Literary Pick (***)
Crime and Punishment (Feodor Dostoevsky) 
posted by Rachel at
1:10 PM
November 1, 2009
About Me
- Name: Rachel
- Location: away, nyc, United States
"I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That's living." — Zora Neale Hurston
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2 Comments:
I read this book as a 14 year old & absolutely loved it. Looking back I can't believe I took it on at such a young age - I think my parents were totally confused! I love your last comment about intellectualization. I made myself a promise when I turned 50, that simple thinking was going to be the go from now on. This has not been as easy as I was hoping.
Millie ^_^
In my honest opinion, you're never too young to read classics. I think it's beautiful you did. I would sooner hand my child a dark classic than to have them sit in front of the tv watching the junk that has America hypnotized and brain dead.
Do you have a goodreads account? if you don't, you should. It's an amazing literary website.
ps. I got the above summary from the B&N website.
Here is my own review from goodreads:
Having recently finished reading "Pride and Prejudice", which I hated, "Crime and Punishment" by comparison was a breath of fresh air. First of all Doestoevsky had me at hello. The very second chapter when he describes how uncomfortable he felt passing his landlady's apt. was something I could relate to because I find myself repeating this cycle over and over in my life, with different people.
His relationship with the world, and his monomaniac behavior coupled with his distopian surroundings was right on the mark with my own feelings and beliefs about society. Right off the bat I was hooked and able to connect.
Saturated with emotions. Deeply disturbing and and depressing. Had to take breaks between chapters to absorb, decompress, cleanse and continue.
..fluent, fast paced and non-stop phsycological stimulation.
Porfiry bored me every time he went into his verbose symbolic phsycological rants.
Svidrigailov had the same affect on me as well. I could see if they're roles in excessively talking earnestly contributed to the whole story, but it seems as if the novel could have done without these 2 over-embellished characters chatter.
I still don't understand why Porfiry was playing mind tricks with Raskolnikov, instead of just arresting him if he knew he was guilty. You see, I need to know the logic behind important questions such as this, otherwise the book becomes less believable.
I really enjoyed Dostoevsky's writing style and I'm looking forward to reading "The Idiot", which is currently on my bookshelf too. However, I wasn't impressed with the way the last 1/4 of the book ended.
I don't know..I'm a bit disappointed.
I only gave it 3 stars.
This is another classic I wanted to read and love, but in the end I had to be honest with my rating.
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