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64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
By far the BEST TRANSLATION of one of the true masterpieces, 2 Oct 2003
I read the Wordsworth Classics translation of Crime and Punishment when I was 16 and thought it was awful. I could not understand why this book was considered such a masterpiece. Afterwards I read the Penguin translation by David McDuff. It was much better. A good read, and I realised the importance of a good translation. Then I came across the Vintage edition by Richard Pevear. Its brilliant!! By far the best. The Penguin edition by comparison is stitled, unfluent, and the language is quite dated. Pevear's translation reads like a modern novel, and you feel the passion, the darkness, the cerebral torments of Dostoevsky's characters. Its impossible to hype this book enough. It is quite simply one of the greatest novels ever written and this translation does it justice. Most bookstores will have numerous copies of the Penguin edition. Ignore it, and get hold of the Vintage one. Its miles better!
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58 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fine prospect, 29 April 2005
Undoubtedly this is a remarkable book and not at all what I was expecting as I first picked it up. I would recommend that the reader cast aside any preconceived ideas about this author and about the mid-Victorian era in which his story takes place, because this book really does have a very modern feel and a very accessible and easy prose and dialogue.
The reader first joins the tale as the morose, dejected down-and-out and former student Raskolnikov contemplates, and is inexorably drawn towards and fixated by the idea of, murdering an old lady pawnbroker with whom he has had business. It only becomes clear later exactly why he did so, and even then his justifications are misguided and muddled in his own mind and essentially some flight of fancy about the permissibility of any behaviour for the greater good - a means to an end, as it were.
But what is most fascinating is not the crime itself or the murderer's fate, but how his crime then comes to obsess him until he can stand it no longer and has been defeated by his own inner struggle with his conscience, which has been forever tormenting him. The dual between Porfiry Petrovich, the police investigator, and Raskolnikov and the mind games and double bluffs that are played on both sides as our antihero tries to evade detection is particularly intriguing. The suspense is palpable.
All in all this is a pretty bleak tale of suffering and a heart-rending one at that. But there is not just introspection, self-examination and 'philosophising' here, but also action, suspense, pathos and genuine sorrow in the ending, which managed to be profound without being sentimental or melodramatic.
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72 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Give It A Go, 12 Oct 2010
If you are reading this it is becuase you really can't make up your mind whether to download it or not. Its free, so why not give it a go...you know you want to. This has been going up and down in the download charts of this catergory so lots of people must already have downloaded it, also back when the Big Read was running this was one of the titles that got in the top 100.
This is the Constance Garnett translation, which is probably the most read tanslation of this book; although not my ultimate favourite translation there is not anything wrong with this. If you are studying this for a course then you will have to check with your teacher which they consider the most accurate. Constance Garnett has come in for criticism over the years because she did miss things out and gloss over others, however she did reproduce something that is easily understood, readable and enjoyable into the English language, and in keeping with the actual story. Dostoevsky pushed the bounds of the Russian language to some extent so translating him is never an easy task and even some more modern translators have used her work to help with their own.
Of all Dostoevsky's major works this is probably the easiest one to read and that is why it has become so popular. The story is relatively simple in outline. Our anti-hero decides to commit a crime and this follows him through the planning, the execution, and the aftermath. 'Simples' I hear you say, any Tom, Dick or Harry could write that. It is the whole execution of the novel though that holds you entranced. Delving deep into the psyche Dostoevsky produced here something that can never be replicated as you go through what our anti-hero, Raskolnikov feels and thinks.
Truly what Shakespeare was to the play, Dostoevsky was to the novel, so even if you only ever read one of his novels then try this one. As I've said, it is the easiest major work of his to read, plus it is free.
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