Crime & Punishment blog #1
By Omar Andre
I am currently in chapter 3.
The first thing that stood out to me in the novel was the writing style. I’ve had to re-read excerpts multiple times to understand what the Author is trying to say, and even then the first chapters are so vague with everything that it doesn’t tell me much about the story, just about how the characters are thinking.
In the first chapter, we follow Raskolnikov as he goes to a pawn shop and pawns something. Throughout the entirety of the first chapter we see him be nervous and erratic. In his interaction with the pawn lady he looks around to try to get information for an unspecified crime, but he then feels immediately guilty about it. Ranskolnikov is characterized as a very introverted person, he doesn’t enjoy the company of others, and I wondered if this has something to do with the crime, but he doesn’t really seem to have dissent for others, he just doesn’t enjoy their company. After leaving the pawn shop he gets even more agitated and walks into a bar, suddenly wanting to be with another person. The way he speaks of this unspecified crime, I don’t get the impression that it is a crime of necessity, although it could be, because he didn’t get much money from the pawn shop. I found him changing his attitude about people strange, there doesn't seem to be a reason for him suddenly changing his distant personality. The way I’m thinking of this change right now is that he feels guilty about thinking of doing this unspecified crime and wants to distract himself from thinking about it with anything. After finding a bar and sitting down, he’s intrigued by this other person in the bar, and this other person starts talking to him, he speaks eloquently and talks about his troubles. He also seems to be some kind of regular at this bar, he is made fun of and everyone sees him as kind of amusing. We hear this drunk person talk for multiple pages, he talks about his home life with bittersweetness and I enjoyed how different the dialogue felt than any other book I’ve read. Where I ended, the man invites Raskolnikov to his house and Raskolnikov agrees to go.
Overall I’ve enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more, I will give this book a rating of 3/5