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Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

 "A philosophical debate which is also a psychological crime thriller" is what Dr. Jordan Peterson said (not his exact words, but the gist ) pitching 'Crime and punishment' to his audience during a lecture. This is exactly what I felt while I was reading the novel. 

Crime and Punishment is set in the 19th century St Petersburg, where the poor lives like vermin, rich live like kings and those in the middle barely gets by. I read this book expecting a story with good philosophical insights and discussions and I was not disappointed at all. It's a gripping tale of cold blooded murder, where the intentions of the murderer is very different from what we have usually seen from fiction so far. It is also a summary of almost all the philosophical and cultural discussions of that period. 

For me the main purpose of reading a book, when I was younger than I am now, has always been the eagerness to listen to heartwarming or intriguing stories, filled with characters who I can relate to or identify, on at least a small scale. But as I grew older my demands from a book got more complicated than that. What I want now from a book is not only create characters that are relatable, but also to do them justice by detailing them out giving them more than one dimensions making me feel at least slightly empathetic towards them, and provide a new insights to me while I am reading so that even if I forget the story I would always have those insights, those little ideas about life that suddenly pop into your mind and you don't know where it came from, to cherish on. I also started demanding more intriguing plots with the perfect pace. Philosophy also started growing on me, more than ever. And I love when my characters got philosophical. Crime and Punishment checks all those boxes for me. 

I had trouble getting into the setting of Dostoevsky's style of writing initially(P.S: I read a translation). But once I got started I had a great time going through the book with each of it's characters, each different and special in their own way. There are many large monologues in the book. I know nobody really likes to read monologues, but ,trust me when I say this, it is worth the trouble. Monologues started getting really interesting for me after Mr. Marmeladov comes into the story. 

Tears filled up my eyes many times throughout the book :( I'm very sensitive to fiction. Hope you too have a good read. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that considers themselves to be a serious reader.

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