Rabbit, Run

John Updike (1932-2009)

Mr. Updike left us earlier this year and his death spurred me to jump into some of his work. Rabbit, Run is the first of the five part Rabbit series. What I found was perfect 1960 realism. The prose is descriptive without being flashy. The characters are painfully real. There are no good guys and bad guys, just people making mistakes and existing with their flaws in flawed world. Updike's use of the present tense is startling to the ear in a way that makes it difficult for the reader to understand how they are being startled.

Rabbit Angstrom is a former HS basketball star. He is drearily trudging home when he runs across a playground game and joins in, stroking a few jumpers before going back to his pregnant wife, Janice, and their son Nelson. The game is a bit awkward, a place where he can't return. He's only 26, but the glory he experienced in high school is long gone. His wife is pregnant and an alcoholic. His job, selling kitchen gadgets, isn't much fun. So one day he ditches his wife and drives away. He vaguely wants to head to the southern coast, but he barely gets out of Pennsylvania before turning around. He's the antithesis of the 1950s roadtrip character who roams the countryside, his roots are too strong. 

He goes to the only man who's lead him to his peak, his high school coach. Tothero, with vague hopes that the old man will guide him. Well, he guides him right into a date at a Chinese restaurant with a couple of prostitutes. He shacks up with Ruth, a wise, but lovelorn woman who makes love with Rabbit, but only slowly falls in love with him. They carry on a three month affair that again leads Rabbit nowhere because of his marriage and his jealousy about Ruth's former employment. 

Rabbit returns to his wife for the birth of their baby, and for a fleeting night feels the connection he felt with her during their sweetheart days. This feeling of being good again lasts until Janice returns home from the hospital. Rabbit's selfish desire for sex, perhaps an instinct to abuse Janice for her shortcomings (or his shortcomings) leads to Janice understandably rejecting him and his abandoning the family yet again. During Rabbit's absence Janice gets drunk and accidently drowns their baby girl. This leads to the final segment of the book.

Rabbit makes a scene at the funeral, insisting that the baby's death was not his fault. Once again he runs away, right to Ruth. Ruth initially rejects Rabbit, but eventually admits him and reveals that she's pregnant. As the book ends he heads out to grab some food. 

Rabbit could never find the comfort he found on the basketball court. He is constantly running but never really gets anywhere, in fact he manages to tie himself to Brewer, PA more completely. Religion is an important part of Rabbit, Run and this realm provides the two most interesting characters in the novel. The Eccleses are a reverend and his wife. Rev. Eccles is charged with getting Rabbit and Janice back together and seems to fall in love with Rabbit. It might not be romantic love (it might be) but Eccles becomes more committed to Eccles than his real family. His wife, Lucy, is my favorite character. She's disgusted by the time Eccles spends on other people's problems when it's quite obvious that the Eccles family has big problems itself. There is a strange energy that exists between Lucy and Rabbit. He feels a sense of control over her, and I don't know if she likes it, or even knows about his feelings, but she seems receptive to his advances. At one point she says he's full of life (contrast that to Ruth saying he spreads death). Lucy is also nonreligious, very interesting for a minister's wife.

Rating 7.5/10: I couldn't quite go 8. I might be too used to reading books that don't make you work so hard. Rabbit, Run requires a lot from the reader. The prose is jarring, the characters aren't really that likable and everything is tragically real. I bet if I read it again in ten years I'd like it even more. 

Silas Marner

George Eliot (1819-1880)

I can't decide whether Silas Marner was too short or just right. It is a beautifully written study of a time, place and character. Ultimately I wanted to know more about Silas, the hard-working, loner, who weaves for a living. Duncie, the cocksure son of Ravaloe's leading citizen who seems to ruin everything for everyone, flashes in and out of the novel in the blink of an eye. Eppie, the daughter of Duncie's more stable brother only enters the last third of the book. George Eliot could have fleshed more out, but there is a certain realism to characters flitting in and out of life, providing the causes and effects of life without the context. 

We find Silas working as a weaver and living as an upstanding member of a church in the north country. He leads a humble life but is singled out for his strange looks and fear-inducing fits. A conspiracy is successfully carried out against him by his best friend when Silas is framed for stealing church money. He is persuaded to leave the village, and then learns his buddy ended up marrying his former fiance. 

All these crappy happenings lead Silas to Ravaloe. He weaves for a living, more solitary then ever. He earns an almost mystical reputation as a healer, garnering admiration and fear among the townspeople. His only comfort is the gold he's accumulated over the years. He counts it religiously, in fact it is his religion since he has abandoned the church. He continues on this lonely path until his life intersects with those of the leading men in town. 

Godfrey and Duncie are brothers who are in trouble. Duncie is a jerk who screws with everybody and fritters away money. Godfrey is a coward who won't stand up to his brother because he was goaded into a loveless marriage and only Duncie knows about it. When Godfrey demands repayment of a loan from Duncie things go awry. Duncie goes to sell Godfrey's horse, but impales it on a stake instead. To get the money Duncie decides to ask Silas for a loan, but when he finds the weaver out of home, Duncie goes ahead and steals the money. He decides to walk home and jauntily begins his journey through the night. 

Problem is Duncie never went home. Godfrey figures that he skipped town and life goes on except for with Silas, who's devastated by the loss of his gold. One night, during a big party, Silas is depressed in his house. In walks a toddler from the snowy night. A woman is dead outside and Silas finds himself with a blond-haired little girl staring at him for help. An alarm is raised and we find that the dead woman is Godfrey's wife. Godfrey decides to keep his mouth shut and let Silas raise the child, He doesn't want anyone to know about the marriage so he can get married to a new belle. 

We get some comical scenes where we see Silas trying to raise the precocious Eppie and then we flash forward sixteen years. Eppie is beautiful, Silas is happy, and the small pond by their house is being drained. Lo and behold old Duncie is down at the bottom in skeleton form clutching bags of gold. The revelation leads Godfrey to reveal that he had a secret marriage and that Eppie is his daughter. He and his wife decide to try and get Eppie to come live with them and become a lady. This penultimate meeting is the climax of the novel. 

Everything that Eliot has developed in the characters is on display. Silas loves Eppie with all his heart and she is unspoiled by gentry life. Godfrey regrets his past actions and assumes he can get Eppie back with promises of wealth and care for Silas. Godfrey's wife Nancy finally sees a socially acceptable way to have a child. The showdown shocks Eppie and Silas. Godfrey's words about a better life infuriate Silas. His anger builds and he finally berates Godfrey for shunning a blessing like Eppie from his house when she was a baby, and now trying to take her away from her true father. Eventually, however, Nancy and Godfrey make Silas realize the opportunities that lay open to Eppie if she moved in with them. Silas leaves that decision to Eppie. In a touching scene she commits herself to her fiance Aaron and her father Silas. 

The novel ends here. We don't see the repercussions of Eppie's decision. 

Rating 7.5/10: The landscape is beautifully rendered and the character of Silas is complex and contradictory. There are major temporal and location shifts with little narrative description. The plot points are jarring, but the story is exciting. 

 

The House of the Dead

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

The House of the Dead was published in 1862. The story begins in a provincial town where a mysterious tutor dies. In his papers are found a collection of memoirs detailing his time spent in a Siberian prison. The simple device makes what follows believable and authentic. The main character is Alexandr Petrovich. He offed his wife and gets sentenced to 10 years of hard labor. As a gentleman he is kept at distance from his peasant comrades. The book is thematic rather than linear making it more of an examination of the prison system than a typical novel.

The prison is plagued by thievery, but there is sort of an understanding about it. No one really gets mad about having their things stolen. The work is monotonous and hard, but there is a freedom for those capable of a trade. The nearby settlement works symbiotically with the prison. 

I found this tale of prison life pretty dry, but a few scenes stand out. The prisoners put on a play that absorbs the attention of the entire camp. The small room bursted with prisoners who overflowed into the entry way and withstood subzero temperatures. They were enchanted by the passionate amateur production. It provided a needed diversion for the prisoners. It was also interesting that there were only bits and pieces of a script, most of the production was based on oral accounts from other prisons and towns.

The other memorable scene was the yearly trip to the bathhouse. Alexandr Petrovich aptly compared the event to hell. The writhing mass of prisoners trying to clean themselves in a steamy, disgusting room was disturbing. 

The House of the Dead is interesting because of its authenticity. Dostoyevsky spent some time himself in a labor camp so the strange characters we meet and the tortured feelings that AP endures feel real. 

Rating 6/10: The details are interesting but the story moves slowly. 

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Charles Dickens (1812 -1870)

Penguin Classics has some explaining to do. Charles Dickens is one of our greatest writers and he deservedly has many novels on Penguin's list, but Edwin Drood does not deserve to be among them. Not only does the book, which should be an exciting mystery, get bogged down in boring characters, but it's only half finished. Meant to appear in a twelve part serial, Dickens only finished six before he died. I understand that an unfinished classic provides a fun mental mystery for hardcore Dickens fans, but it doesn't warrant a stop in the Greatest Ever list. 

The novel starts interestingly enough, in a London opium den complete with the dark, creepy atmosphere that one would expect. It's here that we meet John Jasper, a resident of Cloiserham who teaches music and sings in the choir. He's got a nephew named Edwin Drood who is has an arranged engagement to Rosa Bud. Jasper loves Rosa and Edwin doesn't really love Rosa, herein lies the problem. Two characters come to town, twins, Neville and Helena Landless. Neville falls for Rosa and has a fight with the flip Edwin when Drood seems not to care that he's engaged. Rosa and Edwin then decide to break off their engagement but they don't tell everyone about it. All of the sudden Edwin goes missing. Suspicion falls upon Neville and that's pretty much the end of the action. 

The remaining mysteries are: what happened to Edwin Drood? I got the feeling that he wasn't murdered and that he simply took off somewhere because he seemed like the kind of guy who would do that. Most everyone else seems to think he was bumped off, however, most likely by Jasper, his own uncle. Other suspects are Neville, Rosa, and Helena. The other mystery involves Dick Datchery, a minor character introduced at the end of the final installment. Dick is spying on Jasper and seems to be disguised. Could this be Helena, Princess Puffer, Grewgious, Bazzard, or even Edwin? Like a stupid multiple choice test, there simply isn't enough information given to determine the outcome.

It's fun to speculate though, so I will say that Dick is Helena trying to clear her brother. Rosa and Neville hook up and when Jasper challenges Neville to a duel Edwin reappears in the nick of time to vanquish his uncle and marry Helena. The End.

Rating 3/10: It's only half finished, how can this be a classic? I know the Gil Stuart painting of George Washington is half done and everyone loves it, but seriously including Edwin Drood among the greatest things ever written is like giving the guy leading the marathon at the 13 mile mark the gold medal. 

Far From the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

I really always thought this book was called Far From the Maddening Crowd until I started reading it. Kind of weird how your ears can hear what they think should be right instead of the correct title, or maybe everyone just adds another syllable. "Madding" and "maddening" mean about the same thing anyway. 

What we have is a love story between an unbelievably devoted and sincere man and a really strong woman who is swept off her feet by what twenty-first century intellectuals call a "douche." Gabriel Oak is a humble farmer who falls for a woman of humble origins, Bathsheba Everdene. Gabriel proposes to Bathsheba, but she turns him down because she doesn't love him. To make matters worse Oak's overzealous dog chases his entire flock of sheep through a hedge and they all fall off a cliff, the sheep aren't insured so Gabe is out of luck. He starts wandering around looking for work when he comes upon a fire. He puts it out, saves the farm, and lo and behold it's Bathsheba's, she's come into some inheritance. Oaks proves to be a great worker and is totally devoted to Bathsheba, but she finds it hard to be around him all the time and they squabble. She ends up falling for Sergeant Troy, a player of the first degree who is momentarily captured by Bathsheba's beauty. They get married much to the consternation of Bath's other suitor, William Boldwood. Needless to say the marriage doesn't go very well and it all ends in MURDER. Well the marriage ends in murder, the love proposed at the beginning is eventually fulfilled. 

Bathsheba is the most interesting character in Madding. She is fiercely independent and is only brought into subservience by the wily charms of Francis Troy. She soon realized her mistake, however, and tries to regain control of her life. Hardy flips the typical, "steady" man "passionate" woman binary on its head with Bathsheba and Boldwood. The aged farmer acts like a teenager in love throughout the book. He is manically moody and lovelorn, and finally vengeful. Bathsheba is logical and strong. Even when she makes a bad choice she doesn't waver and faces the consequences. 

Rating 7/10: An entertaining read with some unique characters. Oak isn't the flashiest protagonist, but Hardy makes up for it with some nice plot twists and the flamboyant Troy.  

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)

There once was a man from Nantucket

His adventures overflowed any bucket

He went to the sea

found calamity

And now he's in the Antarctic

This is Poe's only full length novel and it's a weird one (shocking). The story changes from wild teen romp, to a youthful, rebellious adventure, to pirates, to lost at sea, to travelogue, to anthropology, to weird religious symbolism. I found the whole book to be interesting, but the most gripping part of the narrative was during Pym's enclosure below decks on the Grumpus. I'll just chat about that part for a bit and you can read the rest for yourself. 

Arthur Gordon Pym gets tired of his life of partying and having fun in Nantucket and decides to sneak about a ship with the help of his friend Augustus. AGP's family didn't want him to go on the ship, so he decides to run away. Their plan is to put AGP in stowage and hide him for a while until they're far enough at sea to not turn back. The plan is going swimmingly, AGP is hanging out in the dark with a little food and water and the boat launches. Pym starts getting a bit concerned when Augustus doesn't show up for a few days. This section is the most prototypically Poeish part of the novel. It is claustrophobic and creepy. Pym is starving, trapped in the cargo hold, can't get out and has no idea what's going on above decks. It's the unknown that really ramps up the psychological drama. Turns out that the crew has mutinied and Augustus can't get below to inform Pym. There's really some weird mind games being played when Pym's dog mysteriously shows up in the stowage. 

The book is really organized in a strange way. After the creepy trapped in cargo section, there's a really cool lost at sea bit that ends in an "Alive" style feast. Then Poe throws in mountains of data on the flora and fauna of some islands in the South Atlantic. It sort of felt like a bunch of Poe stories mashed together with some other information to make it a believable travelogue. 

This wasn't my favorite thing I've ever read by Poe. Too much dry pedantic info about the ocean and sailing and a really weird, vague and unsatisfying ending left me feeling that this classic had way more potential. 

Rating 6.5/10: Some incredible parts, but fails to hold up as a whole. 

Armadale

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

    I was banking on another awesome adventure from Wilkie after being blown away by The Woman in White. Sadly, Armadale didn't quite live up to the high expectations. Written in 1866, Armadale, like WIW, is mostly letters and remembrances of the characters. Unlike WIW, Armandale is sometimes rambling and boring. We start in a small town in Germany where a rich guy is dying. He puts down his will and kicks the bucket. The will reveals a story of love and murder in the Caribbean and England. The dead guy's name is Armadale, but it wasn't always that way. He lived in the Caribbean and was hand picked by the owner of the Armadale estate to take his name and take over operations because his son, the rightful inheritor, is a bum. 

     This is where the trouble begins. The new Armadale falls in with a stranger while running the estate in the Caribbean. They become great friends. Eventually the new Armadale gets hooked up with a lady in England who he's supposed to marry. She's loaded and he gets ready to head across the Atlantic to meet her. Well, his buddy disappears the day before he's supposed to leave. New Armadale takes off and finds that Old Armadale has moved in on his scene and married the lady. New Armadale is enraged and challenges his impostor friend to a duel. The married Armadale tries to flee in a boat which gets caught in a storm. The lady and some of the crew is rescued, and the rescue boat (manned by New Armadale) heads back to the foundered boat. Old Armadale finds New Armadale in the hull of the ship trying to save the lady's jewelry. They lock eyes and New Armadale locks the door on him, in effect murdering the traitor. The lady is pregnant from her brief marriage and Living Armadale marries a beautiful slave upon his return to the Caribbean. The resulting children are born a year apart and both named Allen Armadale. 

Now comes the main part of the story. The dead father insists that "Dark Armadale" never meets the "Light Armadale." Well, what happens but they meet and become buddies. "Dark Armadale" goes by the alias Ozias Midwinter. Well, Josias finds out that he's an Armadale and that's when things start getting weird. The real star of the book is finally introduced, Lydia Gwilt. Lydia is a conniving, corrupt, and shockingly beautiful woman. She decides to go to Thorpe-Ambrose, the Armadale estate, and hook up with the rich Armadale. Well that breaks up a romance between Armadale and Miss Milroy, a 16 year old living on the estate. Eventually Miss Gwilt comes up with a plan to get the Armadale property without marrying Armadale. She seduces Midwinter, knowing his secret, and marries him. She then plans to murder Midwinter and Armadale and return to Thorpe-Ambrose as the rightful inheritor. Well, things go awry to say the least. First of all, Lydia falls in love with Midwinter. This screws the machinations of the plan up. Eventually we end up in a insane asylum and Gwilt tries to gas Armadale, but ends up realizing that Midwinter is in the room. She saves his life and gases herself. The End.

The central theme of this book is fate. The two Armadales are fated to meet. When they do Light Armadale has a dream with several prescient scenes. Throughout the book these scenes come to pass and Midwinter notices every time. He believes deeply in the prophecy that as long as he's around Armadale will die. Yet, everytime he tries to leave Midwinter tries o leave he is drawn back by some mechanism. In the end, however, fate is averted because the Armadale lives.  The murderer's son is not the ruin of the victim's son. 

Rating-7/10: It's a good read, but not as good as WIW. Still, once Lydia Gwilt is introduced things really get rolling in a good way. 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Up to now I've been posting on books that I recently finished. Well, I think it's time to ramp up the productivity on Reading the Classics, we do have this recession going on. I'll start with a book I know really well so memory won't be an issue. I've read Huck Finn four times since tenth grade and no matter how educated I get, this book is still too complex for me. I don't mean complex in a Ulysses I can only read three pages in an hour way, but in a socio-historical way that always amazes me. 

Authorial voice is critically importing in Huck Finn. Who are we listening to? Is is Twain? He does give us his famous notice before the body of the book: "PERSONS attempting to fin a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot." Reading from a twenty-first century perspective we are probably safe from such punishment, but finding any of the three (motive, moral, plot) remains a tricky issue. The layers are thick and numerous. We have Twain, we have Huck, and we have some really weird border state history to deal with. Huck has been raised in the slave-holding state of Missouri and speaks from a white boy's perspective. He knows how he's supposed to act within the slave structure but something bothers him. His conscience is always getting in the way of doing the socially right thing. When deciding between turning in Jim and continuing on their escape he decides "All right, then, I'll go to hell," and continues on the river. This inversion of what we'd see as the moral thing to do, help someone escape a brutal, exploitative system, makes Huck all the more charming and admirable because he found the truth despite his Missouri upbringing. 

I'm assuming most people have read this one, so I'm going to skip the plot summary in favor of some fun minutia. I've read several times that Twain set the book down for a time after Jim is sold to the Phelp's family. When he picked it back up he rushed the finish with unlikely and hackneyed plot devices. The reintroduction of Tom Sawyer changes the road trip, buddy feel of the book and inserts another dynamic. Tom is not capable of feeling the pangs of conscience that Huck feels. His appearance necessarily means that Jim's situation is no longer to be taken seriously, but only as a game piece in Tom's imaginary adventures. I believe that Huck is better able to feel empathy for Jim because of his pauper class origins. Tom doesn't have that capability. Ultimately Tom and Huck are kids, we need to remember that. Huck matures as he travels down the river, but he's not yet capable of engineering a return to the free states with an escaped slave. Luckily Miss Watson kicked the bucket so Jim is free anyway, but it is interesting to ponder whether Huck would have made another attempt to save his friend if he'd been sent back to bondage.  

Rating 10/10: Could read it every year, if I was alive when it was published I would have said instant classic. 

The Woman in White

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

Count effing Fosco. He's the greatest character in any novel of all time. Suck on that Huck Finn. Fosco is the mastermind behind the great conspiracy at the center of The Woman in White, before we get to him and his scary awesomeness we need to check in on the story. 

Walter Hartright is just a guy who gives drawing lessons. He gets a gig in a big country house in mid 19th century England. His students are Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe. Laura is hot and Marian is not, but Marian is strong and self-reliant. Walter and Laura fall in love, but it turns out that she's already engaged to Sir Percival Glide. The thing is, he's a huge jerk. There's also the title character to deal with. Anne Catherick is a bit bonkers, but keeps popping up in the novel after escaping an asylum. She's got a secret about Sir Percy, and she doesn't want Laura to marry him. Did I mention that Laura and Anne look exactly alike?

This is essentially a mystery novel so I won't give away the coolness of the plot, but in the interests of introducing my buddy Count Fosco I need to explain a few things. Percy needs cash and needs to get rid of Anne Catherick and her secret. Count Fosco and his uber-obedient wife, Madame Fosco, live with Sir Percy and now Lady Glide (Laura). Fosco is an Italian gentleman of the highest aristocratic bearing. He's tall and phenomenally fat. He's about sixty but carries himself with the agility of a much younger man. He's dainty, a fantastic dresser, has a proclivity for small pets, mice, canaries and a cockatoo. He's a fine musician and an expert chemist. He's also a sociopath who cares more about his pet mice than any humanitarian urge a normal person might have. He is amazingly creepy, endearing, funny, and despicable. He is too smart for everyone he encounters in the novel, but his bravado and vanity cost him dearly. 

Let me also mention another great character, Uncle Fairlie. He's the patriarch of the family who is in charge of Limmerage House. He is also a colossal puss. His nerves are always on edge, to the point where any noise disturbs him. He can't make any decisions and pawns all his responsibilities onto others. His quavering, faux-invalid status is funny and vexing at the same time. 

A tip of the hat as well to Wilkie Collins. What a brilliant way to structure a novel. There are multiple narrators who are put to work by Walter Hartright who wants to document the whole affair to prove the conspiracy existed. So we hear from Marian, Walter, Count Fosco, servants, doctors, and more. It is fascinating to see how Collins reveals things from different perspectives, or gives a nugget of the plot which is only revealed through another character's eyes. 

Rating 10/10: This might be my favorite book I've ever read. It was written in 1859, yet kept my modern mind guessing the entire time. The characters and form are great and the narrative voice is something worthy of another look. I'll definitely be coming back to The Woman in White in the future. 

Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

This book should have been great. You've got a senseless murder, a potential psychodrama, family, a hooker with a heart of gold, a drunken mentor, blackmail, and a pedophile. Sadly, Crime and Punishment reminds me of a steak dinner that ends with a fruit parfait for dessert. Now the dinner is great, and it's done really well, but nobody likes fruit parfait for dessert. I don't care what you say, fruit is a good snack and it's healthful, it's not a dessert. C&P starts with a steak dinner, Rodian Romanovich contemplates a murder because he is struggling through school and has no cash. He is further disturbed by the his sister's impending marriage to a rich clown who wants to dominate her because she grew up poor. Rodian is convinced that Avdotya Romanovna, his sister, is sacrificing her life to save her mother and himself from a life of poverty. Rodian decides the best way to solve this problem is to kill an old, hated, pawnbroker and steal her money. Rodian sees Alyona Ivanovna as a parasite who destroys her clients. Like a bug who needs to be stamped out.
Rodian thinks about the crime for a short time. He impulsively heads to the pawnbroker's apartment and axes her in the head in a heart-stopping scene. While he's whacking the old lady to bits her sister, Lizaveta, walks in and meets Mr. Ax as well. Rodian abandons his feeble plan, grabs a few things and takes off.
The rest of the book is a relentless psychological battle within Rodian. He is a smart guy and the guilt he feels is inescapable. He wonders how other criminals live with themselves. Suspicion begins to fall on Rodian. The authorities suspect him, but can't pin anything on him even though he acts extra crazy whenever he feels suspicion. The real intrigue of the novel deals with Rodian's friends and family. What will he tell them? Will their love drive him totally insane with guilt? What will happen to Avdotya and her marriage? What about Rodian and his prostitute girlfriend/sounding board for his craziness Sophia? We really get down to, who will Rodian tell and what will he reveal? This all takes a very long time. Most of this time is filled with Rodian being a jerk to everyone.
I know that he's going through some major psychological drama. He's got some things on his mind. But he is a certified a-hole to everyone who tries to help him. To make Rodian less sympathetic all his plans are really crappy. His meetings with police all turn embarrassingly bad. I'm not sure if Dostoevsky intended Rodian to be a sympathetic character. He does ax two old ladies in the head. Perhaps as readers we can relate to Rodian with our (hopefully) less egregious sins. I won't spoil the end of the book for those who haven't read C&P.

Rating 7/10: I really thought this was going to be a totally bad ass read. In the afterglow of Rodian's murders I was breathlessly on the edge of my seat. Things slow down drastically from there, however. Rodian's guilt is kind of half-assed and the book drags to a anti-climactic conclusion. I can see how a philosopher would read this book as a study of rationalizing one's behavior, but Rodian just seems like a jerk to me, not truly investigating his actions.