Crime and Punishment is The Worst Book Ever

How our personalities play a part in how we connect with books and characters

About a month ago I was chatting with one of my best friends, Kris. He mentioned I should read Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Now maybe you’re well-read in literature and have read all the classics. So you know that this book is translated from Russian and it’s noted as one of the greatest books of the 19th century (Snowyfictions.com). I took Kris’s suggestion and the suggestion of the masses about Crime and Punishment and picked up a copy.

Side Quest: My Struggle with Reading Comprehension

A quick side quest, I had trouble with reading and comprehension when I was younger, so I’ve not read many of the classics. It was a real struggle from elementary school through high school. By the time I was mid-way through high school, I’d developed enough skills to get by with a slow reading ability that I just made it work.

Then I got to college and realized, the rest of the whole dang world reads.

All. The. Time!

So I was again, behind in my reading capabilities. It was at this point, I began working on strengthening my reading muscle. It helped that two of my roommates in college were both attending a prestigious college in NYC called the King’s College. Where they are required to pick a path that has a triple major focus (at least that is what it was back in 2007).

One of my roommates, Johnny, focused on politics, economics, and philosophy. He had been at the King’s College for a few years and had quite the collection of books. As roommates do, I picked up some of his books from time to time and parsed through the pages. The text was dense. Each book, just as dense as the last.

I felt like the stupidest person on earth. My inner narrative was something like this, “I am only in film school. They are getting a real education. I must be the only idiot in NYC. I hope my friends don’t realize I’m an uncultured, uneducated, moron.”

Maybe it’s just me, but when my inner narrative gets rolling, it can be pretty ruthless. This is why we need to confront our inner monologues, but I’ll save that for another time.

“I am only in film school. They are getting a real education. I must be the only idiot in NYC. I hope my friends don’t realize I’m an uncultured, uneducated, moron.”

I didn’t like the shame I carried with me when I looked at all these intellectual books. So I picked one up and slowly read it. Really slowly. For reference, an average child could read three Dr. Suess books faster than I read back then. Maybe it was the fact it was philosophy, maybe I really was just a slow reader. Either way, I began working the muscle of reading faster and comprehending quicker.

Crime and Punishment is the Worst

Fast forward to August 2021, my friend prompts me to read the literary classic, Crime and Punishment. I am now an above-average reader. I still haven’t figured out speed reading, but I’m much quicker than I was 14 years ago. In my years of reading, I can list on a single hand how many Russian translated authors I’ve read. Two, it’s two. I only speak English so maybe it’s easier to comprehend in Russian but I struggled with Crime and Punishment. Full-on struggled. As in, I was going to give up because it is too hard to finish this book, I struggled.

It was decent for the first half. I was in it, I had an okay grasp of what was going on. I could feel the main character’s struggles, I sort of put together the semblance of the town life they lived. Somewhere at about the 55–60% mark in the story, I detached, from both the story and characters. I wanted to quit. I don’t like quitting things simply due to my own lack of entertainment or interest. But, I was completely over Crime and Punishment. Done, not interested, not connected with the character, and want to put it down.

However, I do not like quitting when I’ve committed to a goal. It’s one of the ways I help myself grow, finishing goals I’ve set, regardless of my waning interest.

I’m not sure what changed during my readthrough. I felt the tension of the main character and his wrestling with madness. Then suddenly, I was simply disengaged. I’ve been reflecting on this for a week.

I’m sure at some level its a me problem. I only say that because Crime and Punishment is a literary classic. I don’t think my opinion is greater than those who determined that this was a marvel of work for its time.

Reflections of Ourselves

After further reflection I think I know why I became detached. I think our personalities strongly weight our attention, or lack of attention. Take a quick side quest with me.

From the 1950s until now psychologist have honed in on the makeup of our personalities its called the big five personality test [the big five]. If you know anything about the big five. You know that the research has determined personalities are made up of 5 main attributes and 10 sub-attributes. Each of us has a different recipe that makes up our personalities. The big 5 categories are Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience.

In order to keep this side quest short, I only want to look at neuroticism.

Neuroticism

Neuroticism is defined by the big 5 personality test as “a measure of general sensitivity to negative emotions such as pain, sadness, irritable or defensive anger, fear and anxiety.” (understandmyself.com)

Trait neuroticism is made up of the aspects of withdrawal and volatility.

Withdrawal: Individuals exceptionally low in withdrawal virtually never suffer from or are impeded by anticipatory anxiety.

Volatility: Individuals exceptionally low in volatility are extraordinarily stable and predictable in their moods. They are virtually never irritable, and very rarely experience disappointment, frustration, pain and loneliness.

In both withdrawal and volatility, I am in the 1st percentile. This puts me in the 0th percentile of Neuroticism. Zero. I am lower in Neuroticism than 99 out of 100 other people (see photo below). Part of the photo snippet below says this;

“Overall, they are extremely tolerant of stress, and tend to breeze through even the more severe failures and setbacks of life.”

I bring this up, because, I think it factors into my struggle to connect with Raskolnikov the main character.

Raskolnikov’s Madness and My Attention [Spoilers]

Raskolnikov has a seed of madness near the beginning of the book. He feeds the madness with his murder of two women. Throughout the book, he continually wrestles with delirium and madness. On top of other stresses, he has through the story. I simply cannot relate (I did finish the book). I can’t. I tried.

However, I believe that the reason I could not relate is because of how I handle stress and negative emotions. I don’t carry negative emotions with me. I quickly sort through and process them, and move on. I do not let them linger. Frankly, I have thought maybe I was broken because ever since a spiritual awakening in 2014. I haven’t really had long-lasting stress.

Short-term items, yes, definitely, really bad breakups, my younger brother having open-heart surgery, and 3 months after (his son) my nephew of 9 months old being diagnosed with brain cancer. I have had reasons to be stressed and worn down. Yet, I’ve sorted through it and kept fighting amidst the storms.

I speculate that I got bored with this world-renown piece of literature, due to how I handle stress. Dostoevsky did a really good job at building tension (stress) in the book. However, I don’t engage with stress the same way others do. When I encounter high-stress places in life, my mind shifts gears. Reference the low level of neuroticism, where I disengage with the stress. I put it in front of myself and view it as a puzzle, but I don’t wear the burden of it. There are no moments of relief from the tension and stress that Raskolnikov faces. I can’t engage with it.

In other books with strong tension like Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives. The plot has moments of reprieve, this keeps me engaged. Dostoevsky offers no reprieve throughout the story. None. It only builds. That is one reason why it is seen as one of the classic pieces of literature.

Alas, for me, Crime and Punishment is the worst book. I tried. I really did. Yet my personality has a gap in being able to sort through the struggles Raskolnikov encounters. I seem to be incapable of journeying with Raskolnikov. I still respect the work of Dostoevsky. I’m still glad I took a small bite out of a long list of classics I want to go through, but it just isn’t a great book for someone with uncharacteristically low neuroticism.

If you’re interested in the personality test I used www.understandmyself.com [This is not a referral link]

I have a question for you, if you know you’re dramatically low in neuroticism, but you loved Crime and Punishment. Please let me know in the comments. I’m really interested in talking about it. Also if you loved Crime and Punishment, tell me what it was that you loved, I’m looking to grow my currently limited perspective.

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