Crime and Punishment

Just like the main character, the book redeems itself in the end. That may sound harsh, but I found it really difficult to get through. Not because Dosteoyevsky isn't a skilled novelist, or because he hasn't crafted the novel well, he is and has. It's just that I read the words 'loathesome, 'disgusting', 'dreary', and 'gloomy' so much that I began to...more

Just like the main character, the book redeems itself in the end. That may sound harsh, but I found it really difficult to get through. Not because Dosteoyevsky isn't a skilled novelist, or because he hasn't crafted the novel well, he is and has. It's just that I read the words 'loathesome, 'disgusting', 'dreary', and 'gloomy' so much that I began to adopt the same attitude toward reading the book. Of course, that's just a small part of what I feel about the book. That said, there are interesting ideas here, it just takes until the end of the book to really have them revealed.   hide