Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

This book surprised me, I was expecting a very deep but nigh on unintelligible intellectual epic of a book. What i got was very deep and intellectual but a friendly book to read. The book follows the fall of Raskolnikov, a highly intelligent and idealistic student who, because of his poverty is forced to make an idealistic step and kill his cruel, unloved, money grabbing landlady. He reasons that she plays no positive role in the world, in fact she is a cancer that destroys all that she can get her hands on and thus only good will result from killing her. This leads to his guilt wracked fall and eventual capture. Ignoring the finer points of the story which i will leave for your own discovery, this book focus on what separates the ordinary man from the hero, how some men can step out defying the laws of society and change the world (be it for better or worse). I felt that crime and punishment deals with many deep and thought provoking ideas without ever straying from being a really enjoyable story, its still no light reading but there is much heavier out there. As an idealist this really struck a chord with me and i found myself relating alot with the character, I'm not quite sure whether that's a good thing or not really but hey. Another amzing thing about this book is how it manages to create an entire city of people without ever breaking stride, although remembering all those russian names can be a tad annoying sometimes.
Adios