I have great trouble accepting this as one of the greatest literary works of all time… perhaps of ITS time, but by no means did it leave me speechless or reeling as other novels I’ve enjoyed. Maybe it’s not my style… it didn’t evoke much of anything within me?

I will say, it is absolute good fun. It is not without drama, and the anti-hero is beautifully depicted through Raskolnikoff’s character and the journey through his mind is hilarious yet frustrating. There is this feeling of agony throughout the entire book of not knowing entirely what is going on, which I’m not sure is on purpose but either way I think it very much accompanies the attitudes and thoughts a person might suffer upon killing another.

At one point toward the beginning I jotted down “a hilarious description of depression” and to then see how that mental state evolves into murder and mania was (darkly) entertaining.

It is of course extremely well-written and psychologically detailed, but also wildly unreasonable and choppy in terms of other character development and setting, and as a visual reader that was a bit annoying for me. Still, I was never bored per se… I had a similar sensation when reading Tolstoy, so maybe this is the art of great Russian writers.