Book Reviews - Review 84

Surly university dropout Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov murders an old hag and her sister in order to prove to himself that he can rise above the normal human moral code. After he's committed the act, however,repeat interrogations by police investigator Porfiry Petrovich, and the constant gnawing of his conscience, start to affect his nerves. Will he turn himself in or not?

Philosophically and psychologically this is a fascinating novel. The characterisation is pretty convincing, especially of Raskolnikov, Porfiry and Svidrigailov (a seedy old lecher with his eyes on Raskolnikov's sister). And the the devoted affection of Raskolnikov's family and friends towards him, despite his many faults, is presented quite movingly.

However, dramatically 'Crime and Punishment' seemed to me a bit of a mess. It centres around tense and vividly described scenes - the lead-up to the murder, Raskolnikov's inquisitions by Porfiry, and the denouement in which Svidrigailov and Raskolnokov finally look their respective fates in the face. However, interspersed with these scenes are rather longwinded descriptions of people standing around in rooms talking about this and that, being a bit philosophical, and generally not contributing much to the plot.

Other flaws are an occasional sentimentally, clearly emulative of Dickens but without the latter's beguiling simplicity; and a lack of narrative logic, evident in some contrived pieces of dialogue, some unlikely coincidences (characters are always bumping into each other as though St. Petersburg were a village), and some rather abrupt shifts of focus, for example Svidrigailov's sudden switch from being a minor to a major character in the last part of the book.

'Crime and Punishment' is an ambiguous work - perhaps a little more so than its author intended, for until the end it's not entirely clear whether Raskolnikov's insistence that he feels no remorse for his act is meant to be sincere or self-deluding. Reading a little about Dostoyevsky's own life (he had become deeply religious by the time he wrote the book), one must infer the latter, but the novel itself doesn't, in my view, make his position seem entirely consistent.

All that said, the novel surely deserves its status as a classic, not least because of the influence it had on later writers (Gide, Camus and Sartre were all fascinated by Raskolnikov and his proto-'acte gratuit'). And Dostoyevsky's insight into the ways that evil and goodness, callousness and compassion, and hatred and love of life, can co-exist in a single human soul, makes this a novel that certainly gets the reader thinking.