Big Dostoevsky Energy: Part I
Crime and Punishment: The Recap
This is my first of what I hope will be a series of newsletters in which I share the joy of classic novels through the medium of bad jokes. For the scholars amongst you, I feel like I need to put a disclaimer at the beginning—this content was written in a delirious haze, so please don’t rely on it for your Old Timey Novels 101 course assignments.
It’s my first classic novel recap!!! Exciting!!!! Because it’s the first one, I thought I would start with something not too complicated, just a fun and easy beach read, basically the Gone Girl of 19th Century Russia:
That’s right, people, we’re going straight for Mr Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Big D, and his classic novel about a young man whose foray into double murder doesn’t quite turn out as planned. Because it’s quite a long book with a lot of action, I’m going to split this recap into two parts—the next part will hopefully come out tomorrow.
PART ONE
Meet Rodion Raskolnikov, a twenty-three year old law school drop out who is the protagonist of Crime and Punishment. In the opening scene, he’s just dodged an awkward encounter with his landlady, and right from the start we learn that he’s a super relatable guy:
[F]or some time he had been in an over-strained, irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting not only his landlady but anyone at all…He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so .
Frankly, Raskolnikov was ahead of his time and if you haven’t given up attending to matters of practical importance by this stage of human history then I don’t know what to say to you.
One important thing you should know about Raskolnikov is that he is both ‘exceptionally handsome’ and ‘so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness would have been ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags’—ie basically just your average guy from Brunswick:
When we meet him, he’s doing a lot of unhinged muttering; it’s possible a little Clozapine wouldn’t go astray. In the opening scene, he heads to visit a local pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna—attractively described as ‘a diminutive withered up old woman of sixty’ with a neck that ‘looked like a hen’s leg’ and ‘colourless hair…thickly smeared with oil’. He pawns his watch to her for a rouble and a half (NB according to Reddit, in 1865 a rouble and a half would buy you…maybe four ducks), then—despite not having eaten for two days—his first order of business is to head to the pub.
At the bar, he gets chatting to Marmeladov, a ‘retired government clerk’. You can tell he used to be in the public service by the following tell-tale signs:
yellow, almost greenish skin
swollen eyelids
bloated from continual drinking
crumpled shirt front covered with spots and stains
Marmeladov starts rambling on to Raskolnikov almost immediately. ‘Allow me to ask you…have you ever spent a night on a hay barge, on the Neva?’ he asks, which is an incredible conversation starter and which brings to mind this guy:
Marmeladov proceeds to tell Raskolnikov the story of his marriage. Essentially, Marmeladov was a widower with a daughter, who married a fancy lady, Katerina, as a gesture of kindness after her husband died and she was left looking after three children in hopeless poverty. But then Marmeladov lost his job—mostly because he was a terrible boozehound—leaving all of them destitute, and Marmeladov’s daughter Sonia had to turn to sex work to provide for them. Marmeladov felt pretty bad about this, and recently found himself a new job…but as soon as he got paid he set off on a massive bender, and has now lost the job, spent all his money, and hasn’t been home for five days.
Raskolnikov decides to help him get back home, where his wife is understandably not overjoyed to see him. Katerina is consumptive, feverish, and has three starving children to look after; she’s having a pretty bad time. She starts beating up Marmeladov and shouts at Raskolnikov to GTFO.
Raskolnikov heads home to bed (something he does a lot in this novel), and the next day is woken up by Nastasya, the servant at his lodgings. She gives him a hard time about not having a job—the exchange goes something like this:
Nastasya: Why aren’t you working these days?
Raskolnikov: I am working.
Nastasya: What sort of work are you doing?
Raskolnikov: I am…thinking.
Nastasya: ROFLMAO
When she’s finished laughing, Nastasya brings him a letter from his mother, Pulcheria, who is basically apologising for not sending him money, because she’s been broke AF. Also, she has bad news: Raskolnikov’s sister, Dounia, has lost her job as a governess because the father of the family she worked for, Sridgigailov, kept trying to hit on her. When Sridgigailov’s wife, Marfa, got wind of this, she threw Dounia out and bad mouthed her all over town.
Fortunately, Pulcheria continues, Marfa eventually figured out Dounia wasn’t to blame for her husband’s sleazebaggery, and felt a bit bad. She made up for it by setting Dounia up with a wealthy older guy, Luzhin—and now they’re engaged! Pulcheria and Dounia are heading to St Petersburg to see Raskolnikov and introduce him to Dounia’s new fiancé, who she urges Raskolnikov not to judge too hastily even though he is ‘a little morose and somewhat conceited’, and a man who ‘likes to be listened to’ .
Raskolnikov is annoyed—he thinks Dounia is only marrying Luzhin because (a) she is broke and desperate and (b) Luzhin might give Raskolnikov a job or help pay for him to go back to uni—and he feels depressed that he’s so broke that he can’t really stop her.
He heads off to visit his old uni pal, Razumihin, to ask for work. Razumihin is hot (‘tall, thin, black haired and always badly shaved’), smart in an unthreatening way (‘extremely intelligent, though…certainly a simpleton at times’) and fun (‘[t]here was no limit to his drinking powers’), i.e. the perfect man. I can’t wait to meet him—but oh no! I must wait! Because on the way to Razuhimin’s place, Raskolnikov gets feverish and lies down in the bushes for a nap, as you do, and proceeds to have a long and disturbing dream about a horse being beaten to death by a peasant.
He wakes up and goes to the Hay Market, where he happens to overhear that Lizaveta, the old pawnbroker’s sister, will be out at 7pm the next day, meaning the pawnbroker, Alyona, will be left alone. Raskolnikov is like…hmm, interesting. He also recollects another conversation he overheard once where a student he knew was talking about Alonya being a ‘stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman’, and how great it would be if someone murdered her and used her money ‘for the good of humanity’. Uhh. I mean, obviously we’ve all flirted with similar notions about Elon Musk certain public figures who shall not be named, but Alyona’s just a harmless old lady! I mean, sure, she beats her sister and exploits the poverty of others to enrich herself, but it does seem quite hard to live a virtuous life in 1860s St Petersburg.
The next day, Raskolnikov sleeps most of the day, has some feverish dreams, then wakes up at 6pm and sews a noose into his overcoat. The noose is for storing…his axe. GUYS. I’m beginning to suspect Raskolnikov is up to no good!!!!!
He heads over to the pawnbroker’s place, and on the way he thinks about how criminals are mostly so bad at concealing their crimes because they get all het up and emotional, but how he is not going to fall into such a trap. He thinks he is very clever, but then when he is halfway there he realises that he is wearing a very ugly and noticeable hat, oops!
He arrives at Alyona’s place and pretends he’s there to pawn something. Unfortunately for Alyona, the only thing he’s pawning is…his soul. To Satan. Because when she turns around for a minute he clocks her on the head with his axe. You know it’s coming, but it’s still pretty shocking—in fact, even Raskolnikov himself is kind of shocked, he panics and scrambles around trying to find her money, getting blood everywhere, not at all the criminal mastermind he thought he was going to be. Then, when he’s searching her bedroom, he hears her sister Lizaveta arrive home. Oh no!!! He runs out and finds Lizaveta staring at her sister’s corpse, and I think you can guess what happens next: Lizaveta gets the axe faster than an ABC journalist posting online about Gaza.
Just as Raskolnikov is about to hotfoot it out of there, he hears voices on the stairs, and has to bolt himself into the flat. Some dudes knock on the door, and when they notice it’s bolted from the inside (meaning someone must be home) they go downstairs to get a porter to let them in. Raskolnikov takes the opportunity to run down and hide in a flat on a lower floor. When the coast is clear, he makes his getaway, then heads home, utterly exhausted, and immediately…falls asleep.
The next day, Nastasya, the cook, drops by with the news that Raskolnikov has been summoned to the police station. He’s like…I’m sorry??
He shows up at the police station and figures out they only want to talk to him about some money he owes his landlady. Phew. But then, just when he’s about to leave, he overhears two policemen talking about the murder of Alyona and Lizaveta. Of course being the smooth criminal that he is, Raskolnikov plays it super cool. JUST KIDDING. He immediately faints like a little goat.
When he wakes up, the cops are like…um, interesting that you fainted while we were talking about the double murder…can you tell us where you were at approximately 7pm last night? Just asking!!! No special reason!!!
He heads home, and hides the stuff he stole from Alyona under a stone. Then he goes out for a stroll, during which he’s overcome by a general feeling of intense hatred for everyone he sees (as I said: he’s relatable). He ends up at Razumihin’s house, and Razumihin—who is just as hot and nice as expected—feels worried for Raskolnikov and offers him some work, but Raskolnikov just mutters crazily and walks home again. He falls into a feverish delirium that lasts for days. When he wakes up, Razumihin is there, looking after him. Also, in some good news, Raskolnikov’s mum has sent through thirty-five roubles (enough for 166 ducks!) so he is no longer penniless.
Razumihin brings over a doctor to see Raskolnikov and asks if they can give him something to eat. The doctor is like, sure, dude, he can eat anything! Anything other than mushrooms or cucumbers, that is.
While they’re all chatting, a new visitor arrives—it’s Dounia’s fiancé, Luzhin, the morose man who likes to be listened to. He starts trying to impress them all with his knowledge of ‘progressive ideas’—primarily he seems taken with the idea that ‘the world rests on self-interest’ and the best way to look after society is to acquire wealth solely and exclusively for yourself. It’s all very trickle-down-economics and it’s a bit sad to read this ruthless capitalist ideology being spruiked by self-satisfied dickheads way back in 1865.
Raskolnikov is pleasingly rude to Luzhin—he kicks him out, and then throws everyone else out with the words ‘I am sleepy! Leave me.’ This is also how I will be ending all social engagements, family dinners and business meetings from now on.
Instead of having a nap, he heads out into the street, where he starts talking to a random man about how much he loves street music: ‘I love to hear singing to a street organ…I like it on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings…when all the passers-by have pale green, sickly faces…when wet snow is falling straight down, when there’s no wind…’ It’s very poetic but I could not stop thinking about him delivering this like Howard Moon reciting cream poetry in The Mighty Boosh:
Raskolnikov ends up at a bar, where he runs into a police officer he knows, Zametov, and basically tells him exactly how he killed the old lady and hid the evidence, then at the last minute he’s like, ‘LOL just kidding!!! What, you thought I was serious?? How embarrassing for you.’
Later, walking home, he starts feeling gloomy and tired; being a murderer is not turning out quite as fun as he’d hoped. He contemplates throwing himself off a bridge or going to the police station to confess, but then he sees Marmeladov—the drunken ex-government clerk he chatted to at the start—who has been run over in the street. Raskolnikov helps carry him home, where Marmeladov promptly dies. Feeling bad for Marmeladov’s widow, Katerina, who is now stuck on her own with the three starving kids, Raskolnikov gives her all the money his mum sent him.
For some reason, Raskolnikov is now feeling top of the world; nothing like the premature death of a civil servant to put a spring in your step. He has banished thoughts of suicide/confession, and instead heads back to his lodgings, where—surprise!—he finds his mother and sister are waiting for him. In a classic Raskolnikov move, he faints.
Why did Raskolnikov murder Alyona? Will he be caught by the police? How many ducks will he buy??? Find out tomorrow (hopefully) in Part Two!
Hilarious! Love any reference to Dostoevsky and The Mighty Boosh in the same place. x Leah
Good one! 😂