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Haley Mathiot (9 KP) rated Crime and Punishment in Books
Apr 27, 2018
**spoilers**
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. read by Anthony Heald.
Genre: Fiction, classic
Rating: 5
Sin, Sentence, and Salvation
The allegory of Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment, one of the more famous works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, is considered “the first great novel of his mature period,” (Frank, 1995) and is one of his more famous books, rivaled only by The Brothers Karamazov. What makes Crime and Punishment such a classic? Perhaps because it is a picture of the only classic, and greatest story of all time. Crime and Punishment is an allegory of Salvation.
Self-justified
The main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, was a poor student at a university, and was overcome with hate toward an old pawnbroker, and decided to rid the world of her for the greater good of everyone. He believed that she was a “louse,” and since everyone would be happier without her, his actions would be justified. He believed that he had broken the letter of the law only, but that it didn’t have any authority over him anyway because it was written by people just as low as himself. He didn’t believe in God, and in prison he was convinced that he didn’t deserve his treatment, and that it was something he simply needed to get over with. He had no higher authority, so he said “my conscience is at rest.” This is a picture of man before he is touched by the merciful salvation of Christ.
A Troubled Man
Although Raskolnikov justified his actions in killing the old woman, he still felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and fear over what he did. He worked very hard at keeping it a secret, and at first he thought he could live with the guilt that sat in back of his mind, but he was wrong. Raskolnikov had horrible dreams, was always sick, and one of the other characters noticed that he was constantly “set off by little things” for no apparent reason (though the reader knew that it was only because it reminded him of his crime). This represents a man who knows in his heart that he is a sinner, but who will not turn and repent from his sin.
Unending Love
Sonya Semyonovna Marmeladov was the daughter of a drunkard who “took the yellow card” and prostituted herself to support her family. Throughout the book, Sonya began to love Raskolnikov. Eventually, Raskolnikov told Sonya his secret. Sonya was horrified, but still loved him and forgave him after her initial shock wore off. As Raskolnikov was fighting inside with his conscience and his sins, he repeatedly snapped at her, refused her comfort, yelled at her, and so on. He was a bitter, angry, hateful man—and yet Sonya forgave him for everything he did to her, and everything he had done in his past. What redeeming quality Sonya saw in the wretch and why she forgave him, one cannot begin to comprehend; aside from the simple truth that Sonya was a loving, gentile, merciful girl. She saw that Raskolnikov needed someone to love him and she reached out to him, even when he repeatedly pushed her away. Sonya’s love for him is a picture of Christ’s unending and perfect love to His sinful people.
A Silent Witness
When Raskolnikov finally broke down and confessed his crime, Sonya moved to Siberia with him. Raskolnikov expected this, and knew that telling her not to come would be fruitless. She visited him often in prison and wrote to his family for him. But although Raskolnikov expected her to preach to him and push the Gospel in his face, she did not. Sonya followed the scripture’s instruction to Christian wives with non-Christian husbands in 1 Peter 3:1—“ Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives…” The verse tells women to be good examples of Christ to their non-Christian husbands rather than to preach to them and try to convert them, and that is exactly what Sonya did, even though she was not married to him. She did not try to convert him with words; rather she won him with her love. She did not push the Testament into Raskolnikov’s hands, he asked for it. When she did bring it, she did not pester him to read it. She had faith, and showed Raskolnikov the love of Christ through her actions. In the end, it paid off. Although Dostoevsky does not specifically say that Raskolnikov was converted, he does imply that he eventually became a Christian when he mused “Can not her own convictions now be mine?”
The truth will set you free
When Raskolnikov finally realized that he loved Sonya, he accepted that he was a criminal, and a murderer. When he finally accepted that he was a sinner, he repented and had a new life in him. He said he felt like “he had risen again” and that Sonya “lived only in his life.” By life, Dostoevsky refers to his mentality. Before, he had been a living dead man in prison. He was hated by his inmates, was almost killed by them in an outbreak, was unaffected by anything that happened to him or his family, and eventually became ill from it all. But after his resurrection, he repented from his sins, learned to move on with his life, and started to change. He began to converse with his inmates, and they no longer hated him. Sonya was alive in his “life” because of her love for him. When he was changed, she was so happy that she became sick with joy, to the point that she was ill in bed. Dostoevsky paints a picture of a redeemed man at the end of his novel—redeemed both by the law, and by God. This picture symbolizes the miracle of salvation through Christ.
An amazing Allegory
Dostoevsky was a wonderful writer because of his use of dialogue to tell the story, his descriptive scenes, his powerfully developed characters, and their inner dialogue. He often times told you that something was happening by only telling you what the character who was speaking at the time said in response to what was going on. For example, if Sonya was standing up, Dostoevsky would write “… ‘hey, what do you stand for?’ for Sonya had stood.”
He also painted such good descriptions of his characters, that by the middle of the book he didn’t have to say that Raskolnikov was musing in the corner of the room, glaring at anyone who was brave enough to look at him, while he stewed in grief under his old ratted cap, because you knew from how well he was described earlier and how well his character was developed from the dialogue, that he was doing exactly that.
His characters are so real, they almost frighten you because you see the things they do and feel and experience reflected in your own life. They are not perfect—in fact they are all incredibly flawed, but they are a joy to read.
His ending is superb, because he closes the story without actually telling you everything. He never says that Raskolnikov was converted, he never says when he got out of prison, and he never says that Sonya and he were married, but you know that it happened. The last scene of the story is so superb, it makes you want to read it again, just to experience the joy all over again.
But what really made Crime and Punishment the classic that it was is the picture of the best story in the world, the classic story of the world, showing through. The story of the Gospel, of Jesus Christ’s unending love and sin and salvation is clearly portrayed, and makes a joyous read.
Works cited:
Quotes are from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1886
Frank, Joseph (1995). Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865–1871. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01587-2. (source found and taken from Wikipedia.com)
1 Peter 3:1 New International Version of The Holy Bible
Audio review: I had a hard time reading the book, simply because it was so huge that it was intimidating. I bought (ouch) the audio book of Crime and Punishment, recorded by Anthony Heald who did a fantastic job reading. His voices for the characters perfectly matched them, he felt for them, and he acted them. None of them were cheesy (yeah you all know how lame some male readers are at acting female voices). He read fast enough that the story didn't drag at all, but not so fast that you'd feel like you'd miss something if you didn't listen hard. I will definitely re-listen to the audio book.
Content: some gruesome descriptions of blood from the murder
Recommendation: Ages 14+
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. read by Anthony Heald.
Genre: Fiction, classic
Rating: 5
Sin, Sentence, and Salvation
The allegory of Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment, one of the more famous works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, is considered “the first great novel of his mature period,” (Frank, 1995) and is one of his more famous books, rivaled only by The Brothers Karamazov. What makes Crime and Punishment such a classic? Perhaps because it is a picture of the only classic, and greatest story of all time. Crime and Punishment is an allegory of Salvation.
Self-justified
The main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, was a poor student at a university, and was overcome with hate toward an old pawnbroker, and decided to rid the world of her for the greater good of everyone. He believed that she was a “louse,” and since everyone would be happier without her, his actions would be justified. He believed that he had broken the letter of the law only, but that it didn’t have any authority over him anyway because it was written by people just as low as himself. He didn’t believe in God, and in prison he was convinced that he didn’t deserve his treatment, and that it was something he simply needed to get over with. He had no higher authority, so he said “my conscience is at rest.” This is a picture of man before he is touched by the merciful salvation of Christ.
A Troubled Man
Although Raskolnikov justified his actions in killing the old woman, he still felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and fear over what he did. He worked very hard at keeping it a secret, and at first he thought he could live with the guilt that sat in back of his mind, but he was wrong. Raskolnikov had horrible dreams, was always sick, and one of the other characters noticed that he was constantly “set off by little things” for no apparent reason (though the reader knew that it was only because it reminded him of his crime). This represents a man who knows in his heart that he is a sinner, but who will not turn and repent from his sin.
Unending Love
Sonya Semyonovna Marmeladov was the daughter of a drunkard who “took the yellow card” and prostituted herself to support her family. Throughout the book, Sonya began to love Raskolnikov. Eventually, Raskolnikov told Sonya his secret. Sonya was horrified, but still loved him and forgave him after her initial shock wore off. As Raskolnikov was fighting inside with his conscience and his sins, he repeatedly snapped at her, refused her comfort, yelled at her, and so on. He was a bitter, angry, hateful man—and yet Sonya forgave him for everything he did to her, and everything he had done in his past. What redeeming quality Sonya saw in the wretch and why she forgave him, one cannot begin to comprehend; aside from the simple truth that Sonya was a loving, gentile, merciful girl. She saw that Raskolnikov needed someone to love him and she reached out to him, even when he repeatedly pushed her away. Sonya’s love for him is a picture of Christ’s unending and perfect love to His sinful people.
A Silent Witness
When Raskolnikov finally broke down and confessed his crime, Sonya moved to Siberia with him. Raskolnikov expected this, and knew that telling her not to come would be fruitless. She visited him often in prison and wrote to his family for him. But although Raskolnikov expected her to preach to him and push the Gospel in his face, she did not. Sonya followed the scripture’s instruction to Christian wives with non-Christian husbands in 1 Peter 3:1—“ Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives…” The verse tells women to be good examples of Christ to their non-Christian husbands rather than to preach to them and try to convert them, and that is exactly what Sonya did, even though she was not married to him. She did not try to convert him with words; rather she won him with her love. She did not push the Testament into Raskolnikov’s hands, he asked for it. When she did bring it, she did not pester him to read it. She had faith, and showed Raskolnikov the love of Christ through her actions. In the end, it paid off. Although Dostoevsky does not specifically say that Raskolnikov was converted, he does imply that he eventually became a Christian when he mused “Can not her own convictions now be mine?”
The truth will set you free
When Raskolnikov finally realized that he loved Sonya, he accepted that he was a criminal, and a murderer. When he finally accepted that he was a sinner, he repented and had a new life in him. He said he felt like “he had risen again” and that Sonya “lived only in his life.” By life, Dostoevsky refers to his mentality. Before, he had been a living dead man in prison. He was hated by his inmates, was almost killed by them in an outbreak, was unaffected by anything that happened to him or his family, and eventually became ill from it all. But after his resurrection, he repented from his sins, learned to move on with his life, and started to change. He began to converse with his inmates, and they no longer hated him. Sonya was alive in his “life” because of her love for him. When he was changed, she was so happy that she became sick with joy, to the point that she was ill in bed. Dostoevsky paints a picture of a redeemed man at the end of his novel—redeemed both by the law, and by God. This picture symbolizes the miracle of salvation through Christ.
An amazing Allegory
Dostoevsky was a wonderful writer because of his use of dialogue to tell the story, his descriptive scenes, his powerfully developed characters, and their inner dialogue. He often times told you that something was happening by only telling you what the character who was speaking at the time said in response to what was going on. For example, if Sonya was standing up, Dostoevsky would write “… ‘hey, what do you stand for?’ for Sonya had stood.”
He also painted such good descriptions of his characters, that by the middle of the book he didn’t have to say that Raskolnikov was musing in the corner of the room, glaring at anyone who was brave enough to look at him, while he stewed in grief under his old ratted cap, because you knew from how well he was described earlier and how well his character was developed from the dialogue, that he was doing exactly that.
His characters are so real, they almost frighten you because you see the things they do and feel and experience reflected in your own life. They are not perfect—in fact they are all incredibly flawed, but they are a joy to read.
His ending is superb, because he closes the story without actually telling you everything. He never says that Raskolnikov was converted, he never says when he got out of prison, and he never says that Sonya and he were married, but you know that it happened. The last scene of the story is so superb, it makes you want to read it again, just to experience the joy all over again.
But what really made Crime and Punishment the classic that it was is the picture of the best story in the world, the classic story of the world, showing through. The story of the Gospel, of Jesus Christ’s unending love and sin and salvation is clearly portrayed, and makes a joyous read.
Works cited:
Quotes are from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1886
Frank, Joseph (1995). Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865–1871. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01587-2. (source found and taken from Wikipedia.com)
1 Peter 3:1 New International Version of The Holy Bible
Audio review: I had a hard time reading the book, simply because it was so huge that it was intimidating. I bought (ouch) the audio book of Crime and Punishment, recorded by Anthony Heald who did a fantastic job reading. His voices for the characters perfectly matched them, he felt for them, and he acted them. None of them were cheesy (yeah you all know how lame some male readers are at acting female voices). He read fast enough that the story didn't drag at all, but not so fast that you'd feel like you'd miss something if you didn't listen hard. I will definitely re-listen to the audio book.
Content: some gruesome descriptions of blood from the murder
Recommendation: Ages 14+
Paul Kellett (118 KP) rated Lifeform in Tabletop Games
May 1, 2019
I demoed this at Fan Boy 3 in Manchester during the Kickstarter campaign and was really excited to get to try this out.
So, what is the game?
Basically, it is Alien: The Board Game. A highly thematic one against many survival game where some of you play the crew of the mining ship Valley Forge trying to escape the clutches of an unknown alien killer before the ship self-destructs. Sound familiar? You bet, and it captures the tension of that well-known film perfectly.
I arrived part way through a game and Tristan kindly gave up his seat to let Me jump in. I basically new nothing about how to play, having only watched a couple of demo videos earlier in the week but with a crib sheet in front of Me explaining the card icons and a quick run down of what you can do in a turn, it didn't feel overwhelming and I was able to take over quite seamlessly. The game was close to the end and the alien player had already taken out most of the crew and was set up very nicely to ambush the rest of us. It wasn't long before the ship was adrift with just one deadly occupant...
How does it work?
We played a basic game, so some of the more meatier options were not included and we just had the simple task of gathering enough equipment and escaping in the shuttlecraft.
In the full game, players will be assigned personal objectives like downloading the ship's log from the data core or gathering specific equipment. This will add much more depth to the game as each player will be striving to achieve these goals as well as trying to avoid the alien and reaching the escape shuttle.
In the simple game however, we just had to focus on escaping. To do this, you need to collect the equipment tokens that are arranged in various rooms on the board. These are then placed on a track at the side of the board in various slots for coolant, energy cells, weapons, space suits and halon canisters. Most of these tracks have a minimum number of tokens needed before you can attempt to escape and any extra will grant bonuses like drawing extra cards or gaining a flame thrower.
In your turn, you get to perform one action so the downtime is minimal and the turns fair zip around the table, often before you've had a chance to take a breath and plan your next move.
All the actions are played from the cards you have in your hand, so you feel the tension of needing to get somewhere but having to wait until you draw a card that lets you run through multiple rooms.
Drawing cards. Now there's a thing. The ship's self destruct has been activated (naturally) and you only have 30 minutes until the ship blows up. Each time you choose to draw more cards into your hand, you slide the marker up the track, closer to the big bang.
I can't say too much about what the alien player can do as I didn't get to study that side of things too much but it certainly has some devious tricks up it's sleeve.
The alien player starts with two standees on the board. They look identical besides a little coloured sticker (this will be a set of symbols in the final game). He also has a corresponding set of tokens next to his player board and he will choose one of these to be the alien. The other standee (or standees, as later in the game there is the chance to get a third standee out) is a decoy so the crew, essentially seeing these as blips on their trackers, never know which is the real threat until it's too late.
There is a nice twist here, as, after making a kill, the alien player get's to reset his tokens and choose again which one will be the decoy and which will be the real killer. The alien player can also choose whether the kill was silent, offing the victim quickly and cleanly, or whether it is a nasty, brutal affair with lots of screaming. If the latter, then the other crew members hear this and all have to make a panic move into an adjacent room. This can be really useful if the crew are about to pick up equipment or possibly achieve an objective (I'm not sure if the personal objectives will be common knowledge or not sat this point).
The alien has various little trackers it can use from hatching more eggs letting it increase the amount of cards it holds, to taking control of the android on the crew which will then get placed on the board and follow a programmed track, killing any crew in it's way until it gets to the escape shuttle where it will start sabotaging various systems.
The alien also gets to place terror tokens and power out tokens on the board. If you enter a space with a terror token, you have to draw a card from the terror deck and these are always bad. A room with a power outage is dark and you can't run through it, you must stop your movement there. Other bad things can happen in the dark too.
What if I die?
Another neat thing this game does is avoid player elimination by cycling the crew. In our game, there were two of us controlling two characters each and when both of My characters died, I took one from the other player so we had one each. When that character was also killed (yes, I was not doing well...), rather than being forced to sit out the rest of the game, I could choose one of two secondary roles to play.
I could take control of the ship's mainframe computer which would allow me to do things like open and close bulkhead doors, slowing the alien down, allow the other players to draw more cards and various other useful things.
Or I could play the ship's cat. This was the option I went for and it was great. I could distract the alien, destroy some of it's eggs (so reducing it's hand size), place additional equipment tokens on the board or assist the other crew by letting them draw more cards.
It was this that that actually gave us the win as it was looking pretty bleak towards the end, but the cat actually managed to guide the last remaining crew member to a flamethrower and distract the alien long enough to make our escape.
What do I think?
This game is superb. Easy to pick up, but very thematic and definitely very tense. The decisions can be easy at times, but then you will hit a situation where the alien has you cornered and you must make some hard choices.
As I said, the theme just drips off every part of this game like a slightly corrosive drool. Our game started off really well - we managed to quickly gather a massive chunk of the equipment we needed to escape but the alien had been cutting the power and placing terror tokens closer to the escape shuttle ready for our eventual arrival and by the mid-game, we were feeling trapped and the alien was using the ventilation ducts to spring out and take us down one by one.
We were down to one surviving crew member and the ship's cat who, as I already mentioned managed to lead the human to the safety of the shuttle and espace.
Just getting to the shuttle isn't the end, however, there is one last twist (as in all good stories). At around the mid-point of the self destruct track, the alien get's to pick a card which is his estimate on what point prior to the ship blowing up we will reach the shuttle. If he has guessed correctly, then as we leave the stricken mining vessel, we find out that the shuttle has one extra occupant...
We were lucky and the alien player had guessed incorrectly, but had he been right, then there would have been a final battle aboard the escape shuttle and we may have been sending some deadly cargo back to Earth...
I can highly recommend this game and best of all, there is an expansion that adds an AI deck and a whole other set of objectives for solo play. I had a quick look at this and it looks like it will make for a very tense and really exciting solo game as well as a cool multiplayer experience.
So, what is the game?
Basically, it is Alien: The Board Game. A highly thematic one against many survival game where some of you play the crew of the mining ship Valley Forge trying to escape the clutches of an unknown alien killer before the ship self-destructs. Sound familiar? You bet, and it captures the tension of that well-known film perfectly.
I arrived part way through a game and Tristan kindly gave up his seat to let Me jump in. I basically new nothing about how to play, having only watched a couple of demo videos earlier in the week but with a crib sheet in front of Me explaining the card icons and a quick run down of what you can do in a turn, it didn't feel overwhelming and I was able to take over quite seamlessly. The game was close to the end and the alien player had already taken out most of the crew and was set up very nicely to ambush the rest of us. It wasn't long before the ship was adrift with just one deadly occupant...
How does it work?
We played a basic game, so some of the more meatier options were not included and we just had the simple task of gathering enough equipment and escaping in the shuttlecraft.
In the full game, players will be assigned personal objectives like downloading the ship's log from the data core or gathering specific equipment. This will add much more depth to the game as each player will be striving to achieve these goals as well as trying to avoid the alien and reaching the escape shuttle.
In the simple game however, we just had to focus on escaping. To do this, you need to collect the equipment tokens that are arranged in various rooms on the board. These are then placed on a track at the side of the board in various slots for coolant, energy cells, weapons, space suits and halon canisters. Most of these tracks have a minimum number of tokens needed before you can attempt to escape and any extra will grant bonuses like drawing extra cards or gaining a flame thrower.
In your turn, you get to perform one action so the downtime is minimal and the turns fair zip around the table, often before you've had a chance to take a breath and plan your next move.
All the actions are played from the cards you have in your hand, so you feel the tension of needing to get somewhere but having to wait until you draw a card that lets you run through multiple rooms.
Drawing cards. Now there's a thing. The ship's self destruct has been activated (naturally) and you only have 30 minutes until the ship blows up. Each time you choose to draw more cards into your hand, you slide the marker up the track, closer to the big bang.
I can't say too much about what the alien player can do as I didn't get to study that side of things too much but it certainly has some devious tricks up it's sleeve.
The alien player starts with two standees on the board. They look identical besides a little coloured sticker (this will be a set of symbols in the final game). He also has a corresponding set of tokens next to his player board and he will choose one of these to be the alien. The other standee (or standees, as later in the game there is the chance to get a third standee out) is a decoy so the crew, essentially seeing these as blips on their trackers, never know which is the real threat until it's too late.
There is a nice twist here, as, after making a kill, the alien player get's to reset his tokens and choose again which one will be the decoy and which will be the real killer. The alien player can also choose whether the kill was silent, offing the victim quickly and cleanly, or whether it is a nasty, brutal affair with lots of screaming. If the latter, then the other crew members hear this and all have to make a panic move into an adjacent room. This can be really useful if the crew are about to pick up equipment or possibly achieve an objective (I'm not sure if the personal objectives will be common knowledge or not sat this point).
The alien has various little trackers it can use from hatching more eggs letting it increase the amount of cards it holds, to taking control of the android on the crew which will then get placed on the board and follow a programmed track, killing any crew in it's way until it gets to the escape shuttle where it will start sabotaging various systems.
The alien also gets to place terror tokens and power out tokens on the board. If you enter a space with a terror token, you have to draw a card from the terror deck and these are always bad. A room with a power outage is dark and you can't run through it, you must stop your movement there. Other bad things can happen in the dark too.
What if I die?
Another neat thing this game does is avoid player elimination by cycling the crew. In our game, there were two of us controlling two characters each and when both of My characters died, I took one from the other player so we had one each. When that character was also killed (yes, I was not doing well...), rather than being forced to sit out the rest of the game, I could choose one of two secondary roles to play.
I could take control of the ship's mainframe computer which would allow me to do things like open and close bulkhead doors, slowing the alien down, allow the other players to draw more cards and various other useful things.
Or I could play the ship's cat. This was the option I went for and it was great. I could distract the alien, destroy some of it's eggs (so reducing it's hand size), place additional equipment tokens on the board or assist the other crew by letting them draw more cards.
It was this that that actually gave us the win as it was looking pretty bleak towards the end, but the cat actually managed to guide the last remaining crew member to a flamethrower and distract the alien long enough to make our escape.
What do I think?
This game is superb. Easy to pick up, but very thematic and definitely very tense. The decisions can be easy at times, but then you will hit a situation where the alien has you cornered and you must make some hard choices.
As I said, the theme just drips off every part of this game like a slightly corrosive drool. Our game started off really well - we managed to quickly gather a massive chunk of the equipment we needed to escape but the alien had been cutting the power and placing terror tokens closer to the escape shuttle ready for our eventual arrival and by the mid-game, we were feeling trapped and the alien was using the ventilation ducts to spring out and take us down one by one.
We were down to one surviving crew member and the ship's cat who, as I already mentioned managed to lead the human to the safety of the shuttle and espace.
Just getting to the shuttle isn't the end, however, there is one last twist (as in all good stories). At around the mid-point of the self destruct track, the alien get's to pick a card which is his estimate on what point prior to the ship blowing up we will reach the shuttle. If he has guessed correctly, then as we leave the stricken mining vessel, we find out that the shuttle has one extra occupant...
We were lucky and the alien player had guessed incorrectly, but had he been right, then there would have been a final battle aboard the escape shuttle and we may have been sending some deadly cargo back to Earth...
I can highly recommend this game and best of all, there is an expansion that adds an AI deck and a whole other set of objectives for solo play. I had a quick look at this and it looks like it will make for a very tense and really exciting solo game as well as a cool multiplayer experience.