Crime and Punishment

<p><strong>Crime and Punishment is one of the greatest and most readable novels ever written. </strong></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>From the beginning we are locked into the frenzied consciousness of Raskolnikov who against his better instincts is inexorably drawn to commit a brutal double murder.</p><p> </p><p>From that moment on we share his conflicting feelings of self-loathing and pride of contempt for and need of others and of terrible despair and hope of redemption: and in a remarkable transformation of the detective novel we follow his agonised efforts to probe and confront both his own motives for and the consequences of his crime. </p><p><br></p><p>The result is a tragic novel built out of a series of supremely dramatic scenes that illuminate the eternal conflicts at the heart of human existence: most especially our desire for self-expression and self-fulfilment as against the constraints of morality and human laws; and our agonised awareness of the world's harsh injustices and of our own mortality as against the mysteries of divine justice and immortality.</p>