I’m rereading this in the new translation, and in conjunction with the corresponding part of the Joseph Frank Dostoevsky biopic. It’s the only major Dostoevsky that I haven’t read since high school. Robert Louis Stevenson said that reading it is like enduring an illness, and I think that’s pretty a pretty apt metaphor for what makes this book so powerful and important. He does such a masterful job of putting you inside Raskolnikov’s tormented head that you end up enduring a goodly portion of his anguish and redemption in your own right. It’s not necessarily pleasant, but it’s compelling.

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