Reading Crime and Punishment

My 1982 paperback.

I was somewhat shocked when I picked up my 40-year-old paperback and found no notes at all inside.  My copy of The Brothers Karamazov had plenty of philosophical notations before I reread it.  The Idiot had much fewer but at least there were some.  But with Crime and Punishment there was nothing at all.  I haven't read many books in my library that are not highlighted or marked-up.  I must have read the book in my twenties without discerning anything of philosophic importance in it.  This was puzzling to begin with.

Rereading it after the span of four decades I could see why.  The novel is the mildest of the three Dostoevsky works I've read so far in terms of philosophy.  But the story?  Incredible!  A brilliant page turner especially toward the end of the novel.  Why had it taken me so long to get back to it?  This is one of the greatest novels in the world!  A strange and completely engaging crime thriller.

I remembered, of course, that it was about a man who commits a murder and then spends the entire novel wrestling with his conscience until he confesses at the end.  The “punishment” is not him ultimately being sent to Siberia so much as the psychological twists and turns of his ever-increasing anguish and confusion (but, importantly, he never feels guilt) over his actions.

That is basically what happens.  But how it unfolds, the complex character interactions and the many surprises of the narrative were as if I were reading it for the first time.  Indeed, I'm not the same person in my sixties as I was when I originally read it so it might as well have been my first time.  This is a fabulously entertaining novel; more accessible than The Brothers Karamazov (though not as profound or fulfilling).  In many ways it is an easy read.  Its fixation on murder, anxiety and even sexuality compares favorably with a lot of popular fiction today.  The novel has held up well with the passage of time and in no way seems stiff or ridiculous even though it was written 150 years ago.

Kevin Birmingham has written an excellent biography on the circumstances surrounding the creation of Dostoevsky's magnificent classic crime novel.  I plan to review it in the near future.  For now, I will share a quote that struck me like lightning when I came across it while puzzling over why I had no notations at all in my 1982 paperback.  Simply put, it is not a philosophical novel.

“Crime and Punishment is a novel about the trouble with ideas.  It is not a novel of ideas.  It does not showcase or allegorize philosophical positions for readers to consider.  It is not primarily the drama of a young man wrestling with ideologies.  Nor is it the story of redemption from misguided thoughts and actions – the notion that Raskolnikov repents and finds God is one of the things nearly everyone gets wrong about Crime and Punishment.  The trouble with ideas is the way they interact with everything else that's human about us, things that have nothing to do with reason or evidence or theory.  Dostoevsky's novel is about how ideas inspire and deceive, how they coil themselves around sadness and feed on bitter fruit.  It is about how easily ideas spread and mutate, how they vanish, only to reappear in unlikely places, how they serve many masters, how they can be hammered into new shapes or harden into stone, how they are aroused by love and washed by great rains and flowing rivers.  It is about how ideas change us and how they make us more of who we already are.  It is about how ideas can do many of these things at once, or different things to different people, or the same thing to everyone around you.” (page 5)

Certainly, I got it wrong in my twenties, expecting a profound revelation in the novel.  It is not there.  I know because I just checked again.  Instead, it is an entertaining story meticulously well told in powerful, often psychological, prose that grips the reader's mind as a narrative and does not let go.  It is a testament to my immaturity that I did not see that earlier in my life.

Be that as it may, there's no time like the present and Crime and Punishment left me completely satisfied as a reading experience.  Raskolnikov is one of the most famous characters in world literature.  He is young, handsome, somewhat bright-minded but destitute and bored with life.  He cannot afford to continue his college education.  He makes little effort to remedy this even when his friend offers him a meager job.  He does not pay his rent for his small room which seems more like a coffin or an isolation chamber than a living space.  He does not eat much.  He lives in squalor.

Yet, he has a plan.  He wonders if he is capable of going through with it.  Dostoevsky does a brilliant job of keeping what Raskolnikov has in mind from the reader.  Our initial question concerns what he is planning.  Afterwards the driving question becomes why did he do it.  Factoring into his uneven temperament and wondering mind is an idea he once wrote about in an article that was published.  Extraordinary men like Napoleon may break laws in order to accomplish extraordinary things.  That's as philosophical as the novel gets.

Raskolnikov is narcissistic (though unconcerned with his appearance) and believes he possesses greatness if he can only accomplish a great task.  Weirdly, he chooses to murder a old woman pawnbroker who preys on everyone and whom no one respects.  To rid the world of a “louse” and a parasite upon humanity.  His muddled, self-centered mind strangely believes this is a step toward greatness.

Strange is the operative word here.  The novel is filled with the word “strange.”  Everything is strange.  Raskolnikov feels strange, acts strange, observes strange things.  The word “strange” occurs no fewer than 175 times in my old translation of the novel.  This helps to depict the atmosphere of the novel.  Behavior is subject to abrupt change.  Truth is often interwoven with lies.  The weather is hot and stifling.  As the reader, you get a sense of constantly building tension, turning up the heat, especially after the murder is committed.

Dostoevsky does a wonderful job of building up to the murder without ever flat-out revealing to the reader what Raskolnikov has planned.  The killing (actually a double-murder) does not take place until about 70 pages in.  When it finally happens, the act of bringing down the ax repeatedly is made all the more horrible and terrifying by the fact that it is told in an almost matter-of-fact way, as if it were the most common thing in the world.  

But murder isn't always easily accomplished, especially with an ax, and many unexpected difficulties that crop up during the episode.  Raskolnikov makes mistakes.  Unexpected things happen.  He must struggle more than he thought.  His mind races to remain coherent, to comprehend what he is doing and what he needs to do to both rob the old pawnbroker and to cover his tracks.  This is the most exciting part of the novel but, again, part of its grotesque and suspenseful appeal is the ordinary way this extraordinary action is presented.

After almost being caught in the act, he manages to avoid detection through fast-thinking and sheer luck.  He escapes and immediately he falls into a fever.  He doubts himself.  He can't think straight and the heat of the night makes for an almost claustrophobic experience.  He has trouble hiding the murder weapon.  He can't decide what to do with the items he has taken.  He finally deals with them without ever completely knowing what it is he has stolen.  In many ways it is a sloppy crime without any apparent ends.  Raskolnikov doubts he can commit the crime right up to the moment he swings the ax that kills his victims.  He is half-thinking, as if guided beyond his control.  Why did he do it?  That question hangs with the reader as Dostoevsky allows the intricate story to unfold.

There is far more than the murders going on here.  Raskolnikov's sister, Dounia, and mother are moving to St. Petersburg.  His sister is engaged to a gentleman Raskolnikov despises.  Dounia is a beautiful young woman who became entangled with a man with whom she was serving as a governess.  Another beauty is Sonia who has been forced into a life of prostitution to support her impoverished family.  We come to discover that Raskolnikov loves Sonia and their relationship becomes very important later in the narrative.

Perhaps my favorite character is Porfiry Petrovich, the chief inspector of the crimes.  He is psychologically shrewd and soon suspects Raskolnikov.  But there is no proof of his guilt.  Instead, Porfiry engages in all manner of mental games throughout the novel and he is often humorous to observe.  He must have been the inspiration for the the 1970's TV series Columbo.  By remaining in regular contact with his prime suspect, he contributes to gradually breaking him down and moving toward either a mistake that implicates the criminal or to a complete confession out of sheer  persistence in what amounts to a never-ending, irritating interrogation.

A more mysterious character is Svidrigailov, Dounia's former employer.  He has come to Petersburg following the death of his wife to meet his new sixteen year-old fiance.  The age difference is scandalous.  The reader is afforded a brief moment when the girl throws herself upon Svidrigailov hugging and kissing him.  

But, Raskolnikov (rightly) suspects that his true intent is to see Dounia.  We are led to believe that he developed an interest in Dounia and caused a scandal which led to her dismissal by his now-deceased wife.  Later, Svidrigailov claims that it was, in fact, Dounia that “made the first step” toward him.  Of course, this is a dubious claim because Svidrigailov is passionately in love with her and could simply be a victim of his pining imagination for her.  

Later, Svidrigailov manages to lock himself up in his flat with Dounia.  In frustration, she pulls out a revolver to shoot him.  (Why she is so passionate about dealing with Svidrigailov is left splendidly ambiguous by Dostoevsky.)  He immediately notices that the pistol is, in fact, his own.  What's more, he had given her shooting lessons with it while she was the governess.  This small detail suggests that Dounia had some sort of interaction with the man beyond her official capacities.  The novel is filled with countless details that twist and turn the truth and connect the characters in a myriad of fascinating ways.

Dounia pulling the pistol on Svidrigailov is another one of the novel's many powerful scenes.  He proclaims his love for her but she is disgusted by him, whatever might have or have not happened between them previously.  The tension is ratcheted up bit by bit until Dounia fires the weapon.  The shot glances off his head, causing some temporary bleeding.  Afterwards, he realizes she will never be the girl he thought she was, she can never love him.  She throws the pistol down.  He gives her the keys to unlock the door.  She leaves and he picks up the small gun, placing it in his pocket.  

What will he do with it?  That's only one of many questions surrounding Svidrigailov.  Another is will he tell anyone that Raskolnikov is a murderer?  Raskolnikov, internally conflicted and fast becoming psychologically unhinged, decides to confess his crime, but not to the authorities.  He tells Sonia, whom he trusts and loves.  She is taken aback but promises to remain steadfast with him.  The chapter devoted to this confession to Sonia (Part Five, Chapter Four) is only topped by the one dealing with the actual murders (Part One, Chapter Seven) in terms of highlights of the novel.  

Dostoevsky takes it one step further, as he does with everything in the story.  It turns out the Svidrigailov has rented the flat adjoining Sonia's and has overheard the entire confession.  Later, when Raskolnikov objects to Svidrigailov's blatant spying that latter simply replies: “But if you are convinced one shouldn't listen at doors, but one may murder old women at one's pleasure, you'd better be off to America and make haste.  Run, young man!” (Page 418)

He only uses the information to blackmail Raskolnikov into arranging to bring Dounia to see him.  As it turns out, however, Dounia foolishly comes of her own accord, which makes me wonder if there might not have been something to her relationship with Svidrigailov after all.  Was she intent upon killing him with the pistol to begin with?  If so, why was she so intent?  What else did they do besides pistol shooting lessons?  Regardless, Svidrigailov is complex and fascinating, if filled with wicked intentions.  Which allows Dostoevsky to broaden the scope of the novel by providing one of several strong subtexts to the main story line.  This particular subtext has a shocking and unexpected conclusion, with little impact on the main story, however.

Dostoevsky is often a humorous writer in these novels and this is true of Crime and Punishment as well.  I've already mentioned the character of Porfiry, who provides a few chuckles as he pursues Raskolnikov's confession.  Raskolnikov's absurd belief that the murders are acts of greatness is also comic in its way.  There is one episode that struck as particularly funny, however, even though it has a tragic ending.  Katerina Ivanova, a poor widow, decides to have a funeral dinner for her deceased husband.  Dostoevsky calls it a “senseless dinner.”  It is a comedy of errors.  The table cloth is described as “nearly clean.”  The table wear is a chaotic collection mostly gotten from her landlady and neighbors.  

Hardly any of her neighbors attended the funeral “except for the Pole who had just managed  to run into the cemetery, while to the memorial dinner the poorest and most insignificant of them had turned up, the wretched creatures, many of them not quite sober.” (page 327)  The dinner soon spirals out of control.  Katerina is terrified that someone will steal her landlady's silver spoons.  The meal disintegrates into more of a drunken festival than a dignified commemoration for her late husband, who was a simple drunkard, not worthy of such a spectacle to begin with.  

Unfortunately, the meal's utter failure becomes too much for the poor widowed woman.  She abandons her children and rushes out into the world.  “Katerina Ivanova squeezed her way through the disorderly and drunken crowd of lodgers who still filled the room, and, wailing and tearful, she ran into the street – with the vague intention of going at once somewhere to find justice.  Polenka with the two little ones in her arms crouched, terrified, on the trunk in the corner of the room, where she waited trembling for her mother to come back.  Amalia Ivanova raged about the room, shrieking, lamenting and throwing everything she came across on the floor.  The lodgers talked incoherently, some commented to the best of their ability on what had happened, others quarreled and swore at one another, while others struck up a song...” (page 348)

This is a hilarious read until you realize that Katerina is profoundly affected by the circumstances.  This apparently triggers a serious bout with consumption.  Later, she falls bleeding in the street and dies, leaving the fate of her three children in question for several pages until Svidrigailov, of all people, steps in to offer financial assistance.  That Dostoevsky could write the scene in a humorous way at all is remarkable, knowing that it ultimately leads to her demise.  It is a fine example of how the novel takes abrupt twists and turns which are entertaining to read, if unsettling.

An interesting detail in the narrative involves the color yellow.  This color is used atmospherically to invoke a sense of illness or disease (as dis-ease, troubling).  Sonia has a “yellow card” which allows her to practice prostitution.  Two workers near the murder scene are painting an empty flat yellow.  Money is sometimes referred to as a “yellow note.”  Raskolnikov's room has yellow wallpaper, as does Sonia's.  The faces of several characters are described at times as possessing a yellowish hue.  Ring stones and furniture are described as yellow.  The color is referenced 30 times throughout the novel.

Another atmospheric quality to the novel is the hot weather.  It is relentlessly stifling, causing Raskolnikov and other characters to sweat.  This exacerbates the psychological torment of the main character.  Toward the end of the novel, however, a thunderstorm erupts “like a waterfall.”  The rain “beat upon the earth in streams.”  This break in the atmospheric conditions coincides with Raskolnikov's final decision to turn himself in to the authorities.  Svidrigailov is also affected, bringing his part of the story to an abrupt close.  There is nothing like this in either The Brothers Karamazov or The Idiot, which hardly mention the natural world at all.  With Crime and Punishment the heat and rain serve as another element in a pallet of details that help create this remarkable novel.

So why are the murders committed?  As I already mentioned, in Raskolnitov's twisted logic this is a step toward greatness.  By transgressing a law (murder) to the benefit of humanity (the old pawnbroker is a “useless, loathsome, harmful creature”) he has imitated great persons like Napoleon. But that is just an abstract motivation, only a theory (and a fairly shallow one too).  What is it that Raskolnikov actually wants?  

He gives the answer to Sonia during his initial confession to her.  He rambles and stumbles all over himself trying to explain it to her.  She is shocked, of course, and he attempts to compensate by taking various perspectives on his actions, as if he there was no premeditated idea why he did it and is only working it out now, right there before Sonia.  At first, he is following Napoleon's “example.”  Then he didn't really murder anybody, the devil did.  His confused mind wrestles with his existential disappointment.  This is not guilt or regret.  Raskolnikov never expresses such things.  It is disenchantment because his absurd act of murder does not live up to his expectations.

At various points, his explanation runs like this...”Power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up...I wanted to have the daring...and I killed her (Dostoevsky's emphasis).”  Raskolnikov murders an old woman and her daughter for the experience of audacity, for “daring” - such a shallow motivation for a horrific crime leads him to the disheartening conclusion that “I am just such a louse as all the rest.”  He discovers that there is nothing extraordinary about himself at all.  This is deeply troubling to him, of course.

Another small detail is worth noting is that, at some point prior to the beginning of the story, the pawnbroker's daughter gave Sonia a cross to wear.  Ultimately, Sonia gives it to Raskolnikov while he is serving out his (seemingly short!) seven-year sentence in Siberia. In this way he literally is “taking up his cross to bear” as the novel comes to a close.  Again, the novel is filled with these sorts of details.  It is literally a treasure trove of minutia for the attentive reader to find.

One thing you won't find in Crime and Punishment is remorse.  Raskolnikov never regrets killing the old pawnbroker or her hapless daughter.  His struggle through the novel is with whether he will get away with it.  What does Porfiry know?  What do others suspect? There are strange coincidences like that of Sonia's cross that plague him.  At times he is elated by how cleverly he committed the crimes and outsmarted everyone.  Other times he is weighted down by the sheer letdown with what he has done.

Strange to say, it is not guilt that drives him to confession.  Rather, it is that he sees himself as “just another louse” like everybody else.  His “extraordinary” crime does not make him extraordinary and this is more than he can bear.  His theory of extraordinary people might be correct.  Napoleon and Mohamed (others are also named) surely broke some established laws (or norms) to “build a better world.”  But Raskolnikov builds nothing.  He accomplishes nothing.  So his own theory does not apply to him.  

It is, as Kevin Birmingham wrote above, a case of how an idea can corrupt and mislead.  That is the real insight into Crime and Punishment.  The punishment is becoming a victim of our own ideas.  Doesn't that feel like a recent, relevant insight?  Dostoevsky has given us a timeless novel that is often thrilling to read.  I will return to it again some day and take advantage of a more modern translation next time.