Crime and Punishment

Just finished. Damn, being the oldest son with a younger sister, this book really hit me hard. My sister and mother are so similar to Dunya and Mrs. Raskolnikov.. I didn't see any of the end coming. God damn that was a beautiful and heavy book. I was brought to tears twice and close to tears many other times. Thank GOD it ended the way it did. I swear if Raskolnikov had died, I was going to just go ahead and kill myself, but it was a really beautiful ending.

I have a few questions. How did Raskolnikov and Sonia fall in love? From what I gathered, Raskolnikov was actually a deeply compassionate man, and he fell in love with Sonia's suffering and sacrifice. And Sonia fell in love with Raskolnikov's underlying compassion. That's how I saw it. Sonia also being a deeply compassionate creature.

Also, I've been thinking about it. I see much Raskolnikov in myself. Not so much his exact Napoleon philosophy, but I have philosophies of my own. Deep convictions. Convictions and ideas which have led me to turn my back on a guaranteed comfortable life and seeking an immediate family and love. I have answers that I am seeking, and I intend to search for them. This has been a deep struggle for me since my last relationship when I was deeply in love, and I contemplated during that relationship whether I would turn my back on my convictions and ideas to be engulfed by the sun and embrace love and comfort, and the conclusion I arrived at was no, I wouldn't. Now my supposition is that Dostoyevsky arrived at the wisdom in his life that the comfort route is the route to go. That one should stick with society, god, religion, love, and abandon all other ideas for a happy life. That a man should be a Razumikhin, and not a Raskolnikov. That one should not question, and that one should just live a comfortable life and work hard, love, give oneself to god, and die a happy man.

But my question is, does one have a choice? Could Raskolnikov have ever been anything but a Raskolnikov? And could Razumikhin ever have been anything but a Razumikhin? Even had Raskolnikov realized that society, god, religion, and love was the way to go, could he ever have escaped his convictions?

OP here. I also in ways feel that Razumikhin, although a solid and iron willed man, was a lesser man than Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov was in a way, transcendent. And I respected him. And I was happy for him in the end when he found happiness, even though in a way, he lost. Hope I don't sound like a neckbeard, just some thoughts.

I guess my question is.

How do you balance the need for society, love, god, and companionship with strong convictions like those of Raskolnikov.

They seem mutually exclusive.

lol gtfo with this shit. we only speak memes around here son

This. If it wasn't written by John Green, then I don't wanna hear about it

Good book, good book. Great book.

I first read it in highschool, while contemplating a stint in the marines. Left a scathing impression on me, like I was right there with Rodion or was him himself.

Definitely the prime example of Dostoevsky's psychological technique which no other writer has really topped. Grimy, sordid, gripping stuff.

I always felt raskolnikov's redemption through Christianity and romantic love was a little cliche and dogmatic on the author's part, but the man was more religious than most priests.

Did you end up in the marines?

And yea, I'm pretty much right here with Rodion. Eerie.

I'm about to ditch a well paying programming job to wander around South America.

Should I read the Jessie Coulson's translation?

No. What you are going to do is find a David Magarshack translation. I repeat. A David Magarshack translation.

bump

No, I decided to go to school. Wouldn't have been a good move as I was a smart lad.

Nice.

It depends what you mean by being Raskolnikov.

I think Raskolnikov could have been content nursing his theory as a pet hypothesis and belief had it not been for all the circumstances which lead him towards the murder. If he had done that though I suppose it's up in the air whether he could have found happiness in the same way he did at the end of the novel.

So what I'm wondering is whether Dostoyevsky sees the untermensch as a step towards something larger, or if he sees it as a misstep.

>I'm about to ditch a well paying programming job to wander around South America.

L M A O
M
A
O

...

classic film, classic novel

For Dostoevsky I think religion was the answer. When you really accept faith those former convictions can no longer exist, and must give way to new ones that, while no less the strong, are more compatible with living life without going insane.

I think Dostoevsky is more overt about this in The Brothers Karamazov. Alyosha and Ivan are equally stuck in their convictions, Ivans, which are a lot like Raskolnikovs, deeply hurt him, despite being right in a materialistic sense. Alyosha never wavers and remains happy despite all.

I disagree on the Christianity and romantic love redemption part. I think it makes a lot of sense.
Sonia is a big ol' christ metaphor. She sacrifices everything for her family, and accepts all around her, even those who hate her with perfect forgiveness and love.
For Raskolnikov I think that love from Sonia helped him finally understand gods love, and with that, begin his redemption in the light of god.

>How did Raskolnikov and Sonia fall in love? From what I gathered, Raskolnikov was actually a deeply compassionate man, and he fell in love with Sonia's suffering and sacrifice. And Sonia fell in love with Raskolnikov's underlying compassion. That's how I saw it. Sonia also being a deeply compassionate creature.

Your observations here are correct. Throughout the novel Raskolnikov shows that he wants to be saved because he knows what he did was wrong and his theory was a failure. There's a point late in the book where he says that he had no right to murder the pawnbroker because he thought about it so much, and that Napoleon wouldn't have thought about it at all, he would have just done it. Raskolnikov is stuck in philosophical musings and only through true, no-strings love which Sonya and Christianity provides can redeem him.

>Now my supposition is that Dostoyevsky arrived at the wisdom in his life that the comfort route is the route to go. That one should stick with society, god, religion, love, and abandon all other ideas for a happy life.

You're right and wrong here. Certainly Dostoevsky supports Christianity and giving yourself up to love (more evident in his other works with Prince Myshkin in The Idiot and Alyosha and Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov), but he doesn't consider it at all the easy, comfortable route, but rather he points to something quite contrary. If you read those two books I just mentioned you'll have a much better idea of what Dostoevsky thought that being a Christian entailed, which is giving yourself up to it, wholly, but not necessarily blindly. He presents many arguments for and against Christianity and asks the real questions that anyone religious will tackle at some point in their lives, which is mostly the problem of evil, and what the benefits of actual global harmony if everybody were a Christian would be like. Ivan in The Brothers K. says that, out of his love for humanity, he doesn't want this kind of peace, because it would mean that someone who had an atrocity committed against them (such as the murder of a mother's child) would have to forgive the murderer:

"Is there in the whole world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it."

Lastly, Sonya tells Raskolnikov exactly what he has to do to make things right, and I think you'll see clearer that Dostoevsky wasn't blind to the Christian life that wasn't all comfort:

"Accept suffering and achieve atonement through it--that is what you must do."

As for simply sticking with society, God, religion, etc., I think that is more Tolstoy's route, at least in Anna Karenina.

You're probably speaking very generally, so forgive me if this is a bit pedantic.

Alyosha does waver after Zosima's death, and throughout the novel he comes to a lot of grief. If you've read The Idiot you can better understand his character; Alyosha, like Myshkin, suffers because he's so loving of other people. Dostoevsky didn't miss that being a true Christian meant a great deal of suffering, but he did think that the suffering would make you a better person, i.e. more Christ-like. In the end Alyosha is much happier than the other characters because he sticks to his ideals, but it has to be pointed out that those ideals are the correct ones, at least to the author.

>But my question is, does one have a choice? Could Raskolnikov have ever been anything but a Raskolnikov? And could Razumikhin ever have been anything but a Razumikhin? Even had Raskolnikov realized that society, god, religion, and love was the way to go, could he ever have escaped his convictions?

Dostoevsky was a staunch believer in free will, but he saw the deterministic side like what you're saying as well, and that perspective is in his works too. In C&P as well as his other novels, he's always saying that these unhappy people have a choice to change themselves, but to do that they need to turn to Christianity because of what it offers.

Here's a quote from The Brothers Karamazov about it, a little bit:

"The filthy morass, in which he had sunk of his own free will, was too revolting to him, and, like very many men in such cases, he put faith above all in change of place. If only it were not for these people, if only it were not for these circumstances, if only he could fly away from this accursed place—he would be altogether regenerated, would enter on a new path."

David MacDuff was really good, it's the one i read

Coulson is a bit more clunky than Garnett, so I wouldn't recommend him over her.

This book was too inconsistent desu. Half the time it was just Raskolnikov dying, and the chapters not involving the investigation or discussions about philosophy were kinda hard to read.

The chapter about the memory of the horse dying was legitimately amazing. Is Brother's K better?