Crime and Punishment

Our last book club selection for the season was Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. A blast of summer fun it wasn’t. Did I like it? I can’t say “like” is the right word. It was a dense book and reading it was like slogging through knee-deep snow. But though the journey was slow, it was worth it. It’s always more difficult to read a book that has to do with a character’s internal struggle or moral dilemma than a plot that is full of action.

Most of the characters were unlikeable but I think that was to prove a point in what Dostoevsky was trying to say about certain philosophies and the world. He was concerned about the Russian nihilism that was overtaking the country at that time and the characters revealed the consequences of these practices. The transformation of Raskolnikov was what Dostoevsky wanted for the country.

The theme of the books we read this year was the Year of the Sister. The sisters that appeared in Crime and Punishment on the surface might have seemed similar, but I think were quite different. In Sonya, the self-sacrificing was genuine. She became a prostitute in order to provide for her family, but her heart and soul always were saintly. Dunya, (Raskolnikov’s sister) on the other hand, was also self-sacrificing, but it seemed to be much more of a “hey, look at me” type. It was passive-aggressive more than humble. 

The men, with the exception of Razumikhin, were beastly. They treated the women – and themselves – brutally, falling to drunkenness, murder, and suicide. Only Raskolnikov escaped, because of Sonya’s selfless love. It was a bleak, dark, godless landscape and story. Only at the end when repentance and suffering were understood to give life meaning and love was finally accepted and given (because God is love) was there a glimmer of hope.

Two items on a lighter note: the creators of the tv series Columbo admit that his character was partially based on the police inspector Porfiry Petrovich, with his relentless pursuit of Raskolnikov, pushing him to confess. And, for fans of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, the bad-guy character Boris Badenov used to curse by exclaiming “Raskolnikov.” The influences of great literature lead to strange places.