“Trying to untie the string and going to the window, to the light (all her windows were closed, despite the stuffiness), sh…“Trying to untie the string and going to the window, to the light (all her windows were closed, despite the stuffiness), she left him completely for a few seconds and turned her back to him. He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the loop but did not quite take it out yet; he just held it in his right hand under the coat. His hands were terribly weak; he felt them growing more and more numb and stiff every moment. He was afraid he would let go and drop the axe…suddenly his head seemed to spin…”- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment (My raging, Raskolnikov-like conscious could not rest without warning you of potential spoilers ahead!)The problem with being a high school student with average intelligence is that you can get fairly good grades with fairly minimal effort. It is an invitation to cut corners and utilize only one half your ass. This happened to me in English class. I'd sit back, take good notes, and bluff my way through various tests (this was back in the day before Google, when my family only had an AOL dial-up connection and all the answers, right and wrong, were on the internet). For these sins, I am now fated to read the classics long after I was supposed to read them. On the plus side, coming to the classics on my own volition has given me a better appreciation than having to read them with a figurative gun to the head. This has allowed me to enjoy certain works to a higher degree.However, I don't think any number of years will allow me to appreciate or enjoy or even suffer Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. First published in 1866, Crime and Punishment is the excruciatingly-detailed psycho-epic about the murder of a pawn shop owner (and her sister). The murderer is named Raskolnikov. He is a former student living in a wretched …