Crime And Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crime And Punishment

By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Oliver Ready (Transcribed by)

Paperback | 11 April 2014 | Edition Number 1

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'Will I really - I mean, really - actually take an axe, start hitting her on the head, smash her skull to pieces . . . Will I slip in warm sticky blood, break the lock, steal and tremble; and hide, all drenched in blood . . . with an axe . . . Lord, will I really?'

This new translation of Dostoyevsky's 'psychological record of a crime' gives his dark masterpiece of murder and pursuit a renewed vitality, expressing its jagged, staccato urgency and fevered atmosphere as never before.

Review by John Purcell

On a bad day, the choice Rasholnikov, the anti-hero of Crime and Punishment, makes, doesn't seem too terrible. Monday morning, say, as the alarm goes off at a quarter to six, it's still dark outside, it's raining and the working week stretches out long and dull before me.

I mean, I too could be the next Napoleon, the next Kanye, given the chance. All I really need is a bit of a start - a windfall to buy me some time to think and to prepare. I'm not a bad man; I'm just caught in the shoddy circumstances I was born into. I could be a great man given the chance. I could do great things.

I just need the money to free me from my treadmill.

Look, that rich old lady over there hasn't done anything for anybody. Nobody will miss her. With her out of the way, and the money in my pocket, I am free to change the world for the better. Humanity gets a good deal, really. Right?

About the Author

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow in 1821, the second of a physician's seven children. His mother died in 1837 and his father was murdered a little over two years later. When he left his private boarding school in Moscow he studied from 1838 to 1843 at the Military Engineering College in St Petersburg, graduating with officer's rank. His first story to be published, 'Poor Folk' (1846), was a great success.

In 1849 he was arrested and sentenced to death for participating in the 'Petrashevsky circle'; he was reprieved at the last moment but sentenced to penal servitude, and until 1854 he lived in a convict prison at Omsk, Siberia. In the decade following his return from exile he wrote The Village of Stepanchikovo (1859) and The House of the Dead (1860). Whereas the latter draws heavily on his experiences in prison, the former inhabits a completely different world, shot through with comedy and satire.

In 1861 he began the review Vremya (Time) with his brother; in 1862 and 1863 he went abroad, where he strengthened his anti-European outlook, met Mlle Suslova, who was the model for many of his heroines, and gave way to his passion for gambling. In the following years he fell deeply in debt, but in 1867 he married Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina (his second wife), who helped to rescue him from his financial morass. They lived abroad for four years, then in 1873 he was invited to edit Grazhdanin (The Citizen), to which he contributed his Diary of a Writer.

From 1876 the latter was issued separately and had a large circulation. In 1880 he delivered his famous address at the unveiling of Pushkin's memorial in Moscow; he died six months later in 1881. Most of his important works were written after 1864: Notes from Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1865-6), The Gambler (1866), The Idiot (1869), The Devils (1871) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
Industry Reviews
A truly great translation ... Sometimes new translations of old favourites are surplus to our requirements. Sometimes, though, a new translation really makes us see a favourite masterpiece afresh. And this English version of Crime and Punishment really is better ... Crime and Punishment, as well as being an horrific story and a compelling drama, is also extremely funny. Ready brings out this quality well ... That knife-edge between sentimentality and farce has been so skilfully and delicately captured here ... Ready's version is colloquial, compellingly modern and - in so far as my amateurish knowledge of the language goes - much closer to the Russian. ... The central scene in the book is a masterpiece of translation -- A. N. Wilson * Spectator *
I was delighted to discover Oliver Ready's new translation of Crime and Punishment ... It is brimful of a young man's rage and energy and bullshit. I adored it -- Peter Carey
This vivid, stylish and rich rendition by Oliver Ready compels the attention of the reader in a way that none of the others I've read comes close to matching. Using a clear and forceful mid-20th-century idiom, Ready gives us an entirely new kind of access to Dostoyevsky's singular, self-reflexive and at times unnervingly comic text. This is the Russian writer's story of moral revolt, guilt and possible regeneration turned into a new work of art ... [It] will give a jolt to the nervous system to anyone interested in the enigmatic Russian author -- John Gray * New Statesman, 'Books of the Year' *
Oliver Ready's translation of Crime and Punishment . . . is a five-star hit, which will make you see the original with new eyes -- A. N. Wilson * Times Literary Supplement, 'Books of the Year' *
At last we have a translation that brings out the wild humour and vitality of the original -- Robert Chandler

I was bowled over, by the novel itself and the utterly brilliant translation, which grabs you by the lapels and doesn't let go. In the course of my work, I go through mountains of nonfiction to try to understand the world. This summer, I was reminded of the power of a novel to uncover something much deeper about the human spirit

-- Fareed Zakaria * The New York Times Book Review *
A tour de force built from prose that is not only impeccable in its own right but also perfectly suited to the story, its characters, its epoch and themes. We should treasure this new translation and, indeed, this new book * New York Journal of Books *
A dazzlingly agile and robust new translation . . . Ready, who has a practiced ear for Russian dialect and a natural grace with English, is exceptionally deft at navigating [the novel's] challenges ... His ability to reproduce the whole heady brew of Dostoyevsky's novel in a consistent but nimble modern English ought to be applauded * Los Angeles Review of Books *
What a great book this is and nothing like the dated, heavy Russian literature I thought I might have to wade through. It's a page turner - a dark, comic thriller with an anti-hero akin to Macbeth and characters so perfectly rendered as to leap from the page. The style is really modern and constantly delves into the mad thoughts of the protagonist - if you can call him that - Raskolnikov. Try it, especially Oliver Ready's high-tempo version -- Gary Kemp
Oliver Ready's version is outstanding in finding le mot juste for all of Dostoevsky's graphic verbs and odd objects (few Russian writers have a lexical range to equal Dostoevsky's) * The Times Literary Supplement *
Ready's translation is nothing less than a wonder. He mirrors the tonal shifts in Dostoyevsky's original more nimbly than any English-language translator has before, and he catches the dark humour that runs through the book mostly below its surface, and best of all, he captures the essential, unchanging absurdity of Raskolnikov perfectly ... Ready's version crackles with grubby, demented vitality -- Steve Donoghue * Open Letters Monthly *
Ready's lively translation succeeds in admirably capturing the psychological intensity of Dostoyevsky's style. . . . [It] replicates natural speech patterns in a way that Pevear and Volokhonsky's rather stilted translation does not. . . . [Ready's] English prose is rhythmic and, at times, poetic. . . . It is [the novel's] sense of frenzy that Ready so brilliantly captures in his new translation, which will ensure that another generation of readers remains enraptured by Crime and Punishment -- Slavic and East European Journal
Ready's vivid, new version ... is more than a Titanic idea of a great translation. It is the real thing ... Crisp and compelling, building on staccato rhythmic structures to heighten the novel's dramatic tension, then elegantly sidling into Dostoyevsky's abrupt denouement, his translation brings new life to a 150-year-old classic, rendering the familiar in fresh light * The Wichita Eagle *
A gorgeous translation ... Inside one finds an excellent apparatus: a chronology, a terrific contextualizing introduction, a handy compendium of suggestions for further reading, and cogent notes on the translation. . . . But the best part is Ready's supple translation of the novel itself. Ready manages to cleave as closely as any prior translator to both spirit and letter, while rendering them into an English that is a relief to read * The East-West Review *
What a pleasure it is to see Oliver Ready's new translation bring renewed power to one of the world's greatest works of fiction ... Ready's work is of substantial and superb quality ... [His] version portrays more viscerally and vividly the contradictory nature of Raskolnikov's consciousness. ... Ready evokes the crux of Crime and Punishment with more power than the previous translators have ... with an enviably raw economy of prose * The Curator *
[An] excellent new translation * Critical Mass *
Ready's new translation of Crime and Punishment is thoughtful and elegant [and] shows us once again why this novel is one of the most intriguing psychological studies ever written. His translation also manages to revive the disturbing humour of the original ... In some places, Ready's version echoes Pevear and Volokhonsky's prize-winning Nineties version, but he often renders Dostoyevsky's text more lucidly while retaining its deliberately uncomfortable feel. . . . Ready's colloquial, economical use of language gives the text a new power * Russia Beyond the Headlines *
A clever modern translation of this classic of Russian horror that gave me nightmares as a student. We journey through suffering, repentance and expiation of sin -- Neil Mendoza * The Week *

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