George Gibian (1924–1999)

What you have here are two parallel stories: Anna's and Levin's. Levin is a man of ideas while Anna is a woman of passion. Levin comes to realize that he can't live his life without first having a moral foundation to his decisions. He understands that he is not perfect and cannot help but act immorally, but he will struggle to be the best husband and father he can be.

Anna, on the other hand, is ruled by her passions. She is not content to live a domestic life with either her husband or lover, Vronsky. She neglects her daughter with Vronsky while pining for her son that lives with her husband. Anna is never truly happy unless she is living "passionately".

It is clear that the author sides with Levin: he overcomes his thoughts of suicide with his desire for goodness towards humanity.… (mais)

I'm sure I'm not as sophisticated as many of the other readers reviewing this classic, but to the coolest thing about this book is how it made me continuely rethink my initial impressions on every character.

I would be "meeting" a new character from a third person POV and think to myself that this is character is vapid, unlikable and unreasonable and in the next chapter through this new characters internal monologue I would do a complete 180 on my opinion of them.

The internal monologues are sooo good that it is really easy to lose yourself and imagine yourself in that characters shoes. (What would I do in this scenario? Wouldn't I act exactly is this character did if I had the same the motivations and upbringing?)

I haven't read a sparknotes summary, so I'm sure 80% of the concepts in the book went over my head.
I didn't understand any of the French, I tried to figure out it's significance (do only rich people in Russia speak French? Why did they sometimes speak French in very emotional and important moments?) but could not...

I had a hard time understanding many of the political themes related to Russia in the book.

I still really enjoyed the book, it was a pretty long listen and I'm honestly surprised I finished. It's a slow burn type of book.… (mais)

“Enough!” he said solemnly and resolutely. “I’m through with delusions, imaginary terrors, and phantom visions! Life is real! Haven’t I lived just now? My life hasn’t come to an end with the death of the old woman! May she rest in peace—enough, time you leave me in peace, madam. Now begins the reign of reason and light and—and of will and strength—and we’ll see now! We’ll try our strength now,” he added arrogantly, as though challenging some dark power."
from Part II chapter 7

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"And what if I run away?" asked Raskolnikov with a strange smile.

"No, you won't run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable dissenter would run away, the flunkey of another man's thought, for you've only to show him the end of your little finger and he'll be ready to believe in anything for the rest of his life. But you've ceased to believe in your theory already, what will you run away with? And what would you do in hiding? It would be hateful and difficult for you, and what you need more than anything in life is a definite position, an atmosphere to suit you. And what sort of atmosphere would you have? If you ran away, you'd come back to yourself. You can't get on without us."
from Part VI, Chapter 2

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"With all Avdotya Romanovna’s natural aversion and in spite of my invariably gloomy and repellent aspect—she did at least feel pity for me, pity for a lost soul. And if once a girl’s heart is moved to pity, it’s more dangerous than anything. She is bound to want to ‘save him,’ to bring him to his senses, and lift him up and draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life and usefulness—well, we all know how far such dreams can go. I saw at once that the bird was flying into the cage of herself. And I too made ready. I think you are frowning, Rodion Romanovitch? There’s no need. As you know, it all ended in smoke. (Hang it all, what a lot I am drinking!) Do you know, I always, from the very beginning, regretted that it wasn’t your sister’s fate to be born in the second or third century A.D., as the daughter of a reigning prince or some governor or pro-consul in Asia Minor. She would undoubtedly have been one of those who would endure martyrdom and would have smiled when they branded her bosom with hot pincers. And she would have gone to it of herself. And in the fourth or fifth century she would have walked away into the Egyptian desert and would have stayed there thirty years living on roots and ecstasies and visions. She is simply thirsting to face some torture for someone, and if she can’t get her torture, she’ll throw herself out of a window."
from PART VI chapter 4

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"What wrong have I done them? Why should I go to them? What should I say to them? That's only a phantom.... They destroy men by millions themselves and look on it as a virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia! I am not going to them."
from Part V, Chapter 4

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"I wanted to murder without casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn't want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn't to help my mother I did the murder--that's nonsense--I didn't do the murder to gain wealth and power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it; I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider catching men in my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn't have cared at that moment.... And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.... I know it all now.... Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder again. I wanted to find out something else; it was something else led me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the right..."
from Part V chapter 4

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"Crime? What crime?" he cried in sudden fury. "That I killed a vile noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!... Killing her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking of it and I am not thinking of expiating it, and why are you all rubbing it in on all sides? 'A crime! a crime!' Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice, now that I have decided to face this superfluous disgrace. It's simply because I am contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided to, perhaps too for my advantage, as that... Porfiry... suggested!"

"Brother, brother, what are you saying! Why, you have shed blood!" cried Dounia in despair.

"Which all men shed," he put in almost frantically, "which flows and has always flowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for which men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of mankind."
from Part VI chapter 7


… (mais)