Crime and Punishment (Bantam Classics) |  | Authors: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constance Garnett
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
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Seller: atlanta-book-company
Rating:  292 reviews
Sales Rank: 11400
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 576
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0553211757
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.733
EAN: 9780553211757
ASIN: 0553211757
Publication Date: July 1, 1984
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A desperate young man plans the perfect crime -- the murder of a despicable pawnbroker, an old women no one loves and no one will mourn. Is it not just, he reasons, for a man of genius to commit such a crime, to transgress moral law -- if it will ultimately benefit humanity? So begins one of the greatest novels ever written: a powerful psychological study, a terrifying murder mystery, a fascinating detective thriller infused with philosophical, religious and social commentary. Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in a garret in the gloomy slums of St. Petersburg, carries out his grotesque scheme and plunges into a hell of persecution, madness and terror. Crime And Punishment takes the reader on a journey into the darkest recesses of the criminal and depraved mind, and exposes the soul of a man possessed by both good and evil ... a man who cannot escape his own conscience.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 292
 For My Summer Reading July 14, 2009
Charleston Lewis (Texas, USA)
This book is a good high school read and I'm still enjoying reading this novel! Thanks to betterbooks I got a great price on this book.
Getting this book for a cent was not a crime and reading it is defiantly not a Punishment, it is an engaging selection to read.
 Literary Proof that Morality Exists June 10, 2009
Lloyd Sakazaki (Bellevue, WA)
In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky plunges us deeply into the psyche of Raskolnikov, a 23-year-old detached law student, to demonstrate the moral underpinnings of human conscience, implicitly rejecting the anti-humanist philosophy of 19th century nihilists. Smitten by his own published yet untried nihilistic theories of the human condition, Raskolnikov premeditates the murder of a miserly elderly pawnbroker, who causes more suffering in the lives of common people than is justifiable by Raskolnikov's arithmetic reasoning ("one death, and a hundred lives in exchange"). In a sophomoric attempt to mimic the violent though celebrated deeds of heroes such as Napoleon, who courageously rose above the law in the name of social change, Raskolnikov bluntly murders the pawnbroker and her sister with an axe, fortuitously leaving behind no physical evidence linking him to the crime scene. However, haunted by a lingering psychosomatic delirium and feverish emotional turmoil in the aftermath of his otherwise "perfect" murder, Raskolnikov succumbs to internal psychological stress in the days following his crime. Soon enough, his stained conscience forces confession, setting the stage for "the gradual renewal of a man," a Lazarusian revival of the soul.
I read Crime and Punishment following its citation by a teacher during a recent discussion of Akutagawa's Rashomon, a 1915 short story set in 11th century Japan, brought to public attention again in 1950 by Kurosawa's film of like title. In the short story, a starving, unemployed man of low social rank implusively steals the kimono of a similarly impoverished old woman, exhibiting amoral behavior paralleling hers--the old woman has been stealing hair from corpses to make wigs to survive, and she explains her appalling thievery to the man by remarking that the dead woman, whose shriveled scalp the old woman is disgustingly plucking hairs from, also cheated people when she was living, by selling snake meat as fish, in order to eek a living in hard times. In essence, according to Akutagawa (who incidentally committed suicide at the early age of 35), morality is fraught with ambiguity, and one's own need to survive can justify deliberate, lowly, even amoral means.
For Dostoevsky, the answer to moral ambiguity lies in personal choice. To resolve his psychological struggle with his own conscience, Raskolnikov faces a choice between a) the immediate path of suicide, as chosen, for example, by the enigmatically generous Svidrigailov, who takes his own life by gunshot after failing to win the affection of Dounia, Raskolnikov's sister, and b) gradual regeneration of the soul, by suffering through the humiliation of an extended public criminal trial and the ensuing drudgery of years in a Siberian labor prison. Encouraged by the compassion of Sonia, the 18-year-old harlot-by-circumstance daughter of a clerk-turned-drunkard whom Raskolnikov encounters in a tavern days prior to the murder, Raskolnikov's moral awakening enables him to admit his blunders, focus beyond his present suffering, and, together with Sonia, patiently await "the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life."
Apparently, then, Dostoevsky's message--reflective of his own life experiences, which included a period of incarceration and exile in Siberia (1849-1854) for membership in a liberal intellectual circle in autocratic mid-19th century Russia, and subsequent marriage to the wife of an acquaintance in Siberia after her husband's death--is that, not only do morals exist, but we also may choose to follow a moral path leading to eventual happiness and fulfillment, if we accept the interim punishment required to overcome our earlier moral missteps. Certainly, Akutagawa's cheating of customers, plucking hair from corpses, and stealing clothing are not so heinous crimes as Dostoevsky's premeditated double-murder, but both masterful literary creations disturbingly unsettle our emotions because, ultimately, like Raskolnikov, we humans cannot escape the inherent morality of our souls, even when our intellectual theories suggest otherwise.
 Awesome May 16, 2009
Timothy J. Mckenna (Cincinnati,OH)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book was hard to read and is for serious readers only. That being said, it was a fantastic book. It is not a light beach read and takes effort to get through. When you are done, you know you read a masterpiece. It really goes into the mind of a man who makes a terrible mistake then tries to redeem himself, or rather how he gets t to the point of being ready to. Not for the faint of heart who like light books, but if you consider yourself an educated person read this. I have since went on to read The Idiot and am about to read Brothers Karamozov, that is the best recommendation I can give.
An Astonishing Masterpiece April 24, 2009
brimull (USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've read this book three times and enjoyed it more each time. I believe you MUST read it more than once just to digest the myriad of subplots and the larger-than-life characters that permeate this novel. At the risk of sounding elitist, this book is not for everyone. "Light" reading it is not. Dostoevsky peers into the psyche of his characters by placing each in the most excruciating context.
Who can ever forget Marmeladov or Svidrigailov? Or, Raskolnikov's dream about the beating of a horse and Svidrigailov's guilt-driven dream about a small child? Dostoevsky unflinchingly examines our oftentimes contradictory human nature; a nature that can be chilling, cruel, and at times depraved. But for Dostoevsky, it is suffering that is necessary for clarity, and ultimately, redemption. Even if you do not agree with Dostoevsky's notion of the human condition--it's a tough sell in our modern age--the book is unquestionably the work of a literary genius.
A book of the books January 25, 2009
Fydor Amadeus Beethoven (India)
This book is a must read for them who love literature and to find out why he was called the writer of the writers.This piece of work proves it again as well as his other master works do.Its a work which creates a reflection so clear and yet so sophisticated that it stays with you as long as you are travelling in the world of art.Its so detail and its every inch depicts so much.Dont just read it, try to absorb it.you will find the glory.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 292
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