A man commits a heinous crime. Will he confess or won’t he?
That’s the entire premise of this book by Fyodr Dostoyevsky.
On the one hand, this book is very readable. Despite being around 600 pages, it’s a pretty quick read.
My real problem with this book is the fact that all the characters seem to have multiple names. Sofya is also Sonia.
Raskolnikov is also Romanovich. And his first name is Rodya, which some people call him by.
His best friend’s name is Razumihin, just to make things even more confusing.
When the book starts, Raskolnikov is a student who has given up on making a living for himself. He no longer attends classes, and he no longer teaches. He just lies around in his apartment severely depressed.
His mother and sister have a little money from some sort of inheritance, but it’s not much. Towards the beginning of the book, he gets a letter from his mother informing him that his sister, Dounia, is about to marry a fairly wealthy man named Luzhin.
Raskolnikov is inexplicably furious at this news, although why he’s so upset is unclear. He seems incensed at the idea that she would marry without his permission.
He’s also upset at the idea that she’s marrying for money, but since he’s not doing anything to make money, it’s unclear why he’s so upset. Someone has to take matters into their own hands, and he’s clearly not going to do anything.
The one thing he is doing is pawning some of his possessions. On one of his few excursions out of this tiny apartment, he overhears a rumor that the woman he pawns his stuff to is loaded, and that she will soon be home alone on an upcoming evening. He comes up with a scheme to kill her and take her money.
He carries out his plan to kill her, but gets interrupted when her sister walks in. He has to kill her, too. For some reason I didn’t feel sorry for the pawnbroker, but I did feel sorry for her sister. She seemed like she always had a hard life, and it was just her luck to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Raskolnikov is in such a hurry trying to get out of there without getting caught that he grabs what he can without even looking to see what it’s worth. Rather than using the money to support himself, he buries it under a rock and goes back to living in squalor.
His mom and sister show up, which throws him for a loop despite the fact that his mom told him in her letter that they were coming.
Raskolnikov also meets Luzhin, and it does not go well. They hate each other instantly and Luzhin promptly goes about trying to drive a wedge between Raskolnikov and his family.
The endeavor does not end well for Luzhin, especially after he accidentally reveals to Dounia that he thinks of himself as being above her and thinks she should be beholden to him for lowering himself to marrying her.
She cuts things off then and there. That leaves her and her mother in a financially precarious situation, but she’s too angry to care, especially when considering she would be shackling herself to this asshole for the rest of her life.
Meanwhile, Raskolninov keeps going back and forth trying to make up his mind to either get away with murder or turn himself in. He goes to the police station multiple times with the intention of confessing, but always ends up leaving determined not to say anything.
It got to the point where I stopped feeling any kind of suspense over the issue. I felt like Dostoyevsky was yanking me around, and he was going to keep yanking me around right up until the very end.
There’s a whole bunch of other stuff that happens in the 600 pages Dostoyevsky took to reveal whether or not Raskolnikov was going to turn himself in, but the heart of the story is the tug-of-war going on within himself as he tries to decide whether to turn himself in or try to get on with his life.
He doesn’t seem to be very good at getting on with his life, though, either before or after the murder.
I feel like Dostoyevsky wants us to feel sorry for Raskolnikov because of his financial situation, but I can’t.
First of all, nothing condones murder.
Second, Raskolnikov refuses to do anything to improve his situation before committing the murder. He knows his mother and sister have pinned all their financial hopes on him, and he’s furious at the idea that his sister might marry for money, but he’s just given up. He’s neither attending classes, nor tutoring, nor trying to find any kind of work. I know depression is a real thing, but I find it hard to sympathize with someone who doesn’t at least try to improve his own situation when he’s unhappy with it.
I might feel sorry for Rodya if he had shown any remorse or guilt over the murder, but he doesn’t. Deciding whether or not to turn himself in appears to be an entirely intellectual exercise for him. He has just ended the lives of two innocent people and he doesn’t even care.