Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished St. Petersburg ex-student who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money. Raskolnikov argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the act, while ridding the world of a worthless parasite. The murder is also committed to test Raskolnikov's hypothesis that some people are naturally able and have the right to murder. Despite his rationale, Raskolnikov struggles with extreme guilt and fear once the act is committed . . .

Dostoyevski's classic novel of murder and guilt, featuring the conflicted killer Raskolnikov and his intellectually nimble antagonist Porfiry Petrovich, is read by the well-regarded Dick Hill. The combination should make for a must-listen audiobook, but the results are disappointingly plodding. Hill overemotes much of Dostoyevski's emotionally charged dialogue, rendering a delicate series of encounters as an array of outbursts and breakdowns. Listeners might find themselves wishing that Hill would restrain himself from the pitfalls of facile emotion in favor of a straight delivery of the inherent drama and descriptive splendor of the novel In a welcome technological twist, however, Tantor includes an e-book with this audiobook (as it does with most of its classic audiobooks), giving readers multiple options for how they might prefer to encounter Dostoyevski. (Sept.)
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The best [translation of Crime and Punishment] currently available...An especially faithful re-creation...with a coiled-spring kinetic energy...Don t miss it. Washington Post Book World

This fresh, new translation...provides a more exact, idiomatic, and contemporary rendition of the novel that brings Fyodor Dostoevsky s tale achingly alive...It succeeds beautifully. San Francisco Chronicle

Reaches as close to Dostoevsky s Russian as is possible in English...The original s force and frightening immediacy is captured...The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation will become the standard English version. Chicago Tribune --Chicago Tribune