Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

If you’re a senior in high school, or even if you know one, you know that it’s college application season. For me, this means that a few weeks ago, I was given the names of three Harvard applicants to interview for early admissions consideration.

I have been a volunteer alumni interviewer for about seven years now, and I love it. Every single candidate I’ve met has been unique and fascinating, and I love being a part of this exciting, albeit nerve-wracking, time in their lives. There is so much potential in their youth.

Yesterday evening I interviewed a seventeen-year-old young woman and, as all my interviews tend to do, we got on the subject of books. She said she had been reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky in her English Literature class and they had been having very interesting philosophical discussions about it.

Unfortunately, I have never read Crime and Punishment, so she explained the main plot of the book to me quickly. Basically, she said, it was about a man who was very introspective and thought and thought until he had planned the perfect murder in his head. Then he committed that murder. Then he is caught, the whole thing being very suspenseful and interesting, but it was the ending that they had been discussing.

My interviewee believed that even though the somewhat tacked-on happy ending felt contrived, she was satisfied with it thematically. Without the happy ending, the long book would have been empty of meaning—just a depressing sob story. The happy ending, however, turned the book into a story of redemption and hope. Only with this ending could the we readers use the book as reflection of our own lives, to be able to see ourselves and judge our own failings, then find the strength to overcome them. Then we can find greater meaning and hope in our everyday lives.

Yeah, I was impressed.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Tags: book reviews Harvard admissions college applications Fyodor Dostoevsky