Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Crime and Punishment, Nov 22, 2019

Fyodor Dostoevsky – Crime and Punishment. A Russian Realistic Novel. First English edition 1886, translated by Fred Whishaw

The 19th century set off a tremendous creative spark in Russian literature. It heralded an era that made the rest of the world aware of the riches that were being created by writers such as the novelists Leo Tolstoy (author of War and Peace), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (author of Crime and Punishment), and Anton Chekhov, whose short stories and plays have become a part of the standard repertoire worldwide. Other notable writers included the poet Mikhail Lermontov, and the novelists Ivan Tugenev and Nikolay Gogol. The figure that towers over all these in the hearts of Russians is the poet Alexander Pushkin.

KumKum presenting a copy of the novel ‘Disgrace’ by Coetzee

Yet as Malcolm Muggeridge, the English journalist, diarist and satirist, points out in his penetrating video biography of Dostoyevsky in 1975, Russia’s literacy rate at the time was ten percent. How did such a superb story teller, who could plumb the psychological depths of the characters he created, survive and thrive in such a parched soil of readers? It was not until the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 that literacy rapidly rose to 100%, and from a nation of serfs who were slaves to a landed gentry, a vast intelligentsia arose.

Arundhaty, Saras, Shoba, Geeta, Devika

Though Dostoevsky trained as a military engineer following the wishes of his father, his heart was set on becoming a writer and at the age of twenty three he took the plunge and wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, telling the stories of impoverished people in St Petersburg. That set him on course for a career in which there were ups and downs. Ultimately, he wrote not only the present novel, but his even more celebrated work, The Brothers Karamazov.

Saras, Shoba, Geeta

At 200,000 words it was our longest novel of the year. It takes a while to get going and lends itself to judicious skipping, as do all Russian novels. A note on Russian names. They generally consist three parts: the first or given name, the second is the patronymic derived from the father, and the last is the family name. The patronymic is created by taking the given name of a person’s father and adding a suffix to it. ... The most common men’s suffixes are -ovich or -evich (meaning son of) while for a woman they are -ovna or -evna which stands for daughter of. Thus, Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov is the name of the famous author (his father was also Vladimir). People also have affectionate names, in this case, Volodya. When you address a person formally you have to use the first two names, here, Vladimir Vladimirovich.

Hemjit, Priya, KumKum

The avid readers, all of whom had dedicated themselves to finishing the novel in time for the reading are gathered here at the end:

(Seated) Gopa, Hemjit, Geetha (Standing) Joe, Pamela, Geeta, Devika, KumKum, Shoba, Arundhaty, Zakia, Saras, Priya