Crime and Punishment (AmazonClassics Edition)

Great book Nice print

This is another classic novel that I enjoyed very much. I would never have read in book form but it seemed do-able on the e-reader. I found the names of the characters muddling and think that if I had learned even elementary Russian I would understand something more about the names and places. The story is very detailed Dostoevskisy does not shrink at all from "telling it like it is", except he doesn't give any detail about people's sex lives. The psychology is quite apparent and is partly what makes the story so long. If you had been putting off reading some of the classics - give this one a go. It was a good £00.38p's worth, and would keep you going through several train journeys..........

Crime and Punishment is set in Russia in the 1800's. It is written from the perspective of the protagonist Raskolnikov; a young student. Despite its reputation as being hard going, I found it easy to read and impossible to put down. Due to financial hardship and circumstance Raskolnikov commits murder. Russia was economically and politically unstable at the time of writing and one of the greatest arguments in favor of socialism is that, if people were equal would crime be eliminated? Would the reason for acting criminally no longer exist? The novel spreads this message, without focusing politics as a major theme. Drawing upon the writings of Marx and Engels, Russia became Communist in 1917 under Lenin, succeeded by Stalin after Lenin's death in 1925. As the title suggests the crime - one man murdering another and; punishment - the guilt, paranoia, mental deterioration and then incarceration are the major themes, the content of the entire novel. Other plot-lines such as romance take a significant back seat. Love does indeed suffer as a consequence of the crime, part of the punishment I guess. A tale of love, justice, psychology and suffering; this is a wonderful read, and despite what Willy Mason says, you should read Dostoevsky at your age.

First thing of note, the ‘leather’ material is a soft touch type feel with a slight texture to it. Also doesn’t leave scratch marks easily like some other soft type leathers. The foil seems planted and vibrant, especially against the red background. Paper isn’t exactly smooth, it has a grainy type of texture to it. Font is a large enough and nothing is misprinted, blotchy or uneven etc. I got this on sale for £14, so, can’t complain. Retail price is £25 and I can honestly say I would pay the retail price for this particular Wilco book. It’s a great alternative, or ‘match’ in theme with the Barnes and Noble leather bound series. Which retail for around £25-35. Though they are better quality in many areas over the Wilco, finding the Crime and Punishment version in Barnes and noble is almost impossible, or overpriced - this is a great alternative.

This book isn’t even Crime and Punishment - it’s The Brothers Karamazov with the wrong front cover!

I started reading Crime and Punishment, which I had somehow missed during school reading, as a personal test to see if I can still enjoy the classics, or if the long winded descriptions would now, in the age of the internet, seem long and tiresome. What I found is an immensely captivating tale, written half in the air of philosophical and psychological musing, and half as retelling juicy gossip. Only Dostoyevsky could probably pull off the combination of the two so splendidly. It feels hard to put down and yet calls for pause on its own. It is worth the time to see through.

It doesn't reach the heights of Brothers Karamazov, and perhaps isn't as strong as Demons... but this is a pivotal book and required reading. I read Dostoyevsky's collection in my adolescence, at a perfect time. I took away so much from these novels, and perhaps more from this one than all the others (despite, as aforementioned, thinking BK and maybe even Demons are better). If you want to read a very philosophical story about a man who suffers an extreme moral conundrum after committing a dreadful act, then look no further.

In my experience, all "great" fiction works on more than one level, and continues to compel readers' attention for many decades after it was written - something I certainly found true of Crime and Punishment. Other reviewers have said how gripping the story of Raskolnikov is. He is a psychopath of a type familiar from a thousand 20th and 21st century thrillers, in print and on screen. I could well believe that Hitchcock read this book and learned from it, because the build-up of tension is Hitchcockian. Nabakov was not a fan of Dostoevsky, thinking him a bit of a bore and an eccentric - and not a particularly accomplished writer. Humbly, I have to disagree. As well as being a brilliant psychological drama, it's a critique of Russian society and the intellectual climate in the 1860s, just a few years after the emancipation of the serfs, when ideas like nihilism were in the air. If Raskolnikov had 'lived' 60 years later, he might have found a focus for his life in Bolshevism. Although that, as we know, might have involved him in mass-murder, or even genocide as one of Stalin's henchmen, rather than the single murder he commits in Crime and Punishment.