Irony in Crime and Punishment, and a note on the 2 Nobel Prizes for literature

First, on my Nobel Prize predictions: Glad I didn't bet! I've posted on Tocarczuk earlier this year, finding her novel Flights to be intelligent but nearly impenetrable. I've never posted on Handke aside from a reference to his work in a post on Knausgaard, but he's had a long and successful career; for some reason, I've never read any of his novels, but I think I will - possibly The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, which if nothing else has one of my all-time favorite titles.

On Crime and Punishment, the 3rd chapter in part 2 of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel begins w/ Raskolnikov waking in his dingy cupboard of an apartment (the intro to the Everyman edition wryly notes that this tiny apartment seems always to be hosting visits of four or five guests, along with tea and soup!) after a delirious night's sleep. He's greeted on wakening by best friend Raszumik (sp?, I'll get it right eventually) and the servant, Nastasya; they say he's been delirious for days; R immediately worries that have said something in his delirium about the killing of the pawnbroker. Apparently, he didn't, at least nothing that his guests could comprehend. Raz informs Rask that a bank agent is present, and when Rask signs a paper he'll received a payment of 30, I think, rubles - sent to him by his mother (who cannot afford this largesse). At first R refuses to sign, but he gives in - and Raz departs and later returns, having spent part of the money on a new set of clothes for R, who really needs the duds - he was down to one set of cloths, some of which had been blood-spattered. So at this point in the novel, R's affairs should be looking somewhat better, as family and friends are taking care of him; there's an irony here, of course, that R ruined his life by the killing and, had he waited a few days, he would have been all set financially - but irony is not the point: The point, I think, is that anyone who would contemplate and enact such a malicious plan is someone who has cast himself as an outsider and antagonist. From the moment he set his mind on murder, R was a doomed man, as his fear and guilt will overwhelm him and send him toward destruction - self-destruction and destruction by the hand of the law. What we will see over the next 400 pages or so is the R's struggle to redeem himself: first to save his body, eventually to save his soul.