This book totally stunned me. It was so much not what I expected. Knowing it was published in 1866, I expected the kind of novel written in 1866: old-fashioned, with stiff, stilted characters, and a kind of laughable innocence about the ways of the world. Not at all. This novel could have been published yesterday, it's so modern, which is to say: real. The characters talk and act and think like real people do.
A lot of novels aren’t like that. The characters are utterly predictable, which is not what anyone I know is like. The bad guy kidnaps the girl, so James Bond goes after him. A woman's husband mistreats her, so she divorces him. You see what I mean? Simple. You know exactly what's going to happen.
But that’s not how Dostoyevsky's characters act. They might do this or they might not. Raskolnikov might rob the old woman, he might not. He might kill someone, he might not. He might confess to the police, he might not.
This is how real people behave. Think of all the thoughts and decisions you make every day about what to do from one minute to the next. You will or you won't. Now, or later, or never. You'll sit watching TV, or you'll go out and take bassoon lessons.
This is what Dostoyevsky's characters are like. Real. Thoughtful. Impulsive. Unpredictable, even to each other. One of the major sources of tension is a police official who interacts with Raskolnikov. Does he know what R. did or doesn't he? Is he toying with R. or isn't he? R. doesn't know any more than we do, and it drives him crazy: this the "Punishment" part of the title.
Here's the thing. When I say that this novel sounds "modern" and not "old-fashioned", I don't think it's because Dostoyevsky made some great leap into writing novels the way that modern authors do. I think it's the other way around: after Dostoyevsky, authors couldn't write novels the same way anymore. He did something new, and he's influenced everyone who came after him, even if they don't know it.
That's not the only thing he came up with, either. When you read "Crime and Punishment", you realize that he is tantalizingly close to what we would call "stream of consciousness" writing. He tells us so much about what and how his characters are thinking that he very nearly beats James Joyce to the punch by 50 years.
Dostoyevsky isn't a one-trick pony, either. He presents certain characters and scenes without their thoughts, and it's brilliant. There's one scene where we follow a character around for a night, and all we see are his interactions with certain people, but we're absolutely sure that he's going to kill himself. The effect is uncanny and, as I said, stunning.
After reading this book, I learn that the Russian word translated as "Crime" in the title actually means something closer to "Trespassing", with the connotation of stepping over some line you're not supposed to. I think that's a better indication of the idea of the book than simply the abstract "crime": there are lines you don't cross in this world, in civilization, and when you do, this is what happens: consequences, both from the outside and from the inside.
Pedantic rant #1: Those Russian names! In Russia, people tend to have 3-part names: their last name or family name, their first name or given name, and their middle name, which is usually derived from their father's name, like Petrovich, meaning "son of Peter". Plus any nicknames. What Russians call each other depends on their relationship. Strangers would use one form of the name, acquaintances another, friends yet another, and lovers something else again.
Here's my point: these distinctions are meaningless for a non-Russian audience, which, of course, all translations are for. For us non-Russians, trying to follow who is talking about who is maddening. So why not make it easy on us? Call each character by one name, maybe two. The last name for all but intimate associates, who get to use the first name. This would save a lot of frustration and confusion.
Pedantic rant #2: This novel is modern, but its modernity is undercut by the translators' use of old-fashioned expressions unnecessarily. For example, they'll say a character "has rooms at X's house". Why not just say they "rent an apartment at X's house"? Or they'll say X "vouchsafes" something to Y. Nobody vouchsafes anything to anybody anymore. X "tells" Y something, period. Modern it up.
Okay, back to the report. Bottom line: This book blew me away. I recommend it highly.
Except for those Russian names. Oy.
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