Crime and Punishment: In Twisted Minds

I’d heard of ‘Crime and Punishment’ years before I’d ever read it. Mostly as the occasional mention in a conversation or a reference. It was one of those books that I knew was an important piece of literature, one that I’d always get around to… eventually.

Then I found out it was one of the primary inspirations for Silent Hill 2. One of the greatest horror games of all time, and one of my personal favorites. After that, the ‘eventually’ became a ‘right fucking now, please’ on my to-do list. So here we are.

Former law student Rodion Raskolnikov lives in poverty. But he plans to change that by murdering a rich old woman and taking her fortune for himself. Unfortunately for him, to kill another human has consequences far beyond the legal.

Some potential readers might call this book boring. It’s a lot of people talking for paragraphs and paragraphs on end, or just wandering around thinking. This isn’t a particularly exciting story.

But these people are dumb and should be ignored.

Crime and Punishment is about the psychology of its characters. People aren’t just talking for prolonged periods of time just to fill the pages. We’re learning all about how they think, how they view the world, and how they handle things like stress, be it financial or otherwise.

It works especially well for Raskolnikov himself. His reaction after escaping from the crime scene is genuinely unsettling. He doesn’t go off the deep end, he doesn’t turn around and vomit his guts out, he doesn’t cry out to the heavens, nothing so dramatic as that. He just wanders around in a daze without even thinking about where he’s going. It’s chilling, and the rest of the book carries that really well.

Not to mention the actual killing itself. Which… god damn, man. That shit was rough to read.

In a good way, of course.

‘Crime and Punishment’ is a fantastic character story. It explores interesting and dark aspects of psychology in a way only Russian literature can. If you’re into grim character studies, this is a must-read, no doubt.