---
product_id: 5661968
title: "Crime and Punishment Paperback – December 16, 2009"
brand: "fyodor dostoyevsky"
price: "R452"
currency: ZAR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.co.za/products/5661968-crime-and-punishment-paperback-december-16-2009
store_origin: ZA
region: South Africa
---

# Crime and Punishment Paperback – December 16, 2009

**Brand:** fyodor dostoyevsky
**Price:** R452
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Crime and Punishment Paperback – December 16, 2009 by fyodor dostoyevsky
- **How much does it cost?** R452 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.za](https://www.desertcart.co.za/products/5661968-crime-and-punishment-paperback-december-16-2009)

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- fyodor dostoyevsky enthusiasts

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## Description

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## Images

![Crime and Punishment Paperback – December 16, 2009 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/618fOy7mYgL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Easily one of the best classics I have ever read
  

*by J***. on Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2014*

Fyodor Dostoyevsky generally seemed to write books set in the quirky period of time sandwiched in between serfdom and the Communist Revolution in Russia somewhere in the late 19th century.  It is a point in time which most people living today could not personally attest to or even have much knowledge about yet it seems oddly familiar in many ways to modern society.It is hierarchical with various classes having obvious advantages over the others yet it wasn't overly strict like a caste system from which one was cemented into a position in society and could not escape.  It also had a strong bureaucracy which society seemed to value and hold in somewhat high regard due to an appreciation of the benefits it provides to a society in need of order and discipline while at the same time chafing at the ways in which it stifled creativity and personal freedom.Against that backdrop this book paints a portrait of a young man who commits a robbery and murder which he argues about for a fair portion of the book within his own mind as he lurches back and forth between despising himself and feeling justified in doing it "for the greater good."  There is also a fair amount of characters in this book who push and pull the main character from various directions as he processes what he has done and how he really feels about it and someone much smarter than me has probably analyzed if these characters had any symbolic meaning or not, but they seem like an odd mix.The main character is a university student driven to crime by desperation mixed with intellectually inspired notions of class warfare.  He meets a man at a tavern who is an alcoholic and befriends him early in the book only to later meet the mans daughter and develop a relationship with her.  The woman is somewhat similar to the main character in that she is badly conflicted as well in that she professes to be a Christian yet makes a living as a prostitute due to her family being so desperately poor.  She becomes a sort of moral voice for the main character.  The main character's sister also appears in town and there is a whole subplot about how she is going to marry a wealthy man to help her family while at the same time being pursued/blackmailed by another man who is obsessed with her only to reject them both for an idealistic third man.  There is also a detective who joins the cast at some point and suspects the main character of his crime even though he has little real evidence.  He thereafter engages in a psychological game with the main character to break him into confessing.The story also has odd similarities to Doctor Zhivago and the Tell tale Heart.  Edgar Allen Poe wrote the Tell tale Heart in the 1840's and FD didn't write this story until the 1860's while Doctor Zhivago was written sometime in the early 1950's but whether any are similar to another intentionally or due to mere coincidence is beyond my knowledge.  I am just noting that because I kept thinking about it while I read it and so many of the characters reminded me of characters from there.In any event, the real theme of this book seems to be the conflict between faith and reason.  The main character knows things he is doing (or has done) are wrong, but justifies many of them intellectually and politically only to feel conflicted about them.  In the end though the book is really about a journey through the process of faith and reason while at the same time offering a commentary of what the author must have perceived as a rise in intellectual and political thoughts and actions at the expense of morality and truth.  Perhaps he divined the coming Revolution or maybe the book is not that deep.  I really am somewhat uncertain but I know that I enjoyed reading it and each time I read it I end up thinking more deeply about what the author means, what he was thinking and if he was trying to say something I am not yet grasping.  All of these to me are good signs that a book is worthy of reading and enjoying.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    My love/hate relationship with this novel
  

*by D***W on Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2014*

Never have I had such a love / hate relationship with a novel.To be fair, there wasn't anything I necessarily hated about Crime and Punishment, rather, there were just so many times I was frustrated with it. In an earlier update I made as I was reading this I compared the book to jazz and as a precursor to novels such as 'Manhattan Transfer' and the modern art movement. I still stand by that statement but I feel Dostoyevsky's novel was more of a fitful start to the 'modern' movement and that it would take a much more conscience effort by later writers to really improve this style of novel writing.Of course, Dostoyevsky didn't set out to write the first 'modern' novel, but he was reacting to modern life and the freedoms that come with it. And that's the odd thing about this book - the freedom that suffocates our characters. True, most everyone in the book is wretchedly poor and thus shackled by poverty or alcoholism or pride or some other wicked vice, but they're free to decide how to behave in such a setting. Everyone is bothered by regrets; except Sofia (the hooker we never see turn a trick and who has the now over-done 'heart of gold' trope) but they're all regrets that were of their own conscience making. They chose to kill, or be lecherous, or terrible in some other way and they knew it and they all regretted it. There was no one to guide them - everyone in authority was either non existent or corrupt in some way - and so this 'modern' world has to be navigated blind.And that's the problem. All this freedom is stifling. Nobody knows what to do. Nobody knows if they even have free-will. Nobody has an identity - except, of course, Sofia. Raskolnikov kills two people just to feel something, anything, to see what he's 'made of', what his place in society is and when he gets to Siberia he finally feels free because he now knows his place. And he resents it, which is pretty funny and probably this joked is missed because the rest of the book is so damn depressing, but it's funny that he hates it all but at least he knows what to hate. It's a wonderful joke Dostoyevsky tells here and makes the rest of the book worth it.So I'm not sure the book could have been written any different, but the claustrophobia of it all, the long soliloquy's that, while fascinating, really go on and on and on and never really resolve anything - which is why it's funny when Razumikhin says we'll talk our way to the truth.The fact Dostoyevsky was able to pull this novel off is a feat and makes the book earn its place as a true masterpiece. I personally don't think I ever want to revisit it and I'm wary of reading more Dostoyevsky, but I loved that the book challenged me so much and it did have some wonderful moments that are truly unforgettable - the horse beating, the murders, anything concerning Svidrigailov.As a student of human behavior (and I use the term cautiously after reading this book), Crime and Punishment is a must read for its psychology and for its art. I can't give it 5 stars (so arbitrary, but here we are) because of my own personal tastes, but it is a '5 star' novel in every regard.I loved it and I hated it; which is why it was almost perfect.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Real Life…..
  

*by C***U on Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2023*

Excellent Writer!  A writer who expressed the torments of living and surviving.  Yes, rather than write about others, he wrote from experiences in himself.  I feel he read the New Testament, than took a look of how that could be compared to a person’s own life.  He wanted to say,”Live and Believe.”

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*Store origin: ZA*
*Last updated: 2026-02-15*