Six essays on Dostoevsky’s novel and the playable version of it: the sentence where Raskolnikov names his real motive, what the epilogue actually does with him, who the three people around him are and what a yellow ticket meant, how his “extraordinary man” theory sits against Nietzsche’s Übermensch, which screen version is worth the evening, and whether to start here or with The Brothers Karamazov. Constance Garnett’s translation is free; the game is over here.
He carried the stolen purse across Petersburg to bury it under a stone, and never opened it. Whatever he went up those stairs for, it was not the money.
September 13, 2026 · 8 min read
The epilogue gives his sentence as eight years, then calls it seven, twice, on the last page. That is the least confusing thing about how this novel ends.
September 13, 2026 · 9 min read
One murderer, three people who matter, and the most-asked question online about any of them is not about the killer at all. It is about his best friend.
September 13, 2026 · 8 min read
Nietzsche wrote that Dostoevsky was the only psychologist he had anything to learn from. He wrote it in the same section where he reaches for Napoleon.
September 13, 2026 · 9 min read
Every screen version has to solve the same problem: the murder is over by page eighty and the rest is two men talking. Only one of them gives it the time.
September 13, 2026 · 8 min read
The argument about which of the two is greater will outlive everyone having it. Which to read first is a much duller question with a much clearer answer.
September 13, 2026 · 8 min read