2019.10.11 Friday
09:37 Iris Wu Deal All: May I invite you to join our “Crime and Punishment” closing session?
09:38 Iris Wu When: 2:30pm, Saturday, 10/19/2019
Where: Dante Café (YoYo meeting venue)
Who to attend: Anyone who is interested in the book
(Notes: In our India meetup, most attendees either did not read or had not finished the book, but they joined us and we managed to have great conversation. (smile))
09:39 Iris Wu A brief and concise summary of the novel for your reference:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Crime- ... ment-novel 09:40 Iris Wu Meeting Agenda:
Mainly, free-form discussion about the book. Following agenda/questions are merely suggestions:
• Your overall comments about the book: 3-4 minutes per person.
• Which character(s) impressed you or made you feel for the most?
• Would you like to share any particular plot(s) or paragraph(s)/quote(s) that inspired you or made you feel heart-wrenching?
• How do you like the epilogue (the ending) of the book?
• What do you think of Raskolinkov’s sentence? Is it justified for his crime?
• What makes the book a classic?
09:42 Iris Wu Added a new note.
09:50 Iris Wu Or maybe we should add one more: Why do many people keep the book on the bookshelf and did not finish it? (This is to answer the statistics that Wenhan brought up earlier.

09:50 Iris Wu Or maybe we should add one more: Why do many people keep the book on the bookshelf and did not finish it? (This is to answer the statistics that Wenhan brought up earlier.

We are going to have a final discussion for “Crime and Punishment” this coming Saturday, 10/19.
Please take a look the notes in the group.
Everyone is welcome to join the discussion!
13:04 Iris Wu Dear All:
This is a friendly reminder –
We will have our “Crime and Punishment” final session at Dante, 2:30pm, Saturday, 10/19/2019.
13:04 Iris Wu The main theme of the book is surrounded by the ideas of crime and punishment, as the book title clearly described.
Most people did not have time to read the whole book. No worries, we can take it from more general aspects to discuss.
13:04 Iris Wu The whole story and many characters in the book reminded us:
• People who seem to be “sanctimonious” (a big word that I’ve never used before, meaning “making a show of being morally superior to other people”) or pose himself as a person of high morals are not necessarily good people.
• People who are low-ranking are not necessarily the ones who should be cast aside.
What do you think about these arguments? And how should people's values be defined?
13:04 Iris Wu Then for "guilty" people, what is the "crime" in their hearts?
• More or less, serious or minor we all hold certain “guilt” in our minds, agree?
• How do people rationalize our “guilt”?
• To what extent, our guilt cannot be vindicated, cannot be justified and rationalized? And what would people do by then?
08:44 Stray Sabrina Dear all
As you know, i have serious dyslexia , so I borrowed the audio book, CliffsNotes on Dostoevsky's Crime and punishment, from library
Although I can't understand 100%, at least, I almost finished it
I feel so sad and angry one is the girls need to sacrifice themselves for the bad guys.
At beginning , he tried to cover his crime but he still can't help to convince because he felt very guilty after he killed them
I think it is not fair about his sentence. If he just killed the former one, maybe yes, but he killed the latter one, the naive girl, I think he deserved the life imprisonment, he had to do hard labor for atoning in Siberia
It describes the human being deeply to make it become so successful especially the master, he was so excellent but his life was struggled because had no rich dad. It's very realistic, right
I am so sad because I am not available to join today's meeting, have a nice afternoon
10:11 Iris Wu Hi, Sabrina: It's nice to hear your comments! I am so sorry that you cannot join us today. Hope we get some other time to chat on some of your ideas! I am sure many of the readers think the sentence was not quite fair. That's why I asked that question. Many of the Indian guys had similar opinions. But from the other angle, Dostovesky presented it in a pretty convincing way, too. I think there are readers with strong sympathy. Is he a bad guy? Good or bad guy, is it always as clear as black and white?
10:22 Lewis Lu See you soon Iris!
10:48 Kat We'll be there, Iris! So wonderful to have the opportunity to explore the book again! THANKS!
10:52 Iris Wu Great! We can hear all of your thoughts today, not just my monologues!