I thought after reading Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations I would consider that to be the piece of classic literature to deem overrated. But as a writer, I slowly learned how to appreciate the wardrobe scenes representing the change in character and status. For a moment I figured it would be anything written by the Brontë sisters, since I am very much team Austen. But no, it was not a British author to get under my skin and disturb me nearly twenty years later. It was the Russian philosopher Fyodor Dostoevsky and his novel Crime and Punishment.
Reading that book felt like a crime and most certainly a punishment. I swear my high school depression peaked while reading how horrible Rodion Raskolnikov’s life was in St. Petersburg. Maybe that was the author’s goal, for the reader to feel so destitute and helpless. I know the story was meant to challenge readers on their faith and bring up a philosophical question about human existence, but fuck. I still have nightmares twenty years later where no matter what I do, I cannot crawl out of the darkness.
The book is supposed to be a psychological thriller. To me, it was 110% psychological and no part thriller. If anything, it induced some form of PTSD, but that was about it. I hated Raskolnikov’s character; I found nothing redeeming about him. I just wanted him to die. He was a horrible person. I was unaware that there was a moral question that murdering people was okay to rise out of poverty.
My confusion about how this is a moral dilemma stems from how I was raised: with a strong moral code and work ethic. The idea of abandoning your career or all attempts at bettering yourself and your family is completely foreign. It doesn’t matter how hard life gets; you do not give up. Theft is unacceptable, and murder is out of the question. There are things you must do to survive, but that is not the reason Raskolnikov was doing either; he just found those options “easier” than working.
Outside of that, I’m certain that this book is why I have a distaste for the dystopia genre. Even Crime and Punishment is not dystopia, it feels like the beginning of the end for me. Everyone is so broken that they believe the only way to better themselves is to lie, cheat, and steal. Those who are good lose everything. After Raskolnikov murders the old woman and her sister, a fever dream ensues. I don’t feel sorry for him being wracked with guilt about what he did. Throughout the entire story, his guilt eats at him, but he never truly confesses. And he does; it’s so empty. Somehow the author gives him a twisted happy ending where his love, I use that term loosely, always gives him some form of redemption through her love.
There was nothing to root for here. The characters I hoped would win or have a moment to breathe never do. Maybe that’s just how it was in 1886 Russia: horrible, almost to where all hope was lost. I never felt comfortable in my own skin while reading this book. I wanted to shower and turn on every light in the room. Even now, writing this, I feel the darkness closing in. All my hope is lost and I don’t know how I can dig out of it. It reminds me so much of postpartum depression, but the only difference is I fought to get out of that darkness. I will never understand writing a character that gives up. In life or fiction, you have to fight, because if you don’t, the only other option is death. And for someone to murder another just because it’s easier, you might as well have one foot in the grave.
