Honestly, if people misread it as that, it makes me wonder if they even read the book. Like I understand it’s a tough read, especially for your average person, but he says multiple times throughout, that it was to see if he was extraordinary, and that if he can get away with it, it will prove that.
It’s strange, lol. As Harold Bloom said, Dostoevsky was incredibly tendentious. To completely misconstrue the message he wants to get across therefore is… well, as I said, strange.
Tendentious isn’t a fair characterization of his writing. Especially since it’s a novel. He isn’t ignoring facts or presenting a biased interpretation of something. He is representing humanity through characters. And the fact that even his most loathsome characters can elicit understanding or even humor from the reader demonstrates that he had a firm grasp on his main subject: human psychology and spirituality.
Yes he could be a bit preachy. I would say I am not a Christian, or religious at all, but what Dostoevsky is tackling is very real even if one doesn’t share his belief that Christianity is the solution.
Im curious, what did this Bloom fellow not like about his ideas? Was it perhaps his attitude towards the atheistic mind?
Because one psychological representation I think Dostoevsky gets right is the arrogance, the envy, and the murderousness that secular minds can fall prey to. In Crime and Punishment, in Demons, in Notes from the Underground, it’s a common theme. Even if I don’t share Dostoevsky’s religious worldview, there’s no denying the psychological reality he is dealing with in these characters.
Bloom was just extremely skeptical of Christianity’s claims in general, and that was a bias he never escaped. He even wrote ‘literary appreciation’ of the King James Bible which was filled with distaste about the God it presents. 🤣
> The modern university and the contemporary literary establishment often treat Crime and Punishment as a novel about poverty, oppression, and inequality.
Is this actually true? I feel like an example here would bolster the case.
It's been some decades since I've read Crime and Punishment, and it was in high school, not university, but our reading in class at the time was much closer to yours than to any socio-economic reading. Quickly googling around, it would seem that the standard reading is somewhat closer to yours (although not as specific). The themes from SparkNotes (https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crime/themes/) include nihilism, the idea of an ends-justify-the-means "Superman" (not in the Nietzsche sense), psychology and alienation.
Similarly, ChatGPT (hardly a bastion of conservative thought) summarizes the themes of Crime and Punishment as "human beings cannot escape the moral consequences of their actions through intellect alone."
I don't regard either of these sources as particularly authoritative, but they do belie the idea that the "standard" reading of Crime and Punishment has been warped into some kind of proto-socialist one. I'm genuinely interested to know where you're seeing that reading!
This is the usual Libes bullshit. While any good contemporary reader would accept the fact that the framework of poverty, etc. is a formative experience for R's pathology, no one in colleges (except perhaps in Libes' own head) is teaching what she says. It's how she gets clicks, not reality.
Well, the leftists are correct then. Mangione is the modern Raskolnikov with his splitted, megalomaniac personality. Just the way Dostoevsky intended to depict this eternal character.
Appreciated! I often have hazy memories of things I learned in college and I always enjoy interpretations that wipe away the haze and bring old memories to life!
Thank you, great article. I just read Crime and Punishment for the first time and finished it last month. This 56 year old man is still catching up on classics.
The “spiritually homeless” framing is the key that unlocks the whole novel. Raskolnikov doesn’t kill because he’s poor. He kills because he has nothing inside that tells him he shouldn’t. The theory fills the void that meaning once occupied. Dostoyevsky understood that the most dangerous ideas aren’t the ones that come from hatred, but the ones that come from emptiness dressed up as logic.
I enjoyed this piece, especially your emphasis on Raskolnikov’s desire to test whether he was one of the “extraordinary” people. I agree that many contemporary readings flatten the novel into a story about poverty and oppression alone.
At the same time, I wonder if something important gets lost when the discussion becomes primarily a dispute about political interpretations.
What has always struck me about Dostoevsky is that his concern was never simply with bad ideas. It was with human suffering and the possibility of redemption. That concern runs through House of the Dead as much as Crime and Punishment.
I also wonder whether the “extraordinary man” theory is even more ironic than your essay suggests. Raskolnikov thinks he is testing whether he is one of the rare people who can stand above ordinary morality. But by the end of the novel, Dostoevsky seems to move in almost the opposite direction. The problem is not that Raskolnikov thinks he is extraordinary. In a sense, every human soul is extraordinary. The mistake is believing that this uniqueness exempts him from moral responsibility rather than deepening it.
Raskolnikov wants to be Napoleon. Instead, he discovers that he is simply himself, responsible for what he has done, unable to escape guilt through theory, and in need of redemption. That strikes me as one of the deepest ironies in the novel.
In some ways, I think Dostoevsky’s critique of ideology grows out of this larger concern. He worried about political theories not simply because they were politically mistaken, but because they could cause us to lose sight of the suffering and dignity of actual human beings.
That’s why the novel still feels so alive to me. The politics are there, but they are ultimately in service of a larger question: what happens to a human soul, and what might redeem it?
I have a blog about Russian literature and I’ve never seen or met in real life a person who actually thinks that Raskolnikov commits a crime only because he is poor and “the society fails him”. I think people are not stupid.
> comparisons between Raskolnikov and Luigi Mangione: both men were justified, these readers will claim, in sacrificing a single individual for the greater good of society.
You gave an article that does not correspond to what you say. From the article: “Luigi Mangione must have seen himself as one of Raskolnikov’s “extraordinary people.” => the authors clearly know the motivations behind Raskolnikov’s murder, they write that these can be viewed as ideological.
It’s either you didn’t check the source or you expected others to believe you.
The parallel with Mangione is absolutely valid and true. The article proves it.
> Crime and Punishment leaves us, therefore, not with a political but with a deeply spiritual and human message
This is not entirely true, Dostoevsky addresses the radical youth, so it is a political message. You write it yourself several times.
Dostoevsky is saying that every life has a meaning => basic human rights => it’s a pretty liberal idea. Human rights are part of political discussions. The interconnection between politics and philosophy (or just Political Philosophy) makes the novel more complicated and nuanced rather than just saying “it’s not a political novel”.
> The pawnbroker’s life might be useless to Raskolnikov in the abstract, but in reality, she is an individual human being with a living soul.
Why is there no mention of Lizaveta? Her killing is even more important than the pawnbroker’s one. Lizaveta is the key element in the story, which is why she’s “Lizaveta”. Dostoevsky chooses this name deliberately, it means “God is my oath” = her killing is how Raskolnikov breaks off his connection to God = Dostoevsky tells us that one “justified” killing always leads to innocent people hurt.
And this is Lizaveta’s Gospel that helps Raskolnikov (she gave it to Sonya before her death, and that’s the Gospel they were reading together). This is not purely Sonia’s love that resurrected him, it was also Lizaveta.
> Dostoyevsky masterfully predicted the eventual catastrophe of the Soviet Union
No, he doesn’t. At most, Dostoevsky may help explain why a communist utopia would be difficult or impossible to achieve in the way Soviet leaders envisioned it. But that is very different from saying that he predicted the collapse of the USSR.
If communist ideology itself were the primary reason for the Soviet Union’s collapse, it is difficult to explain why a large majority of Soviet citizens still wanted to preserve the Union in 1991. This was clearly demonstrated by the All-Union referendum of March 17, 1991, in which 76.4% of voters supported maintaining the USSR as a federation of equal republics. People generally did not reject the idea of the Soviet Union or socialism outright; rather, many supported a reformed and renewed Union.
Therefore, the collapse of the USSR cannot be reduced simply to the failure of communist ideology or to the kind of “mathematical consciousness” Dostoevsky criticized. The breakup was the result of a complex combination of political struggles, economic difficulties, national movements, and decisions made by political elites. The referendum suggests that, shortly before the dissolution, most citizens still preferred preserving the Union rather than dismantling it.
This is also my analysis: Raskolnikov kills, on a rationalized level, for the greater good of society, but on a psychological level, for proving himself extraordinary and more worthy than others.
Such a way of thinking, such a state of psychology, is depraved from every human compassion, and has lost all purpose and meaning. The core of these ideologies is deeply evil.
And it is also not really rational, because it overlooks that avoiding evil is of greater weight than to achieve good things. You cannot simply subtract them from another.
Honestly, if people misread it as that, it makes me wonder if they even read the book. Like I understand it’s a tough read, especially for your average person, but he says multiple times throughout, that it was to see if he was extraordinary, and that if he can get away with it, it will prove that.
It’s strange, lol. As Harold Bloom said, Dostoevsky was incredibly tendentious. To completely misconstrue the message he wants to get across therefore is… well, as I said, strange.
Tendentious isn’t a fair characterization of his writing. Especially since it’s a novel. He isn’t ignoring facts or presenting a biased interpretation of something. He is representing humanity through characters. And the fact that even his most loathsome characters can elicit understanding or even humor from the reader demonstrates that he had a firm grasp on his main subject: human psychology and spirituality.
Agreed. Bloom wasn’t a fan of Dostoevsky’s ideas, so he viewed them with skepticism. But there’s no denying that Fyodor was preachy.
Yes he could be a bit preachy. I would say I am not a Christian, or religious at all, but what Dostoevsky is tackling is very real even if one doesn’t share his belief that Christianity is the solution.
Im curious, what did this Bloom fellow not like about his ideas? Was it perhaps his attitude towards the atheistic mind?
Because one psychological representation I think Dostoevsky gets right is the arrogance, the envy, and the murderousness that secular minds can fall prey to. In Crime and Punishment, in Demons, in Notes from the Underground, it’s a common theme. Even if I don’t share Dostoevsky’s religious worldview, there’s no denying the psychological reality he is dealing with in these characters.
Or was it something else he disliked?
Bloom was just extremely skeptical of Christianity’s claims in general, and that was a bias he never escaped. He even wrote ‘literary appreciation’ of the King James Bible which was filled with distaste about the God it presents. 🤣
Fascinating! I can't wait to read Dostoevsky. For now, I'm still enjoying Anna Karenina (obediently following your top ten recommendation).
> The modern university and the contemporary literary establishment often treat Crime and Punishment as a novel about poverty, oppression, and inequality.
Is this actually true? I feel like an example here would bolster the case.
It's been some decades since I've read Crime and Punishment, and it was in high school, not university, but our reading in class at the time was much closer to yours than to any socio-economic reading. Quickly googling around, it would seem that the standard reading is somewhat closer to yours (although not as specific). The themes from SparkNotes (https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crime/themes/) include nihilism, the idea of an ends-justify-the-means "Superman" (not in the Nietzsche sense), psychology and alienation.
Similarly, ChatGPT (hardly a bastion of conservative thought) summarizes the themes of Crime and Punishment as "human beings cannot escape the moral consequences of their actions through intellect alone."
I don't regard either of these sources as particularly authoritative, but they do belie the idea that the "standard" reading of Crime and Punishment has been warped into some kind of proto-socialist one. I'm genuinely interested to know where you're seeing that reading!
This is the usual Libes bullshit. While any good contemporary reader would accept the fact that the framework of poverty, etc. is a formative experience for R's pathology, no one in colleges (except perhaps in Libes' own head) is teaching what she says. It's how she gets clicks, not reality.
Well, the leftists are correct then. Mangione is the modern Raskolnikov with his splitted, megalomaniac personality. Just the way Dostoevsky intended to depict this eternal character.
Appreciated! I often have hazy memories of things I learned in college and I always enjoy interpretations that wipe away the haze and bring old memories to life!
Thank you, great article. I just read Crime and Punishment for the first time and finished it last month. This 56 year old man is still catching up on classics.
The “spiritually homeless” framing is the key that unlocks the whole novel. Raskolnikov doesn’t kill because he’s poor. He kills because he has nothing inside that tells him he shouldn’t. The theory fills the void that meaning once occupied. Dostoyevsky understood that the most dangerous ideas aren’t the ones that come from hatred, but the ones that come from emptiness dressed up as logic.
I enjoyed this piece, especially your emphasis on Raskolnikov’s desire to test whether he was one of the “extraordinary” people. I agree that many contemporary readings flatten the novel into a story about poverty and oppression alone.
At the same time, I wonder if something important gets lost when the discussion becomes primarily a dispute about political interpretations.
What has always struck me about Dostoevsky is that his concern was never simply with bad ideas. It was with human suffering and the possibility of redemption. That concern runs through House of the Dead as much as Crime and Punishment.
I also wonder whether the “extraordinary man” theory is even more ironic than your essay suggests. Raskolnikov thinks he is testing whether he is one of the rare people who can stand above ordinary morality. But by the end of the novel, Dostoevsky seems to move in almost the opposite direction. The problem is not that Raskolnikov thinks he is extraordinary. In a sense, every human soul is extraordinary. The mistake is believing that this uniqueness exempts him from moral responsibility rather than deepening it.
Raskolnikov wants to be Napoleon. Instead, he discovers that he is simply himself, responsible for what he has done, unable to escape guilt through theory, and in need of redemption. That strikes me as one of the deepest ironies in the novel.
In some ways, I think Dostoevsky’s critique of ideology grows out of this larger concern. He worried about political theories not simply because they were politically mistaken, but because they could cause us to lose sight of the suffering and dignity of actual human beings.
That’s why the novel still feels so alive to me. The politics are there, but they are ultimately in service of a larger question: what happens to a human soul, and what might redeem it?
I have a blog about Russian literature and I’ve never seen or met in real life a person who actually thinks that Raskolnikov commits a crime only because he is poor and “the society fails him”. I think people are not stupid.
> comparisons between Raskolnikov and Luigi Mangione: both men were justified, these readers will claim, in sacrificing a single individual for the greater good of society.
You gave an article that does not correspond to what you say. From the article: “Luigi Mangione must have seen himself as one of Raskolnikov’s “extraordinary people.” => the authors clearly know the motivations behind Raskolnikov’s murder, they write that these can be viewed as ideological.
It’s either you didn’t check the source or you expected others to believe you.
The parallel with Mangione is absolutely valid and true. The article proves it.
> Crime and Punishment leaves us, therefore, not with a political but with a deeply spiritual and human message
This is not entirely true, Dostoevsky addresses the radical youth, so it is a political message. You write it yourself several times.
Dostoevsky is saying that every life has a meaning => basic human rights => it’s a pretty liberal idea. Human rights are part of political discussions. The interconnection between politics and philosophy (or just Political Philosophy) makes the novel more complicated and nuanced rather than just saying “it’s not a political novel”.
> The pawnbroker’s life might be useless to Raskolnikov in the abstract, but in reality, she is an individual human being with a living soul.
Why is there no mention of Lizaveta? Her killing is even more important than the pawnbroker’s one. Lizaveta is the key element in the story, which is why she’s “Lizaveta”. Dostoevsky chooses this name deliberately, it means “God is my oath” = her killing is how Raskolnikov breaks off his connection to God = Dostoevsky tells us that one “justified” killing always leads to innocent people hurt.
And this is Lizaveta’s Gospel that helps Raskolnikov (she gave it to Sonya before her death, and that’s the Gospel they were reading together). This is not purely Sonia’s love that resurrected him, it was also Lizaveta.
> Dostoyevsky masterfully predicted the eventual catastrophe of the Soviet Union
No, he doesn’t. At most, Dostoevsky may help explain why a communist utopia would be difficult or impossible to achieve in the way Soviet leaders envisioned it. But that is very different from saying that he predicted the collapse of the USSR.
If communist ideology itself were the primary reason for the Soviet Union’s collapse, it is difficult to explain why a large majority of Soviet citizens still wanted to preserve the Union in 1991. This was clearly demonstrated by the All-Union referendum of March 17, 1991, in which 76.4% of voters supported maintaining the USSR as a federation of equal republics. People generally did not reject the idea of the Soviet Union or socialism outright; rather, many supported a reformed and renewed Union.
Therefore, the collapse of the USSR cannot be reduced simply to the failure of communist ideology or to the kind of “mathematical consciousness” Dostoevsky criticized. The breakup was the result of a complex combination of political struggles, economic difficulties, national movements, and decisions made by political elites. The referendum suggests that, shortly before the dissolution, most citizens still preferred preserving the Union rather than dismantling it.
This is also my analysis: Raskolnikov kills, on a rationalized level, for the greater good of society, but on a psychological level, for proving himself extraordinary and more worthy than others.
Such a way of thinking, such a state of psychology, is depraved from every human compassion, and has lost all purpose and meaning. The core of these ideologies is deeply evil.
And it is also not really rational, because it overlooks that avoiding evil is of greater weight than to achieve good things. You cannot simply subtract them from another.