Just Finished Reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment

First of all, it's important to emphasize that the edition I read of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment was a translation into English, not the original Russian version.  So what came out sounding a lot like Charles Dickens may not have originally been written that way.  Dostoyevsky was a contemporary of Dickens and Crime and Punishment came out in 1866.  It portrays a Russian society (the setting here is Saint Petersburg, the capital then) stratified along lines of class and education.  There is a lot of talk going around about radically transforming society according to whatever ideology one holds to.  The protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov, who sees himself as an intellectual, has come to the conclusion that, for the truly great, historically significant people like Napoleon, laws that bind others in society don't apply to them.  In a very faulty twist of logic, he then concludes that, in order to be truly great (like a Napoleon), he needs to prove to himself that he isn't subject to law, either.  So he decides to commit murder, using as his target a an elderly miserly woman pawnbroker with whom he has done business.  How this all comes off, and how well Raskolnikov is able to escape the consequences of his deeds, is something that I will leave for you discover for yourself, should you be interested in reading it.  There is more to this story, though, and the subplots, while all centering around Raskolnikov, also deal with his loyal friend Razumikhin, Raskolnikov's mother and sister (who is in a difficult wedding engagement situation), a married man who once tried to seduce Raskolnikov's sister while she was employed at his estate as a nanny, and the family of an alcoholic clerk with whom Raskolnikov once had a chance meeting in a bar.  Their lives all intertwine as the novel progresses, and each character seems to come out of their experiences with Raskolnikov as a changed person.

For himself, Raskolnikov is vain, arrogant, and impulsive...not the most likeable protagonist I've read. Still, just when he seems to be utterly despicable, he then commits truly sacrificial acts of kindness toward others.  I can see how an actor might relish the prospect of portraying him in a screen or stage adaptation.  As a matter of fact, there is so much dialogue here that it almost reads as a Shakespearean-type play...

My favorite character, though, in Crime and Punishment is the wily investigator Porfiry Petrovich, who reminds me a lot of the old TV sleuth Columbo in how he alternately disarms Raskolnikov with friendly exuberance and then subtly communicates something incriminating him...making Raskolnikov more and more nervous and uneasy. It makes me wonder whether the premise of that Columbo series wasn't at least partially based on this unforgettable character...

I suppose that, were I in a high school English class and asked to produce what I saw as a theme to Crime and Punishment, I just might salvage a "C" on my report by saying something like...the novel delves into the moral question of how important are the means taken in order to accomplish ultimately benevolent ends. Raskolnikov was definitely an "ends justify the means" kind of guy!  But then again, you never could know exactly what those English teachers wanted to hear from their students...