Crime · Psychological
Crime and Punishment
A poor student commits a murder he believes is justified, then plays cat and mouse with a brilliant detective.
Five levels, about 80 languages
- A2ElementaryShort sentences and everyday words.
- B1IntermediateYou follow clear stories about familiar things.
- B2Upper intermediateLonger sentences, richer vocabulary.
- C1AdvancedClose to the original, lightly condensed.
- C2ProficientThe complete novel.
One purchase is one book, in one language, at one level: $4.99. Another level of a book you own is $1.99. Editions nobody has asked for yet are written on request: chapter 1 in a few minutes, the rest while you read. How the levels work.
About the book
A room like a cupboard
Rodion Raskolnikov has dropped out of university and lives in a tiny garret in St Petersburg, behind on his rent, hungry, feverish and proud. He has a theory that extraordinary people have the right to step over moral rules for a greater good, and a plan to test it on an old pawnbroker who lends at cruel rates. After the crime he falls ill, and the novel follows him through guilt, fear and a series of encounters: with Sonya, forced into prostitution to feed her family; with his loyal friend Razumikhin; and with Porfiry Petrovich, the investigating magistrate, who seems to know more than he says. Fyodor Dostoevsky published it in 1866, in monthly installments in a Russian magazine.
Why it works for learners
The novel is psychological, but its scenes are concrete and dramatic: a drunken confession in a tavern, a funeral meal that turns into a brawl, conversations with Porfiry in which every polite question is a trap. Much of it is dialogue, often intense and repetitive, the way people talk when they’re upset. The vocabulary is poverty, guilt, illness, money, police and the city.
The famous obstacle is names. Each character has a first name, a patronymic, a surname and several nicknames: Raskolnikov is also Rodion Romanovich, and Rodya. Knowing that in advance saves confusion, and the sentence translation helps when a new form of a name appears.
Which level to start at
B2 is the best start: the plot is simple, but its force lies in Raskolnikov’s mind and in long conversations. A B1 edition makes the story clear and keeps its suspense. If you’re learning Russian, reading Dostoevsky in Russian, at any level, is a real milestone.
Read next
- Les Misérables, crime, conscience and a relentless pursuer
- The Picture of Dorian Gray, a conscience made visible
- The Metamorphosis, Kafka’s young man and his tiny, closing world