Audiobook · read by volunteers
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881)
Read by Nerijus, Fr. Richard Zeile of Detroit, Ransom, Beecher, Julie Pandya, Janni, Maire Rhode, Anna Simon, Michael Thomas Robinson, Andrew Vidal · 40 chapters · 23 h 26
About the book
A hot July evening in Saint Petersburg. Rodion Raskolnikov, a former student, poor, proud and exhausted, leaves his tiny room with a plan in mind. He has convinced himself that one hated pawnbroker is worth less than the good that her money might do, and he sets out to prove that a truly strong person can step beyond ordinary morality.
What follows is not a puzzle but a descent into conscience. Raskolnikov is haunted by fever, by fear, and by an investigator who seems always to be one step behind him. At the same time he meets people who change him: the warm-hearted Sonya, who lives with great poverty and great faith, and his own family, who have sacrificed much for him.
Forty chapters, almost twenty-three and a half hours, in Constance Garnett’s English translation.
Introduction
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) published Crime and Punishment in 1866, in a Russian literary magazine, in monthly instalments. It came after Notes from Underground and after his return from Siberian exile, where he had spent years in a prison camp for his involvement in a circle of radical thinkers. These experiences left a deep mark on his writing, and the novel reflects his interest in poverty, suffering, guilt and redemption.
The book is set in Saint Petersburg, and the city itself, with its stifling summer heat and overcrowded tenements, is almost a character. Dostoyevsky tells the story largely from within Raskolnikov’s mind, which was an unusual approach at the time, and the novel has often been seen as a forerunner of the psychological novel of the twentieth century. It engages directly with ideas circulating in Russia in the 1860s about utilitarianism and the rights of exceptional individuals.
This recording uses the English translation by Constance Garnett, who introduced many Russian authors to English-speaking readers in the early twentieth century. Later translators have often found fault with her work, but it has remained widely read. The recording has forty chapters and lasts about twenty-three and a half hours, read by LibriVox volunteers.
It is a long listen, but the plot moves with real tension, and its short scenes and dramatic dialogues suit audio well. For a first encounter with Russian literature, it is among the most rewarding places to begin.
Public domain
Fyodor Dostoyevsky died in 1881: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text