I would like to know if anyone else simply finds this book to be tedious, and a bit hard to follow. I hope I’m not the only one. Although, I am still at the beginning, I hope my interest could be peaked as I read on. I find it hard to keep my attention focused on the words. Unfortunately, after reading several other blog posts on Crime and Punishment, it seems like I’m going to be the only one being blatantly honest about my feelings on this book. Raskolnikov (I have to keep glancing at the book to see if I’m even remotely close to spelling that right) gives us a lot of details, and I keep trying my best to imagine his cluttered, and frazzled feelings. I had to read certain scenes over to understand what was happening. I feel extremely slow, and it worries me to write this because I don’t know if I’m the only one going through this experience.
For example, I had to re-read the scene with Alyona…(Hold on, I’m looking for her last name in the book…) Ivanova (There we go!) to understand what was going on. Eventually, it clicked in my head that Raskolnikov (this is really going to take some getting used to…) is plotting something against her (without a doubt in my mind, I believe it has to do with murder. But why he wants to kill her is beyond me at this point.) After all, on his way to her place he was analyzing the scenery, and knew just what to expect as he got there. I found it ironic how Dostoyevsky had Alyona Ivanova and Raskolnikov be complete opposites of each other. Raskolnikov is handsome, young, and poor. Whereas Alyona Ivanova is unsightly, old, and quite the business woman (or so it seems). I also found Alyona Ivanova always trying to stare at Raskolnikov’s eyes to be peculiar, and I’m wondering if there’s any significance to that. Could it be that she’s trying to see past his impassive behavior, and understand his true motives?
The scene with Marmeladov in the tavern didn’t hesitate to confuse me further. I do not understand the point of this scene. I believe it was Anthony that stated it before- we do not learn anything about our protagonist in this scene. Raskolnikov is still a mystery. The only thing I’ve learned about him is that he’s very fickle, and doesn’t enjoy encounters with other beings. In this one scene alone, we get Marmeladov’s life story. His life story is one of sadness, and poverty. He drunkenly confesses that his daughter, Sonya, became a prostitute to help make ends meet. Recently, he had acquired a job (that got his wife, Katerina’s, hopes up) but got fired, and hasn’t been home in several days. Around the end of this scene, Marmeladov goes back home, taking Raskolnikov with him. We learn that Raskolnikov is capable of feeling emotion for other beings since he left money for Katerina (which he later regrets).
I hope this book gets better. It’s taking a lot of energy for me just to flip the pages, and go on.
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I'm not going to lie Rema, the first sentence I read on this post was " I hope this book gets better. It's taking a lot of energy for me just to flip the pages,and go on." I almost died of laughter, I felt the same way until I got up to the murder, then I was interested in how it'd unfold! HaHa.
ReplyDeleteLet me start off by saying, thank god someone else agrees with me about Raskolnikov(oh and don't worry about the spelling I have to look back too, but as you post more, you'll get used to it). I must say, I agree with this WHOLE entire post, although from my posts it may seem like I understand it and like the book(which i do), I am still just as confused as you when i first started it. But as I read on, I kind of started getting the hang of what was going on through his immense amount of descriptions. Soon as I got to the murder, things started making more sense for me, and I hope the book gets better for you, as it did for me.
But, i have faith that you will get through the book, just as I did.
Rema, I find this book tedious and hard to follow, too. Just putting it out there that you are not the only one. =]
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I agree with you completely when you say this book is difficult to get through thus far. Personally, I prefer books with a lot of dialogue, which may be why I liked A Streetcar Named Desire so much. Dialogue helps me understand characters more, where as I felt like I didn't know Raskolnikov at all. I hate being lost and not being able to decode a character's personality. All of the scenery and details thoroughly confused me and made me wish I could rip out a chunk of pages until I got to dialogue.
I also agree that Marmeladov plays no signifigance in the book and that that scene was completely irrelevant.
The book gets a bit better, but in my opinion, not much. I hope Ms. Tramantano does not hate us after our Crime and Punishment blogs and comments.
REMA,
ReplyDeleteIt is great to hear a person actually admit the true feelings about the book and no better person than you. Trust me, the book does get some adjusting to but as you get further into the book, you will love it (I hope.) It is a very interesting book and I must say that you and Anthony do make a good point about the fact that Dostoevsky does not give us any information about Rasklinkov. I think this is done on purpose for the sake of suspense. Suspense is a very captivating method and the fact that Dostoevsky does not tell us anything about Rasklinkov actually made me want to read more to find out WHO Rasklinkov truly was and WHY he was planning to kill the old lady.
I am glad that you caught one of my favorite scenes in the book, which is when Rasklinkov gives all the money he had to Katerina so she can take care of the family. This does show that Rasklinkov has a human side to him and I think it was such a good deed that he did this though I would not say he regretted it later. I am sure you will find out why later on (I do not want to spoil it for you) but his generous contributions actually bring him closer to a person he is interested in.
-Bin