Notes on Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky

While recently traveling to Russia, I enjoyed reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was my first Russian literature book since high school when I read The Brothers Karamazov and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I had forgotten how dark yet poignant Russian literature can be, and it was surreal reading about a story in St. Petersburg just as I was about to visit it.

This classic novel is filled with tons of cliffhangers and reads like a murder mystery, even though the reader knows whodunnit. What the reader doesn't know (and which I'm still wondering about) is what it all means -- about the main character, about the culture, and about man in general. The murder mystery/cliffhanger style, though, was interesting for me to see, and I now realize how much our modern pop authors like Dan Brown copy this technique from masters like Dostoevsky to produce similarly gripping "page-turners" (albeit of a much different literary quality).

Some of the themes I noticed and which made me keep thinking after I finished the book were the following:

• Drunkards speaking the truth: This is a clever literary gimmick but also has validity in real life.
  
• Individuals standing up for their convictions: The main character is despicable in some obvious ways, but he's also so respectable in the reader's mind for how he stands up for certain principles and in defense of others he cares for. People can be so complex, and it is so difficult to grasp how the author makes us love and care for the main character, even after he committed a crime.
  
• Who is the hero of the book? What is the book's definition of hero?
  
• Mental illness: Is the main character mad? How much of his behavior is environmental and cultural? What about the nature of mental illness does this book teach?
  
• Fight against self-sacrifice and for individualism
  

Below are the rest of my notes on the book.

1
Deep poverty
Petersburg stench
Dreams and fantasy of murder
Owes landlord money
Mind capable of loathsome thoughts

2
Some ppl make impressions on us we do not understand
Poverty not a vice but beggary is
Drunkenness
Drink to suffer more
What it means to have nowhere to turn
Family money wasted on alcohol

3
Tiny rooms ppl live in
Manipulative mother letter

4
Sister arranged marriage
Sell her soul for her family
Urgency to break plan

5
Disturbing thoughts
Police bribery
Animal cruelty dream
Obsession with murder fantasy

6
Saving many lives worth murdering one?
Influence of coincidences
Preordained
Guiding hints
Insanity
Laziness
Crimes failures of reason and willpower
Why criminals and crimes not well concealed
Thought his design was not a crime

7
Murder with axe like horse dream


Part 2

Ch 1
Agonizing sensation not even concept

Ch 2
Hallucinations
Hatred
Rejecting world
Fever 

Ch 3
Confusion

4
Police piece together mystery

5

6
Witnessing others' convos about murder
Depression
Complete apathy

7
Helps dead friend family
Nature of mental disease


Part 3

Ch 1
Trying to save sister from marriage for his sake
To be wrong in your own way is better than being right in someone else's way
Even though drunk seek the truth and are honest

2
In wine is truth
Monomania
Thinking fantasy is reality
Making it so
Vanity

3
Actions done for no reason as in a dream
Spattered with good and bad blood
Would never be able to speak honestly

4

5
Influence of environment on crime
Socialism thinks it can cure crime
Living soul demands life
Perpetration of crime accompanied by illness
Extraordinary men have right to break law
Murder of some to lead to discoveries
What if men mistake themselves as extraordinary

6


Part 4

1
Ghosts

2

3
Saving his sister
Egoism or not

4
Girl sacrifices self for mom and dad
Worst sin is to suffer for others especially those who do not deserve it
Religion as false savior causing real madness
Religious maniacs even more crazy?
The murderer and the harlot
Two cursed and sacrificed
Miracle of Lazarus

5
Every crime a special case
Want to have mystery solved like mathematical proof

6


Part 5

1

2
Poor man's pride to spend money on social customs that cost too much just for appearance

3
Framed Sonia

4
He killed old woman to be a Napoleon
Doesn't have big conquest to do so just did this
Wanted to have the daring in order to have power
Did the murder just for himself not for his mom or for wealth
Wanted to find out if he is a man or a louse
In fact is a louse because did it
Whom he really killed is himself
Police and authorities are knaves and scoundrels

5
Insanity not just about logical mistake
Begging for tears from Sonia


Part 6

1
Psychological explanations

2
Suffering for later fresh air

3

4

5
Can a man of genius overstep laws?

6
Suicide of other who discovered secret but also did crime and threats

7
Imbecility of cowardice
Many men do crimes and are later crowned kings

8
Giving himself up
Beggar for others emotions
Confesses himself


Epilogue

1
Siberia conviction
Not ordinary murderer
Cause was poverty/theft?
Abnormal mental condition
Accepted his position in Siberia
Indifferent to life

2
Ill in Siberia
Wounded pride made him ill
Simple blunder of his idiotic idea
Mere existence not enough for him
Renewed by love

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