Review - Crime and Punishment

It took me a long time to read Crime and Punishment. Partly because I was moving away from home at the time, and partly because it's quite intense, and thoughtful, and, well, psychological. I found it interesting how realistic parts of it were, in terms of how people act: Dostoyevsky knew what he was writing about, certainly. At the same time, the people are quite strange -- the investigator, always talking and spilling out his thoughts; the main character, always talking to himself; Mrs Marmeladov with her strange delusions... They all seem a little bit larger than life. It certainly gives them a life of their own, anyway.

In terms of the writing, the repetitions of things and the stating of the obvious and the sameness to the eccentricity of the characters somewhat bored me. Large chunks of it are just Raskolnikov dithering around and being delirious.

I can see why this is considered a great book, but I can't quite give it a whole-hearted "it was amazing" rating. It's something I might read again to ponder over some more.

(And now onto literature that is actually English, because my degree begins this week and I've only read two of the novels...!)