Everett's First Entry on Crime and Punishment

I've completed reading Part 1 of Crime and Punishment and I have to confess to having a lot of difficulty getting into the novel. I'm pretty sure I'm following along well enough thanks to tons of notes I've needed to take but as far as enjoying it goes, it's not quite my favorite.

I have however, really learned to enjoy learning about Raskolnikov's character. He is very interesting and has a lot to him that constantly unfolds as I get deeper and deeper. He was immediatly a mystery to me, and it kept me wondering what else there was to know. In chapter one, page 4 he says...

""If I feel so afraid at this moment, what would it be like if I had really done the thing itself?"

You can't help but wonder what "it" is? Why didn't he do it? What is he afraid of? I was flooded with questions about this character right away and that, I think, it what kept me reading the book.

He becomes an even bigger interest in chapter 5, when he seems to be completly losing it. He's walking around with absolutly no destination in mind, falls asleep in a bush, has a horrific dream, gets up, plans a murder, and then sleeps an entire day. After such an oddly eventful day, Raskolnikov, almost seems unphased and normal, or as normal as he can be. He also shows signs of what I'm thinking may be Schizophrenia. He is constantly changing his mind back and forth and suffering from inner conflict about what he should do with himself. One minute he's eagerly trying to reach his old college friend to ask for help and only a minute later, he's completly against the idea. It's fascinating how complicated he makes decisions and shows deep problems he has.

As far as plot goes, part one mostly lacked one. By the last chapters though, Raskolnikov seemed to be leading us to a climax and it was reached in the last chapter when he killed Alena and Lizaveta. But before that, I thought the book maybe similar to Catcher in the Rye where Holden spent the entire book wandering around doing not much of anything. So, I was very pleased when the deaths occured, believe it or not. :)