Product Description

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #868 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-24
• Original language: Russian
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Synopsis
Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption.

About the Author
Richard Peace is Emeritus Professor of Russian at Bristol University. He is the author of Dostoevsky: An Examination of his Major Novels.

Customer Reviews

Deep and relevant
Crime and Punishment beautifully captures moods and moments to guide the reader through the book as though we were truly looking through Roskolnikov's eyes. Dostoyevsky understands the danger that lurks in all of us, and the mind's ability to twist and justify actions and thoughts with the greatest of ease if we are thrown off the righteous path. This is reflected beautifully in the most extreme of scenarios that Roskolnikov finds himself in. It would be a challenge to pick this book up and not finish reading it.

Somewhat lacking...
Basically a story about guilt and redemption written with absolutely compelling characters and depth. The start is tremendously gripping though it starts to lose pace around the last quarter and meanders somewhat. The reason why I score this lowly is because the ideas placed out are a bit thin on the ground when you look at it objectively (I've read shorter books which have a much wider theme), you can't help but think that it could've been written in half the pages and for all the great character's in place, they fail to live up to there potential, that the story doesn't make enough use of them. It would be great if more actually happened as I felt a lot of what did happen was largely (and ironically) inconsequential. It's a little bit tragic that the main protagonist is a bit, to use the modern term, emo.

An unenjoyable read
I found this book to be unenjoyable. I could appreciate that it is very well written and would have been very ahead of it's time but also found it to be unnecessarily drawn out and convoluted.

It's claimed that, "The genius of the book is the commentary on many aspects of life" but I think it would be far better if the author could have intertwinned this with an interesting plot.