(Almost) Crime and punishment to read “Crime and Punishment”

For a book that gets such rave reviews, I am not raving yet. Who exactly decided that Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment should be a classic? Huge error in judgment in my opinion, but what do I know? I spend 40% of my time online looking at pictures of puppies… so yea, not really one to judge.
But I really, honestly, cannot for the life of me get through this book. CANNOT. It’s been weeks and I’m at a pitiful 26% of completion. For some reason I assumed that Crime and Punishment would be similar to Lolita, swapping pedophilia for murder. I didn’t think I was going to enjoy reading a book centered on pedophilia, and I was wrong; I was hoping to be wrong again about murder.
So far, to my immense disappointment, being inside the head of a murderer has not been quite as enjoyable as I would have hoped. In fact, it’s been downright creepy and disturbing, and has sent me running at full speed into the arms of feel-good favorites, Like Water for Chocolate, 84, Charing Cross Road and Tuesdays with Morrie. Perhaps I will take this as a sign of my sanity and likely low-scoring murder-tendency behavior.

Tuesday Haiku

1Q84

Six weeks of my life wasted

Need Russian lit, stat


This morning I couldn’t wait to download Crime and Punishment to read on my way to work. What is it about Russian literature that is so enchanting, I’m not entirely sure. All I know is that, as of yesterday, I’m not reading 1Q84 anymore, and that is BIG. Good bye religious cults, good bye “ambiguous congress” with underage girls, and good bye excessive lesbian fantasies (freak alert, Murakami). Hello poverty and murder, how are you?