Crime and punishment : a novel in six parts with epilogue /

Before too many more years have passed, it will have been a century since Constance Garnett first translated Dostoevsky into English and, despite all her faults, set the standard for later translators, of whom there have been many. McDuff has done a very good job with this classic of world literature. His version reads well, not like a translation (he has rendered a number of other Russian works, by varied authors, into English). Comparison of his translation with the original on the one hand, and the Garnett translation on the other, shows that McDuff is scrupulously faithful to the original, and that he understands the Russian more precisely in many instances than does Garnett, but that Garnett has a command of English style which McDuff often cannot match. However, this translation is nicely produced and is equipped with both a stimulating introduction by the translator and extensive, judiciously done notes, which are of considerable assistance in understanding the text.-C. A. Moser, George Washington University

Dostoyevski's classic novel of murder and guilt, featuring the conflicted killer Raskolnikov and his intellectually nimble antagonist Porfiry Petrovich, is read by the well-regarded Dick Hill. The combination should make for a must-listen audiobook, but the results are disappointingly plodding. Hill overemotes much of Dostoyevski's emotionally charged dialogue, rendering a delicate series of encounters as an array of outbursts and breakdowns. Listeners might find themselves wishing that Hill would restrain himself from the pitfalls of facile emotion in favor of a straight delivery of the inherent drama and descriptive splendor of the novel In a welcome technological twist, however, Tantor includes an e-book with this audiobook (as it does with most of its classic audiobooks), giving readers multiple options for how they might prefer to encounter Dostoyevski. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.