I’ve owned Crime and Punishment for years, but it was never the right time. But now I suppose it is. It’s been interesting so far. Has a crime novel structure, but in an interesting way. Raskolnikov is just so off his rocker. He’s constantly admitting to the crime or almost admitting to it or dropping little hints. You’re just on the edge of your seat, wondering when he’s going to crack. 

I certainly do see Nabokov’s objection to Dostoyevsky, which is that all his books are about people with abnormal psychology, and, as such, have little to say about ordinary life. I go back and forth over whether I see anything real or human in this novel. But I think there is something. It’s about a man who wants to be a superman (a common figure in Dostoyevsky, see also Kirillov in Demons), and constantly struggles with the fact that he’s a rather ordinary person. So yes, his predicament is abnormal, but it’s a dramatization of something very human. 

I am enjoying it, but not yet thoroughly in love. Sometimes I think that the high moment of my love for Dostoyevsky has passed. When I read Demons, five years ago, I was in love. Now, I’m merely intrigued.