Product Description

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP

Dostoyevsky's penetrating study of a man for whom the distinction between right and wrong disappears, and a riveting portrait of guilt and retribution.

EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:

• A concise introduction that gives readers important background information

• A chronology of the author's life and work

• A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context

• An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations

• Detailed explanatory notes

• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work

• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction

• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience

Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.

SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #243161 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 704 pages

Amazon.com Review
The talented Alex Jennings creates an atmosphere of gripping psychological tension and brings a variety of characters to life in this new audio edition of a crime classic. When the student Raskolnikov puts his philosophical theory to the ultimate test of murder, a tragic tale of suffering and redemption unfolds in the dismal setting of the slums of czarist, prerevolutionary St. Petersburg. While Jennings's adept repertoire of British accents works to demonstrate the varying classes of characters, it occasionally distracts the listener from the Russian setting. However, Dostoyevsky's rendering of 18th-century Russia emerges unscathed, bringing the dark pathos (such as wretched poverty and rampant suffering) to life. (Running time: 315 minutes; 4 cassettes)

Review
Novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, published in 1866 as Prestupleniye i nakazaniye. Dostoyevsky's first masterpiece, the novel is a psychological analysis of the poor student Raskolnikov, whose theory that humanitarian ends justify evil means leads him to murder a St. Petersburg pawnbroker. The act produces nightmarish guilt in Raskolnikov. The narrative's feverish, compelling tone follows the twists and turns of Raskolnikov's emotions and elaborates his struggle with his conscience and his mounting sense of horror as he wanders the city's hot, crowded streets. In prison, Raskolnikov comes to the realization that happiness cannot be achieved by a reasoned plan of existence but must be earned by suffering. The novel's status as a masterpiece is chiefly a result of its narrative intensity and its moving depiction of the recovery of a man's diseased spirit. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Review
“The best [translation of Crime and Punishment] currently available…An especially faithful re-creation…with a coiled-spring kinetic energy…Don’t miss it.” –Washington Post Book World

“This fresh, new translation…provides a more exact, idiomatic, and contemporary rendition of the novel that brings Fyodor Dostoevsky’s tale achingly alive…It succeeds beautifully.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“Reaches as close to Dostoevsky’s Russian as is possible in English…The original’s force and frightening immediacy is captured…The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation will become the standard English version.”–Chicago Tribune

Customer Reviews

The mind of a killer
Dostoevsky, with his book Crime and Punishment, unknowingly influenced every great writer since. There are many books that stay with a person, days or weeks after reading them, but Crime and Punishment is one of the few that live on forever. After reading the book, my eyes have been opened to the light of the human soul. Raskolnikov, the central character, is an unmotivated, destitute man. He is symbolic of the so called "dirt", that the world tries so desperately to rid. The novels plot is tight as they come, but it is Dostoevsky's supreme insight and reality into the mind of a killer, Raskolnikov, that makes this novel a testament to genius. Some may read this novel to be "well-read", I say read this novel to gain the foothold to the bottom of your own soul. It will help you gain the realization of self, with a better understanding of the society that can bring men down and subsequently lift them up. I will not give away the ending, but read the book not for the ending, but for the journey that it takes you through, the journey into hell.

This soldier's favorite book
If you read one murder novel in the rest of your life, read "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's only 500 pages but it speaks volumes.

I discovered Dostoyevsky a few months ago while I was deployed to Iraq and my literary world will never been the same.

I found a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov" in a pile of miscellenious books that had been dedicated to troops to boost morale and took it to a literary savvy Lt. Col. I knew. When I showed him my find, he insisted I read Crime and Punishment first. I'm certainly glad I decided to take his advice.

Crime and Punishment tells the story of a brutal murder in pre- revolutionary Russa and the emotional torment of the eccentric murderer, Raskolnikov. The book is as dark and suspenseful as anything I've ever read, but it also manages to convey things on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum like redemption and love. My favorite passage of the book (a hard pick, for sure) is when Porfiry, a jovial but formitable detective, interrogates Raskolnikov.

The deployment is over, but my infatuation with Dostoyevsky's books has just begun. I'm now reading "The Idiot" and enjoying it, though it's too early to see if it matches "Crime and Punishment."

Whether you are deployed to the farthest reaches of the world or sitting comfortably at home, "Crime and Punishment" promises to be an exhilerating read.

Crime and Punishment, Sin and Redemption
Many of the 'classic novels' I have read were originally written in English, and therefore forego translation in modern bindings. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, although written in the latter half of the 19th century, holds up well to the conversion from the original Russian to English.

Rodion Raskolikov is a student, an author, an intellectual. Like countless others in Russia at the time, he is also very poor. His empassioned mind imagines that a local woman, a pawnbroker is evil, a parasite, for taking the valued trinkets of her neighbors and paying them a pittance in return, and for holding promisary notes over their heads. His rage turns to murder, justifying his actions later on as doing a greater good for many by taking the life of this one person. However, his crime is two-fold, as he is discovered by the woman's sister, still with the murder weapon in his hands, and in a moment of terrified frenzy, murders her as well.

The bulk of this novel, exquisitly written, is the slow realization of Raskolnikov that his crime was just that, a crime, no matter how good his intent. Raskolnikov struggles with the guilt of his actions, even as he time and again proves his worthiness as a person in his actions regarding others, giving up his last bit of money to help another less fortunate than himself, attending to a dying man in the streets, trying to secure a good future for his sister, with a worthy man. Raskolnikov, as the reader discovers, is a good and decent man.

The underlying message of this book seems to be that even a man of conscience cannot commit an unconscienable act without repurcussion, without 'punishment', and that no matter how justified you think you may be in your actions, no matter how many good deeds you may do, with conscience there is always a higher authority to answer to, that of your own mind, and what you can or cannot live with.

Dostoevsky had been described to me as dry, turgid reading. I found it to be nothing of the sort. The story never drags on or belabours a point without logic and qualification. The characters, although the focus of the story is Raskolnikov, are all well realized, and developed.

The story itself remains interesting and engaging throughout every page, with a well crafted conundrum once you reach the epilogue, and leaves the reader, at least this one, with a desire to read more about this man, beyond the final words of the book.