I figured my best chance of reading (and understanding) Crime and Punishment was to power through it over the long Easter weekend. I thought my mind was going to be blown away. Much to my surprise, it wasn't.
The problem was that I didn't care about what happened to Raskolnikov. He could turn himself in, he could be found, he could run away - it just didn't matter to me. His mental lapses, his guilt (or lack thereof), his rants left me rather unmoved. And - to make matters worse - I also kept on thinking about Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko (yes, I know I'm linking one of the universally recognized greatest novels ever written to a 1980s trashy - but oh so good - best-seller!) and his comments about the triviality of Russian murders... And the epilogue - with the promised redemption - upset me a fair bit with its cheesiness.
The only moments in which I actually liked Raskolnikov where the ones in which he came to the realization that he is not a Übermensch (where he appeared not just like a human being, but like one who might deserve some sympathy). And I felt that my favourite character - Svidrigailov - was not given the attention (and the space) he deserved - his story was the one that deserved to be told in minute detail, in my humble opinion...
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