Hey everyone,
I have recently finished this book, and what a masterpiece of literature I must say. I saw that it had been discussed in the forum along the lines of the criminal mind, which is where my mind went as I read through through the pages, I will expand on that a little on the spoiler section. I would also like to suggest perhaps looking at it from a different perspective that also became apparent to me as I finished it.
As a work of literature it's a truly engaging piece of work, the depth of the scenes and how they're composed, the world building and how really complex characters fill them makes it a very engaging story to read. Although, as you might imagine, the emotions that you experience as you read through the story, and get to know the characters, are not entirely pleasant, but this I think was the goal of the author. So it's an effective work that is fairly well paid off in the end.
It can be a rather dense experience, but well worth it in my view.
Very recommended read for anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to do so. And those who have, feel free to correct me or add anything you feel I might have missed.
Thank you for reading.
I have recently finished this book, and what a masterpiece of literature I must say. I saw that it had been discussed in the forum along the lines of the criminal mind, which is where my mind went as I read through through the pages, I will expand on that a little on the spoiler section. I would also like to suggest perhaps looking at it from a different perspective that also became apparent to me as I finished it.
As a work of literature it's a truly engaging piece of work, the depth of the scenes and how they're composed, the world building and how really complex characters fill them makes it a very engaging story to read. Although, as you might imagine, the emotions that you experience as you read through the story, and get to know the characters, are not entirely pleasant, but this I think was the goal of the author. So it's an effective work that is fairly well paid off in the end.
It can be a rather dense experience, but well worth it in my view.
The entire story is centered around Raskolnikov, and the story explores his mind. His mentation and his reactions as he plans, executes and tries to hide the murder of an old woman. As a study into the mind of a criminal, it does an excellent job at making you dive deeply into it. His manipulations, the coldness of his relationships, the way he treats others who love or care about him. To him the world really revolves around him, around his actions, and his thoughts. He is so self absorbed, that he ends up making mistakes, or showing off and creating further chaos for himself.
Raskolnikov has a grandiose self image, I think Staton Samenow did a great job describing him from the Criminal Mind point of view:
So as a study of the criminal mind, Raskolnikov is an excellent one. He believed himself to be at the level of a Napoleon, one of the greats in history and thus above the law, something he expressed in an article he wrote and was published on a magazine. I think reading stories of events or an academic work on the criminal mind has a lot of utility, but there's something truly impactful to read through the story of a criminal where he's the protagonist, It has more of an emotional impact perhaps.
Another interesting aspect of this book is to study his friends and family. The almost unconditional love and acceptance that he received from those that cared about him. He always responded to their worry with an arrogant and rude dismissal, shouting at them that it was torture. The one time in the book when he apologized to his mother, for instance, he was simply running a script of what he thought they wanted to hear or how he should behave but never really felt sincerely anything of the sort.
Most interesting of all of his relationships is Sofya/Sonya, a down in her luck character, a devout christian who had nothing but love and acceptance to give, and whom he'd simply visit to insult and mock (although this relationship transforms towards the end). I like that perhaps on purpose or not, Sofya and Raskolnikov are contrasted throughout the book. She is the person everyone expects to behave in a criminal way because of what life has thrown at her, and he's the guy that everyone wanted to help and had the highest expectations of. In the end, she maintained her decency in the darkness of "street life" and tragedy, and he murdered someone because he thought he righteously could.
The interaction between the two, seemed to me at least, to represent the polar opposites of good and evil, and the times they met it always felt like a struggle between the two. Evil mocking good for being good.
The way absolutely everyone, with the exception of two or three characters, always found a way to explain away the criminal behavior was also rather astonishing and exceedingly well done and perhaps remarkably accurate. I couldn't help but think of this book on several levels that were a bit uncomfortable.
First, the very aspects of ourselves that can be likened to a criminal mind, our selfish justifications of our grandiose self, our thinking errors, our lies, manipulations and darkest aspects. We all have these, and it has been explored in this forum quite a lot, but reading through Dostoyevsky's work, it made it very poignant. The "evil" we act out on the world, and how thorough we can be at not only convincing ourselves that it was righteous, although that too, but at defending them as if they were factual knowledge about ourselves, I hope I am making sense.
Perhaps put another way, In the case of Raskolnikov, he didn't persuade himself to commit a crime and then came up with a narrative to explain it, he "knew" it was within his right to do so, meaning the criminality was much more fundamental to his being than mere nurture, if that makes sense.
Second, the way we justify someone else's behavior, and our own, coming up with immediate excuses for it, basing this on the image we may have construed of someone else, or ourselves, and how this image of them, or us, isn't really accurate. Not only because of lack of information, but because our desires get in the way. I think this is exceedingly well depicted in Raskolnikov's mother and Razumikhin, his best friend, who regardless of the treatment they received all throughout, were always there for him and would always create their own explanations for his behavior. They wanted him to be a great man, a good man, a good friend and son, and since this was what they wanted, then he had to be sick, in order to behave as he did.
His character was always explained away somehow in some way, and they even tried to protect him from being irritated by them and others. I think we can all relate to this experience, justifying someone's mistreatment and abuse perhaps, and shoving it under the rug, not only because we're being lied to, but because we want that other person to be what we want them to be. Part of this is faith and it can be positive as it pushes someone to do better and helps them not feel alone in the world, but another part of it is narcissism, it's wanting someone to be what we want them to be and refusing all the evidence to the contrary, refusing reality.
I think both of those aspects are well delineated in the book also, his mother was closer to a narcissist, and Razumikhin was more akin to a good friend who wanted the best for him.
But then the book ends in such a way, that I was pleasantly surprised. The answer is love, and a transformation can occur, which also agrees somewhat with the work of Samenow.
He decided to turn himself in, not because of conscience, but because he had been found out by two individuals. As he got to the station, he realized that both of these individuals were out of the picture and wouldn't represent a threat anymore, what a strike of luck!. So he decided to not turn himself in anymore and walk away, a free man. But Sofya, who had followed him there, needed only stand by to remind him that she'd always be there. Not only as an unconditional love and companion who would follow him to Siberia once he was in prison, but as a reminder to him of what he had done. It's like, symbolically, she was his conscience.
In the end, at the prison, after going through a self righteous victim mentality stage, and at the risk of loosing Sofya, after she had gotten sick and hadn't come to see him, Raskolnikov transforms. And I truly enjoyed that it was love that was the catalyst for this change. Now, one could read that and say, love doesn't transform a criminal mind, which would be true.
But perhaps another way to look at it could be that, it wasn't so much that her love transformed him (that would be a terrible feeding dynamic), it was the idea or principle of love, caring for someone else more than you would for yourself, wanting the best for them, focusing on what one can give as opposed to what the world can give to me. This is what triggered the transformation of one man into another, and I truly liked that even though this is where the book ends, it's not really a happy ending at all.
Reading the story, and perhaps contrasting the good/Sofya/love with the Evil/Raskolnikov/self service. It's a rather beautiful imagery that Raskolnikov's destiny, even before going to prison, because of his self centeredness was always captive, to his mind and his drives, to his own criminality. And Sofya, even if following a prisoner and committing to him in Siberia without any assurances, was always free, she made the best of awful situations, but she always made the free choice.
Another really interesting part of the book's end was when, after trying several times through the story to unsuccessfully justify his behavior in one way or another, he reaches a point that could be read as just someone being beyond redemption, where he simply admits to himself that he feels better than everyone else on earth, that the only thing wrong with this situation was that he got caught (classic criminal mind). So that small part serves to illustrate that principle, which has a lot of value. (It's that same victim mentality stage I mentioned right above.)
But it could at the same time represent, touching rock bottom and finally being brutally honest with oneself, something that needs to happen before one can actually change anything, the longer one avoids this truth the longer one will remain the same. And in the context of the criminal mind aspects we all carry within, and which we may even defend dearly, it's only this honesty that can create the opportunity for change.
Which leads me to how the book concludes:
After being overwhelmed by love, Raskolnikov realizes he's a new man, or rather that he has the opportunity to be a new man, but he still has 7 years of prison life in siberia ahead of him. Note the suffering, and payment required, the book concludes as it were with the death of Raskolnikov's old self and the rebirth of his new one, not into bliss, but into an opportunity for a suffering that will bring freedom. The suffering that comes from caring about someone else, from trusting someone else, from humility and vulnerability.
The suffering of change, the suffering of the work perhaps, the suffering of allowing parts of ourselves die because if they don't we won't make it to the other side. And even if one doesn't want to be as dramatic, the mere act of striving for something implies a form of suffering.
The book ends with a question, rather than a statement, what will Raskolnikov do? Which I think in terms of the Work, the material on Criminal Minds, even some of the romantic novel readings, is what it comes down to for all of us every day.
I hope I did the book justice, and I hope it wasn't as long a post as the book was to read :)
Raskolnikov has a grandiose self image, I think Staton Samenow did a great job describing him from the Criminal Mind point of view:
So as a study of the criminal mind, Raskolnikov is an excellent one. He believed himself to be at the level of a Napoleon, one of the greats in history and thus above the law, something he expressed in an article he wrote and was published on a magazine. I think reading stories of events or an academic work on the criminal mind has a lot of utility, but there's something truly impactful to read through the story of a criminal where he's the protagonist, It has more of an emotional impact perhaps.
Another interesting aspect of this book is to study his friends and family. The almost unconditional love and acceptance that he received from those that cared about him. He always responded to their worry with an arrogant and rude dismissal, shouting at them that it was torture. The one time in the book when he apologized to his mother, for instance, he was simply running a script of what he thought they wanted to hear or how he should behave but never really felt sincerely anything of the sort.
Most interesting of all of his relationships is Sofya/Sonya, a down in her luck character, a devout christian who had nothing but love and acceptance to give, and whom he'd simply visit to insult and mock (although this relationship transforms towards the end). I like that perhaps on purpose or not, Sofya and Raskolnikov are contrasted throughout the book. She is the person everyone expects to behave in a criminal way because of what life has thrown at her, and he's the guy that everyone wanted to help and had the highest expectations of. In the end, she maintained her decency in the darkness of "street life" and tragedy, and he murdered someone because he thought he righteously could.
The interaction between the two, seemed to me at least, to represent the polar opposites of good and evil, and the times they met it always felt like a struggle between the two. Evil mocking good for being good.
The way absolutely everyone, with the exception of two or three characters, always found a way to explain away the criminal behavior was also rather astonishing and exceedingly well done and perhaps remarkably accurate. I couldn't help but think of this book on several levels that were a bit uncomfortable.
First, the very aspects of ourselves that can be likened to a criminal mind, our selfish justifications of our grandiose self, our thinking errors, our lies, manipulations and darkest aspects. We all have these, and it has been explored in this forum quite a lot, but reading through Dostoyevsky's work, it made it very poignant. The "evil" we act out on the world, and how thorough we can be at not only convincing ourselves that it was righteous, although that too, but at defending them as if they were factual knowledge about ourselves, I hope I am making sense.
Perhaps put another way, In the case of Raskolnikov, he didn't persuade himself to commit a crime and then came up with a narrative to explain it, he "knew" it was within his right to do so, meaning the criminality was much more fundamental to his being than mere nurture, if that makes sense.
Second, the way we justify someone else's behavior, and our own, coming up with immediate excuses for it, basing this on the image we may have construed of someone else, or ourselves, and how this image of them, or us, isn't really accurate. Not only because of lack of information, but because our desires get in the way. I think this is exceedingly well depicted in Raskolnikov's mother and Razumikhin, his best friend, who regardless of the treatment they received all throughout, were always there for him and would always create their own explanations for his behavior. They wanted him to be a great man, a good man, a good friend and son, and since this was what they wanted, then he had to be sick, in order to behave as he did.
His character was always explained away somehow in some way, and they even tried to protect him from being irritated by them and others. I think we can all relate to this experience, justifying someone's mistreatment and abuse perhaps, and shoving it under the rug, not only because we're being lied to, but because we want that other person to be what we want them to be. Part of this is faith and it can be positive as it pushes someone to do better and helps them not feel alone in the world, but another part of it is narcissism, it's wanting someone to be what we want them to be and refusing all the evidence to the contrary, refusing reality.
I think both of those aspects are well delineated in the book also, his mother was closer to a narcissist, and Razumikhin was more akin to a good friend who wanted the best for him.
But then the book ends in such a way, that I was pleasantly surprised. The answer is love, and a transformation can occur, which also agrees somewhat with the work of Samenow.
He decided to turn himself in, not because of conscience, but because he had been found out by two individuals. As he got to the station, he realized that both of these individuals were out of the picture and wouldn't represent a threat anymore, what a strike of luck!. So he decided to not turn himself in anymore and walk away, a free man. But Sofya, who had followed him there, needed only stand by to remind him that she'd always be there. Not only as an unconditional love and companion who would follow him to Siberia once he was in prison, but as a reminder to him of what he had done. It's like, symbolically, she was his conscience.
In the end, at the prison, after going through a self righteous victim mentality stage, and at the risk of loosing Sofya, after she had gotten sick and hadn't come to see him, Raskolnikov transforms. And I truly enjoyed that it was love that was the catalyst for this change. Now, one could read that and say, love doesn't transform a criminal mind, which would be true.
But perhaps another way to look at it could be that, it wasn't so much that her love transformed him (that would be a terrible feeding dynamic), it was the idea or principle of love, caring for someone else more than you would for yourself, wanting the best for them, focusing on what one can give as opposed to what the world can give to me. This is what triggered the transformation of one man into another, and I truly liked that even though this is where the book ends, it's not really a happy ending at all.
Reading the story, and perhaps contrasting the good/Sofya/love with the Evil/Raskolnikov/self service. It's a rather beautiful imagery that Raskolnikov's destiny, even before going to prison, because of his self centeredness was always captive, to his mind and his drives, to his own criminality. And Sofya, even if following a prisoner and committing to him in Siberia without any assurances, was always free, she made the best of awful situations, but she always made the free choice.
Another really interesting part of the book's end was when, after trying several times through the story to unsuccessfully justify his behavior in one way or another, he reaches a point that could be read as just someone being beyond redemption, where he simply admits to himself that he feels better than everyone else on earth, that the only thing wrong with this situation was that he got caught (classic criminal mind). So that small part serves to illustrate that principle, which has a lot of value. (It's that same victim mentality stage I mentioned right above.)
But it could at the same time represent, touching rock bottom and finally being brutally honest with oneself, something that needs to happen before one can actually change anything, the longer one avoids this truth the longer one will remain the same. And in the context of the criminal mind aspects we all carry within, and which we may even defend dearly, it's only this honesty that can create the opportunity for change.
Which leads me to how the book concludes:
After being overwhelmed by love, Raskolnikov realizes he's a new man, or rather that he has the opportunity to be a new man, but he still has 7 years of prison life in siberia ahead of him. Note the suffering, and payment required, the book concludes as it were with the death of Raskolnikov's old self and the rebirth of his new one, not into bliss, but into an opportunity for a suffering that will bring freedom. The suffering that comes from caring about someone else, from trusting someone else, from humility and vulnerability.
The suffering of change, the suffering of the work perhaps, the suffering of allowing parts of ourselves die because if they don't we won't make it to the other side. And even if one doesn't want to be as dramatic, the mere act of striving for something implies a form of suffering.
The book ends with a question, rather than a statement, what will Raskolnikov do? Which I think in terms of the Work, the material on Criminal Minds, even some of the romantic novel readings, is what it comes down to for all of us every day.
I hope I did the book justice, and I hope it wasn't as long a post as the book was to read :)
Very recommended read for anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to do so. And those who have, feel free to correct me or add anything you feel I might have missed.
Thank you for reading.
