Xavier Ray’s Reviews > Crime and Punishment > Status Update

Amazing and challenging

Dostoevsky doesn’t switch names to confuse; he does it to make the reader inhabit the same shifting moral and emotional landscape the characters live in. The novel becomes not just a story about psychology but a text that thinks and feels as it moves.

I’m finding Razumikhin harder to like than most readers seem to. His energy feels performative—too eager, too self-conscious. Even when he’s helping Rodya or comforting the family, there’s an undercurrent of insecurity and self-importance, as if he needs to be the savior in every room. Dostoevsky makes even his “good” characters complicated, and Razumikhin’s kindness never feels entirely selfless.