Five Things I Learned from an Old Russian Novel

To paraphrase a wise truth I’ve heard: a person reads a different novel in his early 40s than he does in his early 20s. The novel didn’t change, obviously. But I have.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up one of the greatest novels ever written, a personal favorite for twenty years. I hadn’t returned to Crime and Punishment since I first read it before seminary. Written by 19th century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostovevsky, the story follows the mind and actions of Rodion Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov is from a provincial town. He has moved into the poor edges of St. Petersburg in the 1860s, so that he can attend university. Running out of money to pay for tuition, the brilliant, twenty-three-year-old develops an idea. This idea catastrophically leads him to murder a widowed and wealthy pawnbroker early in the novel. The story tracks the developing—we should say devolving—of the life of Raskolnikov afterward. I devoured the novel, again, and I want to share five things I took away from the experience.

1. Ideas Matter

Raskolnikov has been taken in with a new form of philosophical nihilism and materialism that was emerging in the 1800s. Materialism, as I learned in my first undergrad philosophy class, teaches that the world is “just stuff.” Nihilism comes from the Latin “nihil” or “nothing.” “Nihilism” or “nothing-ism” is the logical conclusion of materialism. If everything is just material, there is no soul, no God, no meaning. Raskolnikov’s materialistic and nihilistic worldview has led him to try to formulate a distinctive and unique idea. Such a unique idea, he has come to believe, determines whether someone is great or not. But this idea doesn’t just stay in his head. It leads him to make a very specific and horrific decision to act on his ideas.

If there were faces of the world’s greatest novelists carved into a mountain, Dostovevsky’s face would be on it. Crime and Punishment is the first of the four great novels in his mature life. Next up is The Idiot, then Demons, and finally what is likely the great novel ever written, The Brothers Karamazov. In these novels, the great Russian interrogates the modern ideas of the world and looks at their logical conclusion. As a Russian Orthodox Christian, Dostoveksy shows that these ideas fail. But even worse, before they fail, they destroy.

2. You Can’t Escape Human Nature

As the novel develops, Raskolnikov enters into a sort of cat-and-mouse game with a St. Petersburg detective, Porfiry Petrovich. While Raskolnikov is evidently smarter than Petrovich, Petrovich has the high ground. He figures out that Raskolnikov is guilty of the murder. In one dialogue, Petrovich tells him that criminals get caught because they don’t account for human nature. And they can’t escape human nature. This is a basic and important insight of conservative thought. As Russell Kirk shows in his seminal book, The Conservative Mind, liberal progressive ideas fail at exactly this point. They don’t account for human nature, specifically human nature in its depraved inclinations.

Dostoevsky was a Christian, so he understood that depravity was real because sin has corrupted human nature. Likewise, Raskolnikov can’t escape the conscience God has stitched into his soul. His wicked thoughts leading to wicked actions find him in a literal fever-dream he can’t escape. Through the devolving of Raskolnikov’s situation, he is sick with fever for days strung together. Such is the fever of godless ideas, Dostoevsky shows us. Such is the fever of human nature apart from Christ.

3. Our Environment Influences Us

In the novel, the city of Saint Petersburg is a major character. Specifically it stars the poor and difficult edges of the city, where Dostoyevsky himself had lived as he struggled to succeed as an author. Raskolnikov finds himself murdering a wealthy pawnbroker. His decision and action is partly influenced by conversations and realities around him. He hears and thinks about using the money for seemingly noble purposes, to resolve the dark conditions around him. Dostoevsky masterfully narrates here that we are never fully dependent of or independent of of our environment.

Yes, Raskolnikov is guilty. Poverty doesn’t pardon perdition. At the same time, poverty and the strain of those who live in it can deform humanity in horrid ways. A key landmark in the story is the “ditch,” Dostoevsky’s word for the Griboyedov Canal in that part of the city. Hopeless characters in the novel throw or consider throwing themselves to their death in the “ditch.” But some transcend the “ditch” that pulls toward depravity and hopelessness, finding Christ himself to be the resurrection and the life. Environment is formative but not determinative, Dostoevsky shows us.

4. Grace and Wisdom Are Redemptive

Raskolnikov descends into the depths and begins to ascend away from them as he meets a prostitute named Sofya. Sofya is also called Sonya, both of which mean wisdom. She has taken a life of prostitution in self-sacrifice, to support her destitute step-mother and step-siblings. As she and Raskolnikov develop their relationship, this prostitute decides that she will commit herself to this murderer. And she will win his soul.

The novel hinges as the murderer and the prostitute sit together in Sonya’s shabby little Saint Petersburg efficiency apartment. With twisted irony, the unbelieving Raskolnikov asks the devoutly Christian Sonya to read the Bible. She reads John 11, the narrative of the resurrection of Lazarus. As she reads, she reads with deep conviction, believing in the power of the Word of God. She believes that the Truth of Christ will raise the dead soul of her friend. It doesn’t happen instantly, in that scene. But her faithful love and her faithful Jesus do win him over, and even end up saving him.

5. Knowledge Puffs Up, but Love Builds Up

Raskolnikov is too clever and too intelligent for his own well-being. In him we find a living parable of the verse, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1). The brilliance of Raskolnikov’s mind is a key “bad guy” in the story. Imagining himself as a “Great Man,” a Napoleon, his intelligence swirls in on itself in a fever of depravity and guilt. Dostoevsky contrasts Raskolnikov’s knowledge with the love of his mother, his sister Dunya, and the devotion of Sonya. Here love shows itself to be the greatest virtue, the conquering reality of the world. Love conquers the darkness in the soul of a not-great and not-good man. Love builds him back up into the image of a restored humanity. Love starts to save his soul.

I read this novel twenty years ago. To paraphrase a wise truth I’ve heard: a person reads a different novel in his early 40s than he does in his early 20s. The novel didn’t change, obviously. But I have changed. The first go-round, I missed significant thematic points. I now inhabit a different season of life, a life I’ve lived for 20 more years. Obviously, this has implications not just for literature, but also for the Bible. As we change, we encounter the unchanging Word in fresh ways.

So, maybe pick up a good and neglected book, again. See what’s new there, for you.