This article first appeared in Historia magazine
Crime and Punishment is one of those books. It has a unique power. The idea of it compels you even before you’ve read it. The stature of it too: it’s a masterpiece of world literature, a towering work that casts a long shadow. I remember how, as a precocious teenager who wanted to be a writer, I was drawn to it and scared of it at the same time. Dare I read it? Would I understand it? Would it disappoint me? Or – more likely – would it be so mind-blowingly brilliant that I would abandon all my own literary ambitions, realising that there was nothing more to be said, and no way left to say it?
I should point out this was in the seventies. And one of the reasons I was so drawn to the book was that I’d heard that Columbo was based in some way on Porfiry Petrovich, the detective from Crime and Punishment. I was a big fan of Columbo (as I was of Kojak, and Ironside, and TV detective series in general). Given the kind of kid I was, I was also attracted by the idea of genius, by profound mysteries – by the promise of Russian literature in other words, even though I was frankly daunted by the prospect of tackling one of those big heavy books for real.
But here was a Russian book that was also a murder story; a philosophical novel that was also gory and gripping. There was an axe-murderer in it, for God’s sake! And a detective too. It seemed perfect, the perfect bridge from the Conan Doyle stories that I was lapping up to something more, well, ‘serious’.
At any rate, the idea of the book took hold of me and wouldn’t let me go. A little like Raskolnikov’s ‘idea’ in the book itself.
I seem to remember that the blurb on the back of the Penguin Classics edition of the time, which I must have borrowed from my school library, billed it as one of the world’s first detective novels. If so, this is slightly misleading. Although one of the characters is a detective, he is not the central character. In fact, Porfiry does not come on the scene until nearly half way through the book. He is directly present, I think, in just three chapters of the book. However, the idea of him is – masterfully – introduced before his entrance, and his dominating presence continues to be felt after he has left the stage.
Of course, Crime and Punishment is not so much a ‘detective story’ as a ‘murderer story’, the murderer being Raskolnikov. I suppose my idea, really, was simply to switch things round and attempt to write the kind of detective story that the blurb had promised, but which Crime and Punishment so evidently is not – being, in fact, so much more. (I should say that A Gentle Axe is not a retelling of Crime and Punishment. It’s a different case altogether, taking place some time afterwards.) I’m fully aware of the monstrous effrontery of this conceit. That’s partly what appealed to me, I have to confess. But I hope people will realise the essential playfulness of my idea.
Naturally I went back to the original novel for clues in constructing my own Porfiry Petrovich. Clues like this description from Raskolnikov’s friend Razumikhin, who is a distant relative of Porfiry’s: ‘He’s a splendid chap, brother, you will see! He’s a little awkward. I don’t mean that he’s not well-bred; when I say that he is awkward I mean it in another respect. He is an intelligent fellow, very intelligent, he’s nobody’s fool, but he is of a rather peculiar turn of mind… He is incredulous, sceptical, cynical. He likes to mislead people, or rather to baffle them… Well, it’s an old and well-tried method… He knows his business, knows it very well… Last year he investigated and solved a case, another murder, where the scent was practically cold. He is very, very anxious to make your acquaintance!’
Dostoevsky quite often gives us such brief descriptions of characters who then turn out to be far more complex and elusive when we encounter them in the course of the story. Just like people in real life, you might say. Whatever one character says of another, in the end we form our own impressions, which are quite often difficult to pin down.
By the time murderer and detective meet in Crime and Punishment, the sense of anticipation is enormous.
Dostoevsky’s dialogue scenes in which Porfiry interviews Raskolnikov – or rather in which their intellectual and moral duels are played out – are of course brilliant, and it is here that we see the great investigator at work. Also brilliant is the way that Raskolnikov’s fascination with, and almost need for, his adversary grows throughout the book. Each respects the other. If Porfiry tries to play his ‘magistrate’s games’, Raskolnikov sees right through him. So Porfiry has to be on his toes, flexible and wily. He does his research too, getting hold of and reading an article that Raskolnikov had written. Again, this was a detail that made an impression on me, which I took hold of and ran with, if you like.
Essentially, though, my method was to encounter and enjoy Porfiry Petrovich in Crime and Punishment. And then write my own story, re-inventing the character for my own very different purposes. I hope Dostoevsky, wherever he is, is looking on with an amused and indulgent eye.
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Image: George Grie, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
