it made a much
stronger impression on me. At that point in my life I had just begun
to think about abstract issues such as free will, the parameters of
morality, and the meaning of life. I found this book quite
intoxicating. This time around I had less patience with the rambling
style although I still think it is a great book.
Was Dostoevski painting a realistic picture of Russian society? He
himself referred to his style as "fantastic realism", and I think he
was well aware that he was not showing everyday reality. Feelings
and speech are very exaggerated in his books because his
characters are living life at such a feverish pitch. Still, I think that
there is an emotional and psychological truth to his work that is
quite remarkable.
You asked a wonderful question: "Do you think Dostoevski had a
clear view of what Ras was all about?"
Personally, I think he did. The root of Raskolnikov's name means
"divided." He was apparently raised by loving parents who gave him
a clear sense of right and wrong. His dream about the horse
supports this. At the same time, he longed fervently to be one of
those special people who had the right to make his own rules,
rather than the desperately poor ex-student he in fact was. He
couldn't be both moral and above all ethical rules at the same time,
so he constantly wavered back and forth.
Still, Raskolnikov had so much intellectual pride that I don't think he
would ever have confessed if he had not been physically and
mentally exhausted. Admitting his guilt was tantamount to saying
that he was a "louse" just like the rest of us. I think he confessed
because he was ill and he couldn't stand the uncertainty of his
position any more. He needed things settled so he could stop
obsessing about them. He did not feel true remorse until he had
been in Siberia for some time.
Writers use their lives as raw material, and in the late 1840's,
Dostoevski went through a period of mental and physical illness
which sounds somewhat like that experienced by Raskolnikov. My
son has a CD containing the Monarch notes for scores of novels. I
know these are not entirely reliable, but I found these remarks
about Dostoevski's life quite interesting:
About this time Dostoyevsky became seriously ill, both mentally
and physically. Poor, quarrelsome, the victim of unpredictable
fevers and convulsions, he soon alienated his admirers as well as
his editors. Furthermore, since his erratic behavior was put down
to personality rather than to the illness that it was, he was
frequently laughed at, jeered, and mocked. Turgenev, for instance,
so despised him that he would engage him in conversation merely
for the pleasure of torturing him.
Like Raskolnikov, Dostoevski was also sent to Siberia for committing
a crime, and like his character he also eventually found consolation
there in the Bible.
Raskolnikov must be very difficult to understand for those who have
never experienced mental confusion. Dostoevski had. I don't think
his portrait of Raskolnikov makes any sense unless you keep in mind
the character's physical and mental illness.
At least, that's my interpretation.:) Sherry, I would be very
interested in hearing what Dostoevski himself had to say about this
novel in the notes and letters printed in the Norton edition.
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (73 of 75), Read 46
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Barbara Moors (bar647@aol.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 13, 2000 08:24 AM
I'm still reading a few pages of C&P every chance I get, but am
poking behind the rest of you. One of my favorite things about
reading the classics is realizing how much they reflect in
contemporary events, writing, etc. Porfiry, in his initial
interrogations of Ras at least, looks a lot like Colombo in the old TV
series. In my translation, in the middle of questions, they have him
saying in parenthesis "I'm bothering you so much; I'm quite
ashamed" And, in other spots, he alternates between being
obsequious and then zoning in with a knife-like question or
observation. Do you suppose that something as light as a TV series
could have been influenced by Fyodor Dostoevsky?
Also, I'm currently listening to Frank McCourt read his new book 'Tis
on tape and what book do you suppose he read on the ship on the
way to the U.S.? Crime and Punishment, of course. It was one of
the few books in the ship's library and he thought it might be a
detective story. He gets hooked on it, but it makes him feel guilty
because he took the money that he needed to get to the U.S. from
an old lady who died while he was taking care of her. An intellectual
ship's steward tells him, when he sees him reading it, that if he
reads Dostoevsky, he'll never be lonely because D will always give
him something to think about.
Also, Ann, I think you make excellent points about D's life and its
correlations with Raskolnikov's. It fits with what I've read about
him. Also, in my reading about Tolstoy, I remember that he
detested D.
Barb
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (74 of 75), Read 47
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 13, 2000 09:29 AM
Barb,
These great Russian writers were really competitive, weren't they? I
was disappointed to read about Turgenev's treatment of
Dostoevski. I had a different image of the author of First Love and
Fathers and Sons, which we read here on CC. I remember reading
that Dostoevski detested Turgenev, but then I don't know
Turgenev's side of the story.
I like your Colombo analogy. It really fits. I too found parts of this
book quite contemporary. Luzhin's economic philosophy, for
example, reminded me a lot of the "trickle down" theory popular
during Reagan's presidency:
(Part II, 3)
In the past I was told, for example, 'Love thy neighbor," and I used
to love him and what came of it?...What came of it was that I tore
my coat in half and shared it with my neighbor. And we both
remained half naked. As the Russian proverb says: Go after lots of
rabbits at once, you won't catch one. Now science says: Love
yourself above all, for everything in the world is based on
self-interest. If you love yourself above all, you will manage your
business properly, and your coat will remain whole. Economic
science adds that the more successfully private business is run in
society and the more (so to speak) whole coats there are, the
firmer are its foundations and the more the commonweal
flourishes. Thus, while busy acquiring only and exclusively for
myself, I actually, at the same time as it were, acquire for all and
help bring about a condition in which my neighbor receives
something more than a torn coat. And he receives it not from the
private charity of a few but as a result of overall improvement.
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (75 of 75), Read 48
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 13, 2000 10:44 AM
Barb: You're absolutely right about Porfiry resembling a 1800s
Russian Columbo. I find Porfiry a very interesting character--he
knows who did--how could anyone with half a brain not know what
was truly bothering Ras--but with the painter's confession, he really
can't do anything but try to get Ras to confess. I think he did a
good job. I don't believe we should fault him as "torturing" Ras--Ras
needed to sweat under the lamps, sort of speak. Did him some
good.
I also agree with Mccourt's anecdote about "you'll never be lonely
once you read Dostoyevksy." That's true, very true. His scenes
keep playing through your mind, his situations and experiences
become a part of you. You begin to notice just how much human
nature is actually rooted not in time or place but within humanity.
Dan
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (71 of 73), Read 27
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 15, 2000 04:49 PM
As a dreamer myself, I want to note the vivid, wonderful dreams
which pervade this work. My brother in law is an epileptic, and he
says he has been plagued by the most beautiful yet haunting
dreams all his life. And I find here Dostoyevsky making use of these
dreams and I would almost dare say (knowing full well this is an
"authorial fallacy") that many of these dreams described were
dreams Dostoyevsky actually experienced. They seem too real, too
vivid, to be totally fictionalized.
There's the dream about the poor horse trying to pull everyone and
the little boy crying and crying for the dying and dead beast.
There's Svid's dreams of waking up only to find himself waking up
again. The image of the trembling girl transforming into a grinning
harlot made the hairs on my neck stand up. Even though I was just
a reader, I was so relieved when he found himself once again
waking up in the cold bed in the darkness.
Finally, there is Ras' dream in Siberia, a dream that I feel reinforces
the theme of the novel: The inherent dangers of "rational thought
and the kinds of society such thought may create:"
In his illness he had dreamed that the whole world was doomed to
fall victim to some terrible, as yet unknown and unseen pestilence
spreading to Europe from the depths of Asia. Everyone was to
perish, except for certain, very few, chosen ones. Some new
trichinae had appeared, microscopic creatures that lodged
themselves in men's bodies. But these creatures were spirits,
endowed with reason and will. Those who received them into
themselves immediately became possessed and mad. But
never, never had people considered themselves so intelligent
and unshakeable in the truth as did these infected ones. Never
had they thought their judgements, their scientific conclusions,
their moral convictions and beliefs more unshakeable. Entire
settlements, entire cities and nations would be infected and go
mad. Everyone became anxious, and no one understood anyone
else; each thought the truth was contained in himself alone, and
suffered looking at others, beat his breast, wept, and wrung his
hands. They did not know whom or how to judge, could not agree
on what to regard as evil, what as good. They did not know whom
to accuse, whom to vindicate. People killed each other in some
sort of meaningless spite...
I'll stop here, but this is an amazing passage. Writing in 1866,
Dostoyevsky's nightmare becomes the 20th Century's reality: the
fragmentation of "truth" and "justice," the horrors of amorality, of
violence bred from a lack of fixed moral guideposts and even plain
boredom. At least Ras can wake up and find himself in a Siberian
prison--what about us? Pinch yourself when you watch the
news--it's no dream.
Dan
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (72 of 73), Read 27
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Tuesday, February 15, 2000 05:04 PM
Excellent note, Dan. I agree with you about the message of the
novel. Svidrigailov's dream was absolutely chilling to me too.
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (73 of 73), Read 12
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dottie Randall (randallj@ix.netcom.com)
Date:
Wednesday, February 16, 2000 06:00 AM
Well -- Dan -- I have to say that this is one powerful note -- I
need to read this but will do so later -- think I will keep this
discussion handy when I finally tackle the book. But -- to tie
together C and P and An Instance of the Fingerpost -- I just
posted there that perhaps we are reading the old story -- good/evil
and which is which and so on! Interesting that there seems to be a
relationship to be drawn between the two books here.
Dottie
ID is an oxymoron!
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Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (62 of 79), Read 11
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ian Marks (comfortably_numb@ecosse.net)
Date:
Wednesday, February 16, 2000 05:00 PM
> So why did Raskolnikov confess?
Ann --
Simplistic suggestion coming up. His superman mentality leads him
to commit the crime. Paradoxically, no-one will know how 'super' he
is unless he fesses up.
Many murderers confess (I believe) out of some sort of macho-ego
thing; I don't see any of that in Ras. His confession seems to flow -
ultimately - from the genesis of the crime. The chance to skedaddle
presents itself on a number of occasions, and he doesn't take it.
It's almost as though he knew that confession was inevitable and it
was just a matter of when (with a little prodding from others!).
Just my tuppence worth.
Ian
Post New Topic | Reply to: "February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment"
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (74 of 79), Read 19
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Sherry Keller (shkell@earthlink.net)
Date:
Wednesday, February 16, 2000 02:35 PM
I thought you all might be interested in seeing a draft of a letter
Dostoevsky wrote to M.N. Katkov during the first part of
September, 1865, asking to have C&P published in his magazine.
This is one of the pieces at the end of my Norton Critical Edition.
"May I hope to place a story in your magazine R.V. I have been
writing it here in Wiesbaden, for two months already, and I am now
finishing it. It will be five to six signatures long. There remains two
week’s work or maybe more to be done. In any case, I can say that
probably in a month and no later, it ought to reach the office of
R.V.
The idea of the story cannot run counter to your magazine’s; on
the contrary. It is a psychological account of a crime. A young man
expelled from the university, a bourgeois by origin and living in
extreme poverty, lighthearted, unstable in his ideas, has
surrendered to several strange, ‘unfinished’ ideas which are in the
air. He decided to get out of his bad position at one stroke. He
decided to kill an old woman, a Titular Councillor’s wife, who lent
money on interest. The old woman is stupid, deaf, sick, greedy,
takes usurious interest rates, is mean, and oppresses the life of
another person – she torments her younger sister who is working
for her. ‘She is good for nothing, what is she living for? Is she useful
to anybody?’ Those questions drive the young man out of his mind.
He decides to kill her, rob her, in order to make happy his mother,
who lives in a provincial district, to rescue a sister, who lives at a
landlord’s estate as a companion, from the lecherous molestations
of the head of that landlord’s family, molestations which threaten to
ruin her – to finish his studies, go abroad, and then be honest the
rest of his life, firm and unyielding in the fulfillment of his human
duty to mankind. Which of course will redeem the crime, if one can
call crime that act towards the old, deaf, stupid, mean, and sick
woman who does not know herself what she is living for and who a
month later might have died anyway. Although such crimes are
terribly difficult to perform – i.e., almost always they leave behind
crude, visible clues, and so forth, and they leave terribly much to
chance, which almost always betrays . . . . he, in an entirely
accidental manner, succeeds in performing his plan both quickly and
successfully.
He spends almost a month after that until the final catastrophe;
almost no suspicions existed or could exist against him. There, too,
the psychological process of the crime develops. Insoluble problems
arise for the murderer; unsuspected and unexpected feelings
torment his heart. The truth of God and the law of the earth take
their toll, and he ends by being forced to denounce himself, forced,
even if he should perish in jail, to rejoin people. The feeling of
isolation and separation from mankind which he felt as soon as he
committed the crime wore him down. The law of truth and human
nature took its toll, . . . . the criminal himself decides to accept
torments in order to redeem his act. But it is difficult for me to
clarify fully my idea. Beside this, my story makes allusion to the idea
that the punishment meted out by the law to the criminal deters
the criminal far less than the lawgivers think, because he himself
requires it morally.
I saw this in even the most undeveloped people, in the coarsest
cases. I wanted to express this in an educated man of the new
generation, in order to make the idea more clearly and palpably
visible. Some events of the most recent time convinced me that my
subject is not at all eccentric, particularly the murderer being an
educated and even good man. Last year in Moscow they told me
about a student expelled from the university after the Moscow
student affair when he decided to rob a postcoach and kill the
postman. There is much evidence in our newspapers about the
unusual instability of ideas which impel people to terrible acts. (The
seminarist who killed a girl after an agreement with her in a barn
and whom they took an hour later at lunch.) In a word, I am
convinced that my subject is partly justified by our contemporary
days.
Naturally in this presentation of the idea of my story, I have left
out the whole plot. I guarantee the interest of it, I do not take it
on myself to judge the artistic quality of it. I have written many,
too many very, very bad things, in a hurry, to beat a deadline, etc.
This time I have written without hurrying and passionately; I shall
try, if only for my own sake, to finish it as well as possible."
Sherry
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (75 of 79), Read 12
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Wednesday, February 16, 2000 05:07 PM
That's very interesting, Sherry, especially the part about being cut
off from mankind by the crime and being motivated to confess in
order to end his isolation.
I wonder how much of the book he actually had finished when he
wrote this. I know the letter says it's almost done. In the finished
book, I think Raskolnikov's pride and desire to prove he's one of the
elite are his prime motivators, rather than any desire to help his
mother or sister. Of course, this letter is designed to sell the book
rather than explain all the fine points.
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (76 of 79), Read 9
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Wednesday, February 16, 2000 09:03 PM
Of late, I've been thinking of Camus' The Stranger, where we enter
the strange mind of the man who's not sure when his mother died
and who kills an Arab on the beach probably because the sun was
in his eyes. In the end, he never repents.
Notice: Though Ras confesses, he never repents of his crime. His
final scene crying at Sonya's knees seems more for himself, a kind
of "I'm not worthy" kind of mood. To the end, he does not believe
he was really committed a "crime." Just like the narrator of Camus's
odd little book.
Dan
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (77 of 79), Read 9
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
R Bavetta (rbavetta@prodigy.net)
Date:
Wednesday, February 16, 2000 10:28 PM
Dan, we read Camus' The Stranger here some years back.
Nomination of the esteemed Councilor Warbasse, if I recall
correctly.
Ruth, who remembers that when her brother lived in Alexandria, VA
on temporary assignment, he lived on Camus Street, called Kaymuss
St. by those who lived there.
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (78 of 79), Read 7
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Barbara Moors (bar647@aol.com)
Date:
Thursday, February 17, 2000 06:39 AM
Sherry, thanks so much for posting that letter here. Those kinds of
things from authors fascinate me and are the reason I love to read
Norton Critical Editions. I find their footnotes pretty distracting
(there was a wonderful satire on them in a recent NYer cartoon).
It seems to me that I've read before that Dostoevsky, especially
after his own youthful experiences and subsequent sentence to
Siberia, found many of the avant garde ideas being discussed in
Russia at the time fairly dangerous. I know this discussion of ideas
came up here earlier and there were comments that anyone who
writes like D could not be critical of thinking. Obviously, this is a
mind that never stops but I believe that he felt that many of the
ideas being considered at that time were contributing to the
disintegration of the society. I know that sounds dangerously like
the U.S. religious right, but D's thinking seems to me to be about an
infinity above that.
Barb
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (79 of 79), Read 5
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Sherry Keller (shkell@earthlink.net)
Date:
Thursday, February 17, 2000 07:46 AM
Barb,
This Norton's didn't have very many footnotes. And the ones it did
have were very helpful. Here's part of a letter Dos wrote to
someone named M.N. Katkov in April 1866:
"All nihilists are socialists. Socialism (particularly in its Russian form)
demands especially the severing of all connections. They are
completely certain that on the tabula rasa they will immediately
build a paradise. Fourier was convinced that all it will take is to
build on phalanstery (footnote: communal dormitory) and the whole
world will immediately be covered by phalansteries; those are his
own words. And our Chernyshevsky said that he only needed to talk
to the people for a quarter hour and immediately he would convince
them to convert to socialism. Moreover, in our poor little
defenseless Russian boys and girls, there is one more, eternally
persisting, fundamental point upon which socialism will base itself
for a long time to come: enthusiasm for the good, and the purity of
their hearts. Frauds and foul people there are many among them.
But all those high school students, schoolboys of whom I have seen
so many, converted to nihilism so purely, so selflessly in the name
of honor, truth, and true welfare. They are defenseless against
these absurdities and accept them as if they were perfection itself.
Sound science of course will eradicate it all. But when will it come?
How many victims is socialism going to swallow until then? Last of
all: sound science, even when it takes root, will not wipe out the
weeds so quickly, because sound science is still only science, and
not the direct form of civic and social reality. The poor little people
are convinced that nihilism gives them that full manifestation of the
civic and social reality and freedom."
What kind of sound science do you think he was talking about? He
sure had human nature down pat, didn't he?
Sherry
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Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (80 of 80), Read 14
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Friday, February 18, 2000 08:52 AM
It is not difficult to understand how radical political and social ideas
developed in a society where the autocratic tsars resisted even
moderate changes for so long. Russia didn't abolish serfdom until
1861, centuries behind the rest of Europe. It didn't have a
Parliament until 1905. The secret police were a significant force
long before the Communists established the KGB.
Some of the ideas advocated by Russia's young people during
Dostoevski's time were dangerous, especially those of the nihilists
and anarchists, who wanted to tear everything down and start all
over. He makes some strong arguments against them.
I do find it interesting that Dostoevski's political imprisonment made
him more conservative, rather than more radical, as often happens
in such a case. Although he became more conservative politically,
he seems to have retained a strong sympathy for the poor. It is
certainly apparent in his description of the plight of Sonia and the
Marmeladov family in Crime and Punishment.
Ann
Post New Topic | Reply to: "February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment"
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (81 of 82), Read 16
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Beatrice Soila (bpsoila@aol.com)
Date:
Friday, February 18, 2000 01:18 PM
I think Lebezyanikov is the character in C&P that comes closest to
epitomizing Dostoevski's view of the effects of radical and socialist
theories on "the little people." He's also the most comic character in
the book. And yet, and yet, he also turns out to be a hero of sorts
by standing up for Sonya.
Bea
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (82 of 82), Read 5
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Barbara Moors (bar647@aol.com)
Date:
Saturday, February 19, 2000 08:09 AM
Interesting that Dostoevsky seems to equate nihilism and socialism.
They seem very different by today's definitions, but perhaps they
were all wound together in reaction to the tsars.
Barb
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (82 of 85), Read 18
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Dick Haggart (law@haggart.com)
Date:
Saturday, February 19, 2000 11:20 AM
Socialism was the hot item, intellectually, in those days, beating
the pants off the marginally democratic market-based capitalism of
the U.S. and England. You can see the fear (still extant in Russia
today) of anarchy inherent in Dostoyevsky's story: the intellectual,
without faith, comes to grief and the very foundation of the
relationship among the little society of characters is rocked. Only in
the end, when the state has reasserted its control, and Raskolnikov
begins to toy with something resembling the faith of his fathers
does there appear to be hope for any sort of peace or redemption.
Or, as I would short-hand Russian attitudes toward their people:
"Stop thinking, shut up, and pray!"
The Chilblained Lawyer Is...
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (83 of 85), Read 17
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Saturday, February 19, 2000 01:14 PM
Barb,
I think that Dostoevsky was satirizing an extreme form of socialism,
which advocated living in common, free sex and so forth. This is
not to say that approved of the milder forms of socialism. From
what I have read, he was a firm supporter of the tsarist
government after he returned from Siberia.
I agree with you that nihilism and socialism are not the same thing.
The nihilists seem closer to anarchists, and the anarchists were a
definite group in 19th century Russia. If memory serves me
correctly it was an anarchist who assassinated Tsar Alexander II in
1881.
Russia never experienced democratic government nor capitalism. A
strong autocratic state, first led by the tsars and then by the
Communists, has been typical of their history for centuries. It
would be nice to think that their more recent experiments with
democracy and free markets will be successful, but I'm not holding
my breath.
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (84 of 85), Read 19
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
R Bavetta (rbavetta@prodigy.net)
Date:
Saturday, February 19, 2000 02:55 PM
Seems to me that Siberia could have a sobering effect on anyone's
thinking.
Ruth
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (85 of 85), Read 21
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Saturday, February 19, 2000 06:12 PM
Ruth,
You got that right. Lately, I've been feeling like I live in Siberia. Ah
well, the snow should be gone by next week and we didn't get hit
near as hard as much of the country.
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (81 of 89), Read 17
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
David Moody (davidmoody@prodigy.net)
Date:
Friday, February 25, 2000 02:49 PM
Frankly, when I finished C&P, I was a bit disappointed. The
intenseness of the writing got in the way of my appreciation of the
story and the ideas. I kept thinking, "Get to the point, already!"
But the ideas expressed in the book are staying with me, and I find
myself traveling in the paths that Dostoyevsky points out to you in
all sorts of situations.
Just as a for instance: yesterday, while reading Victory at Sea (an
account of the U.S. role in overcoming the submarine warfare of
Germany in WWI), I came across a passage where American ship
commanders, when they came across survivors of a submarine
attack, were told to go after and try to sink the submarine instead
of first rescuing the survivors. The "Greater Good" was deemed to
be stopping the submarine from further action than saving a few
lives now.
And I thought of Crime and Punishment. How did those sailors feel
about following that order? Did they feel like murderers? Did the
emotions that tore Raskolnikov apart affect them at all?
Perhaps that's one definition of a great piece of literature, one that
can change your perceptions and ways of thinking. More than just
a life-interrupter, a life-changer.
David
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (82 of 89), Read 18
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Friday, February 25, 2000 03:28 PM
Very interesting observations, David. In wartime, in particular, I
think people rationalize their actions again and again with the
concept that the higher good justifies the smaller evils that one
commits to obtain it. Sometimes it is difficult to live with that later.
I understand what you mean by wishing that Dostoevsky would
just get to the point. He spent an awful lot of time inside
Raskolnikov's head, going over and over the same ideas. After while
I sometimes thought, okay I get the picture that this guy is ill and
a prisoner of repetitive obssesive thoughts, but let's move on.
How would you compare this book to Dostoevsky's THE IDIOT,
which we read last year? It also has some very interesting ideas in
it that stick with me. However, in spite of my complaint above, I do
think that the construction of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT is tighter
than that of THE IDIOT. Maybe Dostoevsky wasn't quite so much
under the gun when he was writing it. Most of the time he lived on
the edge of financial disaster.
Being quite frugal (cheap?) myself, I found it difficult to understand
how Raskolnikov, who was desperately poor, could keep giving
away all his money. Apparently this is a trait he shared with his
creator. I found the following in my son's copy of the Monarch
notes.
After Fyodor completed his secondary education, his father sent
him in 1838 to St. Petersburg where he entered the College of
Engineers, a military school run by the Czar. Although he studied
hard and in general made a good impression on his teachers, the
young cadet was in constant financial straits. Always writing home
for more money, he describes his "terrible plight" in the most
urgent terms. When money came, though, he celebrated its
arrival with a huge banquet and drinking party for his friends, or
gambled it away shooting pool. He was generous to the point of
self-destruction. When his brother Mikhail was married, Fyodor
sent him one hundred fifty rubles. Two weeks later he was broke
again, begging him for five. This inability to manage his finances
persisted throughout his life. In fact, he was nearly always on the
brink of bankruptcy.
So what do you think motivates such people? Why did Raskolnikov
give such a large sum to Katherine Ivanovna when his own mother
and sister, not to mention himself, needed the money so badly?
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (83 of 89), Read 19
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Beatrice Soila (bpsoila@aol.com)
Date:
Friday, February 25, 2000 03:35 PM
Profligacy with money was a trait also shared by James Joyce.
Interesting, no? I wonder if being in financial straits is, in a way,
the kind of push some artists need to create.
Bea
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (84 of 89), Read 20
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Friday, February 25, 2000 03:43 PM
Now that is an interesting thought, Bea. How about it, you creative
types, do you perform best under pressure?
Ann
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (85 of 89), Read 26
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
R Bavetta (rbavetta@prodigy.net)
Date:
Friday, February 25, 2000 05:08 PM
Since I am the World's Worst Procrastinator, most of my good
performances have come when I was under pressure.
As far as C&P, I had a lot more patience with Raskolnikov's
unceasing mental circles the first time I read it, than I did the
second.
Ruth
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (86 of 89), Read 27
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
David Moody (davidmoody@prodigy.net)
Date:
Friday, February 25, 2000 10:04 PM
Contraiwise, Ruth, I'm one of the World's Best Procrastinators.
Practice makes perfect.
David
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (87 of 89), Read 24
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
R Bavetta (rbavetta@prodigy.net)
Date:
Friday, February 25, 2000 11:42 PM
Heh. I guess I worded that wrong.
Ruth
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (88 of 89), Read 14
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Saturday, February 26, 2000 12:49 PM
David et al: I tend to enjoy the Dostoyevsky treatment--the
constant circling and circling. Faulkner picked up the same
technique. Dostoyevsky generally has no real "point" to "get to--"
he's there on page one, the same point he's covering on page 987.
It's just he keeps twirling it around, watching the "point" glisten
and reflect various forms of light and shadow.
It's because of this that it becomes embedded--we have not only
"read" a work, we have "experienced" a thought-process so trained
and studied that it becomes a part of our mental code.
Or something like that.
Dan
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (89 of 89), Read 12
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Barbara Moors (bar647@aol.com)
Date:
Sunday, February 27, 2000 09:02 AM
I finally finished Crime and Punishment last night and was delighted
to find CC people still talking about it this morning. By the way, in
Dan's "incorrigible" way, I picked up Great Expectations immediately
after finishing C&P. What a change that is!
Throughout this book, and especially as I came to the end, I
thought of how much Dostoevsky has influenced modern writers.
Dan's mention of Faulkner's circling techniques is a perfect
example. Does anyone know of a writer prior to D who used this
same style? As I said before, I often felt myself to be living in
someone's nightmare. And, I'm sure that D's epilepsy played a big
part in his writing perspective. That sense of being half-in and
half-out of a dream state is so integral to his story. This may seem
very far-fetched but about half-way through C&P, I told my
husband that the movie "Blue Velvet" must've taken some of its
feel from this book. Even though the subject is very different and D
probably would have been shocked beyond words, it has this exact
same nightmare quality to it.
I was kind of surprised at the rate at which the action occurred in
Part Six. We're circling and circling in parts one through five and
then, all of a sudden, as Svidrigailov becomes more part of the
action, it felt like race-pace. S's attempted seduction of Dunya
reads almost like a melodrama. I was disappointed by the final
paragraph, not much of an inspired ending...more of a baiting for
the next book, it seemed.
David's note expresses some of my own feelings about reading
Crime and Punishment. I didn't "enjoy" the experience but think it
will probably be noodling around in my consciousness for years to
come. And, my copy of it looks like it's been through a war zone.
I'm not sure why...I always cart the books I'm reading everywhere
with me but this one really got the worst of the deal.
Barb
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (43 of 45), Read 14
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Robert Armstrong (rla@nac.net)
Date:
Thursday, March 09, 2000 02:39 PM
Once again I'm right in step. Just finished C & P today. Loved it.
Twice I had to put the book down for weeks at a time because I
was so bothered by the suffering. I'm not as emotionally protected
as I used to be. I haven't read the thread yet so that I can give
some fresh thoughts and then will come back for more comments
after I read your discussion.
Boy, D is quite the expert on extremity. In lesser hands it's
melodrama city, but I was struck by his insight into the rarified
territory of anguish, terror, delirium, loathing, madness, murder,
and mental mayhem. A lot of the inner experience of Raskolnikov
was real to me. Not every note rang true, but enough that I
entered into new ground with a greater sense of understanding
and compassion regarding these dark experiences.
And at his best D's a great storyteller. Some of those passages
really flew. Oh, that dinner that Katerina Ivanovna held for her
dead husband! I'll never think of a dinner party as a disaster again
in comparison with that! D just wouldn't let up on poor Katerina
Ivanovna.
Love is the regenerative power of the universe. I agree with that.
Whatever one has done, there's the possibility of redemption and
renewal. Not that everyone finds it, but I'm glad Roskolnikov did.
Robt
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (44 of 45), Read 15
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Daniel LeBoeuf (dan1066@yahoo.com)
Date:
Thursday, March 09, 2000 03:13 PM
Robert: Once again, you articulate with elegance and finesse what
I can only describe as a "damn good book."
Dan
Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (45 of 45), Read 15
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Ann Davey (davey@tconl.com)
Date:
Thursday, March 09, 2000 04:52 PM
Thanks for the post, Robt. I'm glad you liked the book. I don't think
everyone did.
Loved your comment about never thinking of a dinner party as a
disaster again.
Ann
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Topic:
February 2000 Book -- Crime and Punishment (44 of 44), Read 3
times
Conf:
CLASSICS CORNER
From:
Robert Armstrong (rla@nac.net)
Date:
Friday, March 10, 2000 09:24 AM
Another great thread. Many excellent comments and quotes. I love
it when someone else has the same reaction that I do, no matter
how small. For example, like Sherry, I was struck when Raskolnikov
focused intently on the faded floral pattern of the wall paper while
lying on his bed. It was the perfect thing at that moment.
The discussion also gave me the idea of becoming profligate with
money so as to be as good a writer as Dostoevsky and Joyce. But
maybe that's not such a good gamble.
And don't get me started about procrastination. I bought a book
on how to overcome procrastination and never got around to
reading it.
Regarding why Raskolnikov confessed: he just couldn't stand it
anymore. The whole business, including the philosophical
underpinnings of his murder, was ripping him apart. A great deal of
the power of the novel came from D's choice to accentuate
Raskolnikov's resistance to repentance or remorse. I thought it
was right on that Raskolnikov confessed before he repented. He
experienced the incongruity of his ideas long before he understood
it. And it also made sense that he didn't just one day realize: oh,
my ideas are f$*!ed up, but rather grew out of it, in this case
through love with Sonia, another besmirched child of god.
The choice to make the protagonist a brutal murderer that you
can't just dismiss as evil, was powerful. Here was an unrepentant,
furious man who was somehow sympathetic. This made a
compelling but painful journey for me. There was truth stamped all
over this book. It more than lived up to its reputation.
Robt
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Fyodor Dostoevsky
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