Okay, so not exactly every day, then.

Right, I’ve just finished Crime and Punishment. Now, I should move backwards a bit; a while ago – I don’t even remember when, now – I had a discussion with Marco where I said that, although I’d read “the classics” eventually, I couldn’t see myself being influenced by any of them. Bluntly, I like bits and pieces of Shakespeare and bits and pieces of Dickens and – as I used to mention in excruciating detail back in 2007 – really, really don’t like Austen’s works... but I couldn’t see myself being influenced by any of them. I liked them, but they weren’t the sort of things I wanted to do. Not even in setting, as such; but I mean, “class” is not something I’m ultimately concerned with in my writing (this is mostly a factor of Austen’s and Dickens’ work), and Shakespeare... the thing I like most about Shakespeare is his diversity of setting and themes. But then, I can get that from many influences (Kubrick, to an extent... and that-dratted-thing-I-will-never-stop-mentioning, Doctor Who), and although it’s amazing that Shakespeare (allegedly) came up with all that, there’s so many other “artists” to be influenced by now. Bluntly speaking.

And of course, one of the other writers that came up was Dostoyevsky. Now, I already had an inkling that Dostoyevsky’s prose would be sensational – mainly because even his imitators seem to have beautiful ways of writing – but I’d assumed that, of course, his works wouldn’t tap into anything that interested me. I mean, look at that name; Crime and Punishment. It’s like, I dunno, Pride and bloody Prejudice, isn’t it? And yet somehow even more simplistic a name. So I thought he’d be a sensational writer, in the sense of language, but not much interest was to be held elsewhere in his works.

I was wrong. The title isn’t so much Pride and Prejudice-simplicity as Hitchcock-film-simplicity. In fact, a lot of the psychology that emerged throughout this book reminded me of Rope, but I won’t go into that. Too spoilery, no doubt.

Yes, for a book first published in 1866, but still, I go by the fact that these sorts of things shouldn’t be spoiled.

Anyway, the rub of it is; of Dostoyevsky, at least, Marco was right. Goddammit. :)

Crime and Punishment really is the best thing I’ve read since... well, Faction Paradox: ‘This Town Will Never Let Us Go’, really. It’s a master-class of writing, and it’s oldy-worldy and yet not off-puttingly so... by which I mean, there may be a “Oh!” here and there, but the probing psychology feels surprisingly sophisticated for the 1900s, even though I’m sure this is just me retro-imagining how intellectual people of the past were.

It’s hard to know what to say about it without spoiling it... hmm. Well, it’s about this guy named Raskolnikov who commits murder, for reasons that aren’t at all clear. Being a delirious madman who’s wickedly intelligent, horribly harsh and confident yet cowardly, Raskolnikov is one of those protagonists who I just love despite what they’re doing. I haven’t felt this much like and enjoyment for a horrible main character since A Clockwork Orange, actually.

And here’s the thing; not only is it great that the book is (mostly) told from the point of the murderer rather than any silly, dull detectives (though even the detective, Porfiry, who emerges later in the book is intriguingly intelligent), but a fair chunk of it – particularly in the first half – is told in Raskolnikov’s head. Make no mistake, this is hard-going reading if you’re not prepared. There are literally paragraphs upon paragraphs of dialogue, and paragraphs upon paragraphs of internal monologues. These often reveal intensely interesting things, and – particularly in the internal monologues – not a line is wasted. But I can fully understand why many readers would be compelled to throw this against the wall. Personally, I adored it.

So the plot is nice, but it would feel clichéd if you looked at it in plot terms. Effectively you have a murder, you have a detective, and you have side stories about things like marriage which are no more complex than anything you’d get in an Austen book. But it’s the way Dostoyevsky deals with these things, and the way that Raskolnikov’s underlying madness drives the book forward that makes it great. Again, I’d point to Rope, which is a movie that also – as well as having similar psychological ideas – has similar side stories and such. And in both cases, all of that would be incredibly boring... without the murder always being at the edge of the book’s, or film’s, thoughts.

Despite that comparison... Yes, if there’s one thing I can say that truly pinpoints how great this was, it’s that it’s one of perhaps two books (the other being ‘This Town Will Never Let Us Go’) that I honestly can’t see working as a movie. Oh, they’ve tried; there’s a sizable amount of adaptations. But so much of the movie is internal, so much of it is about feeling the way forward blindly as it goes along (I’m convinced that Dostoyevsky practically made a lot of it up on the way), that I can’t see it transferring onto the small or big screen. At all. I’m going to have to check out the adaptations to see if I’m wrong, but I just can’t picture it. It would be a shit movie, I think.

Maybe that’s the problem with most books. I mean, we’re constantly told, as a younger generation, to read more books than watch films and TV, etc, but... a lot of really successful books are thought of as films first. I’d wager that the following immediately conjure up the film rather than the book, out of the following:

Anything by Austen
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Psycho (and in fact, numerous Hitchcock films*)
A Clockwork Orange
The Exorcist
Jaws
The Shining
The Thin Red Line
Fight Club

And many more.

*Indeed, I should point out that my mum didn’t have any idea that films such as Psycho and The Birds were adapted from books and short stories.

Is it that film directors are too clever today and are able to wallop their own, amazing vision onto these books, or that the books are simply not told in a way that is a sole and singular experience? Effectively, if all of these films stimulate minds as much if not more than the books, then what true need is there to read the books? It’d be like expecting every audience member to read Batman comics just because they like The Dark Knight**.

That’s not to degrade the potential quality of those books (I’ve only read Austen’s stuff and The Exorcist), but just to question their value as books. Maybe we should really count the best and greatest books to be those that are truly and solely literate experiences, in the same way that 2001, for example, is a truly and solely filmic experience?

**Which reminds me, something that needs to be put to rest (pun not intended, but then again I haven’t removed it, have I?); The Dark Knight is NOT Heath Ledger’s last performance. In fact, as wonderful as his Joker was, I’m actually really more excited about his absolute last performance, which will be as “Tony” in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, being released next year. Read that over again. Terry fucking Gilliam. Having seen Brazil a few months ago – and yep, I put it on my top 45 films, if you’ll remember – this is just wonderful. If there’s one thing that’ll make me respect an Australian actor, it’s being in a film directed by a wonderful director – Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut is an example – so this is just wonderful. The best send-off he could’ve asked for, really.

And with that foray into reading now done, I’m due to return to my 1001 Films watching. Be there, or be SQUARE (eyes).

EDIT: It's DOSTOEVSKY. I've been spelling it wrong all day now. Bah.