Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky - 11 out of 10

 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

11 out of 10

This should be a timid, personal look at a masterpiece that is so much beyond the humble means of this reader to try and ‘analyze it’ that it has not ‘benefited’ from a note by the under signed so far and this is just a warming up, in the hope that with exercise – as detailed by glorious Malcolm Gladwell in his fundamental Outliers, which indicates that with 10,000 hours of practice or exercise, over a period of ten years, you could be good at what you put your mind to do – in some fifty years, something pertinent my bear my signature.

Since the National Television has broadcast the other day a play based on the chef d’oeuvre and they failed miserably in doing anything but shame themselves – if you ask me – why not emulate them and write a few words here, more in the vain attempt to recollect on a personal level what this Magnum opus has meant for this reader…The Norwegian Book club has asked luminaries, among them Umberto Ecco and Salman Rushdie, to make a list with the best 100 books that they admire and the compilation has Crime and Punishment, the Idiot- http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-idiot-by-fyodor-dostoyevsky.html - and The Demons aka The Possessed  http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-possessed-by-fyodor-dostoyevsky.html -all by the same genius, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

When I was in high school, we have been blessed to have one of the greatest professor that you can find anywhere and anytime, Anton Chevorchian – I have just found some links on the internet and it seems he has written a book that we need to read, as soon as we get it - https://www.araratonline.com/bedros-horasangian-pentru-ca-sunt-armean-anton-chevorchian/ - and among the many sublime topics, amusing anecdotes, philosophical statements he made – you must know the difference between the verbs To Have and To Be…you need to be a real man or woman and not concern yourself with having…material goods, trifles – there was a great story about Fyodor Dostoevsky:

The genius has been condemned to death and he is facing the execution squad, when he divides his last minutes into three, one part to say goodbye to family and friends, the second to pass his life, the main events from it in front of his eyes and finally, the last small minute to enjoy the ray of sunshine that falls on a church tower nearby…in the last moment he is pardoned – though it might be that the czar had just wanted this to be a lesson and make the writer give up his rebellious activities – and then we are blessed to read about this experience, and the other magical, fabulous ideas of this sacred monster, in his books where he emphasizes what the man who is facing death feels, how he would rather live on a small rock, in the middle of the ocean than die…how precious life is and with what intensity and gratitude we must live…vivre a fond!

The other personal connection with the divine author refers to the reading of Crime and Punishment and how I came to it when I was a teenager…after meeting this sophisticated, erudite, smart girl at Mishu aka Michael the Brave, I realized how inept, uneducated and red neck I was, with only some children’s books under the belt – Winetou and the like – and the shame and inferiority complex associated with this precocious luminary made me decide it is time to read and the best books…hence I took up Crime and Punishment, together with Sophocles and others…

Since we only had two rooms – not two bedrooms, but two rooms in all – and I had to share one with my father, who prompted me to go to sleep in time to be rested for the school day the following morning, I would exit into the balcony and then jumped into the kitchen and read the fabulous story of the murderer Raskolnikov, the idea that if we reject religion, the notion that we cannot kill because the commandments request it, then we are free to do anything and since the antihero aka hero is a superior man, he is allowed to do anything to survive and eventually prosper and thus he can kill a loathsome human being…

The old hag was anyway repulsive, a creature that takes advantage of the misfortune, the traumas and tragedies of others, who come to ask for loans from her, and then she is so old that she may die any day now, without the help provided by the poor, hungry and intelligent Raskolnikov, who, younger and brilliant as he is, would present the world with many more benefits if he survives, by killing the weak, decrepit creature, than if she would continue to extract a big interest for those who are in the gutter, keeping all her fortune just for herself…

There may be Resurrection, an epiphany, a salvation through repentance, paying for all the cruelty and the killing with the proper Punishment, but especially a Redemption through love, by finding unity, Salvation though and with Sonya – by the way, in the adaptation seen these days, they have introduced a Mercedes SUV and a sex scene of sorts in the kitchen as ‘modern elements’ that would supposedly freshen up, or bring the marvelous adventures of Sonya and Raskolnikov into the modern era, where the absolutely alien actor that plays the main character has an…earring and not much else to be noticed, except for a rather mean look on his face and in his voice…as someone has recently said in the sauna at the club, when talking about Aida and the modern take on the classic opera…’ce pula mea’

Have you heard of Jordan B. Peterson…for this some brilliant thinker that I have discovered and his lectures on…the Bible and so much else seem to be resplendent, iridescent and in them, he returns to Dostoevsky and Notes from the Underground – which I am reading now and will note on Wends day, Insha’Allah – and Crime and Punishment, which he considers to be the best book ever written and Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche as the most brilliant minds of the nineteenth century and probably among the greatest ever…

Professor Jordan Peterson maintains that Fyodor Dostoevsky has anticipated the disaster of communism, what happens with man in different circumstances and he quotes the divine writer with his statement that ‘you can give man everything, have him eat cake and have nothing to do but perpetuate the species…live in a sea of happiness and he will still find the urge to create chaos…’ this is by no means an exact quote…

There is also a video take on the same subject here  http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-timid-look-at-crime-and-punishment.html