This is a rare book where I couldn’t find a single sympathetic character, and yet I still liked it a lot. And shit, I look at Raskolnikov as a sympathetic character, if that’s any indication. No likeable characters, foreknowledge of what’s going to happen in the end, and yet, it still managed to be compelling. The force of the narrative and the tangibility of the atmosphere pulled me along despite myself. I felt like taking a shower after every chapter, and yet I kept reading. Comparisons to Greek tragedy are apt. A lot of the characters there seem cold and brutal as well, and it’s similarly fatalistic and foreordained, but still oddly compelling in much the same way.