Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1821–1881 · Russia
Originally Prestuplenie i Nakazanie (Russian)
Why it matters
A student murders a pawnbroker to prove himself extraordinary, then discovers what conscience actually is. The great psychological thriller of world literature: theory versus the human fact, played out in fevered St Petersburg.
At a glance
psychological novelcrime & noirexistentialist
Difficulty 6/10fast pace545 pagesFeverish interior monologue and dense ideological debate slow a gripping surface plot.
Deep dive
Raskolnikov's 'extraordinary man' theory doesn't survive contact with an axe — this is Dostoevsky's rebuttal to the nihilists of his own day, staged as psychological horror.
Where to go next
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