Crime and Punishment (Penguin Classics)

This novel was everything that it's cracked up to be. It was my first Dostoevsky novel now I want to read the rest of his works, because holy moley, I get it. A fair warning: This novel might consume and dominate your thoughts. It's so good.

The book was interesting I couldn’t put it down

Product Quality: My new copy came in close to Excellent, not perfect. There were about 4 or 5 visible marks, the ink quality was perfect, and thin pages that are expected of penguin classics. Not a perfectly new copy but what is ought to be valued is the story inside.Translatition and Notes Review: Since I started and finished reading this version as a high school freshman, this translation is excellent and my preferred and recommended one. The notes are outstanding with accurate and intriguing details about references in the book.Story Review: This book is the Bible of fiction/historical fiction after The Iliad, a masterpiece that is commonly valued by the giants of fiction literature. Spoiler: It is a slow paced masterpiece that describes a man (Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov) that has killed humans and has to live with it. After I read this book, I never saw the world the same. Dostoyevsky’s literary figures are so incredible that metaphors are sometimes stretched across multiple pages. The first book that made me really sense and imagine things with Fyodor’s precise descriptions. Parts like the end of the third part made me shiver and have anxiety and others had me at the edge of my seat. This literary document has gone the deepest into thematic material than any other and deserves a perfect 10/10 as my favorite book of all time.

I love the penguin classics cover but the text is very small. Not a major issue for some.

I know a lot of future Dostoevsky readers are occupied with deciding the best translation to pick up for each novel, especially with so many translations out there, with this classic in particular. And so I wanted to add an educated opinion and note on McDuff's translation (considering I am Russian), one point would be on faithfulness (of translation) and the other being readability.1. Faithfulness: McDuff, as usual with his Dostoevsky translations, is able to convey to the English reader a fine sum of elements found in original Russian work with his translation. Not only does he go the length in his attempts to never omit any bits of information (as in literal words or conveyed meanings), he also attempts to not alter or change information by the act of translation. Of course, this is done in a practical manner, that is to say, it is not an exact literal translation, as no literary translation should be (we are here to read a story, not learn Russian). With that being said, he doesn't do so perfectly, but he does do so better than most in my personal opinion (see final note). In doing so, McDuff is able to keep the source material to a sufficient degree, while also keeping the translation a readable and English one, thus providing English readers the mannerisms and quirks of the Russian language through the English language, and with it, distinctive qualities of the culture and author.2. Readability: Firstly, McDuff's philosophy of translation leads people to consider translations such as McDuff's as sometimes difficult to read, which I personally find to be strange. Not that I'm invalidating the experiences of people who say so, it's just that if you pick up a Russian novel (whether it's a translation or not), it would seem to me that you are open to experience, well, a Russian novel, and not an English one, be it difficult as it may. Russian is a strange language compared to English, not only strange through translation, but it is fundamentally different not only in syntax, but manner, content, and tone. If one rather just consume the overall "meaning" and story of the novel, while avoiding the "Russianees" of the novel, and with it, some of its literary significance, then perhaps other translations are a better fit, but I personally believe this to be a perversion of the medium of literature.Secondly, the McDuff translation is chiefly British, and somewhat highbrow in my opinion. In that sense, the translation has relative personal degrees of readability that should be taken into considerations. Being a non native English speaker, especially not British English, I had some difficulties at times reading this, just having to check certain definitions, nothing major.Overall, I enjoy and appreciate McDuff's translation, and for anyone who is particularly bogged down with finding the "best" translation, I would rank this, as well as the Katz translation, as two highly respectable options.

It's seldom that I root for the evildoer of a novel or movie, but Dostoyevsky definitely had me doing it with "Crime and Punishment". Early in the novel, impoverished student Raskolnikov murders two innocent older women in order to make a quick buck (and also for deeper reasons revealed later in the novel). We then accompany Raskolnikov through the tumultuous aftermath, during which his feelings towards his evil deed revolve between complete indifference, intense guilt, and a rational desire to hide from the law. A formal investigation by the city, led by the effusive and enigmatic detective Porfiry Petrovich, comprises much of the novel.It's interesting that by a couple hundred pages following the murders, I'd begun to stop thinking of Raskolnikov as an evildoer but rather as someone who was simply insane half the time. At some point I began to sympathize with him and by the end of the novel I was positively rooting for him to escape apprehension and punishment. This is a testament to Dostoyevsky's skill at rendering his characters' thoughts and beliefs so well that the reader internalizes them to some degree.I found the Penguin edition translated by David McDuff to be very readable, not stilted at all like I'd heard that many translations of Dostoyevsky into English can be. In addition to many humorous turns of phrase that came through fine in the translation, dialogue in general seemed to flow naturally. The sense of oppressive gloom so prevalent in Dostoyevsky's works seemed to also be faithfully replicated by McDuff, as was Dostoyevsky's detached matter-of-fact style of narration. Of course, it's difficult to remain cheerful when reading about murder and people driven to desperate measures because of the abject poverty they're in.A must read for fans of serious fiction prepared to step away from the lighthearted for a while!

The font size was perfect, and the translation was excellent.