The Life Changer

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
by FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

No book in the history of books (that I've read) can swallow you whole like Crime and Punishment. When I was finally done reading this novel, I was a whole new person.

I swear, from the first words on the first page I was already engulfed in the world of Raskolnikov. I had this horrible feeling int he pit of my stomach, I was uncomfortable, I was sad and depressed, I felt lonely and isolated... I felt everything he felt for the entirety of the novel. It was awful... but it was amazing! Who else can write like that? I'm telling you, in all the years that I have been reading (unassisted), I have never read a book like this, a book a would consider Dostoevsky's masterpiece.

I know that Notes from Underground was a work of art, really, it was. I know that it takes years of studying and much knowledge to appreciate a said novel. I have also read The Brothers Karamazov, which, I gotta tell you, is also one of my favorite books of all time. But, just because The Brothers Karamazov has made it into my list of favorites, doesn't mean that it was Dostoevsky's best work.

Crime and Punishment is dark and eerie. It's a horrible story that no one on Earth wants to identify with, yet you can't help feeling these uncanny similarities between you and this foreign character with whom you try to convince yourself you have nothing in common.

At the beginning of this novel, the main character is torn and tormented. He is about to commit a crime. He must commit the crime, or so he has convinced himself. So, he successfully does what he has set out to do. This all happens in the first few chapters. While reading the first little bit, I remember thinking, 'This book is going to open my eyes to my own moral barometer. It's really gonna make me think about things I never really thought about.'

The first few chapters brought me to that place where I was forced to think about what I would do, how I would feel, and so on. The most important question I struggled with was the same one Raskolnikov was plagued with: Had he changed his very nature permanently? If so, was there a way to undo it, or was he going to punish himself forever? Well, without giving too much away, he spent the next 900 pages in punishment. But the dialogue, the description, the emotion - it was all so other worldly, yet so close to home.

I read this book at a pinnacle time in my life, and I think before I ever completed it, I had picked it up more than 3 times. It is a book that must be read in one's lifetime. However, when you read it is up to you. Pick it up, read the first little bit, see what gives. If the book doesn't strike you right away, put it down. Walk away. You'll be back. You'll be ready eventually, and when you are, this book will do for you what it did for me and so many before me: swallow you whole and spit you out new.