Lineages
Every great book stands on older ones. Homer gave Virgil his wanderings and his war; Virgil walked Dante through Hell. Start from a classic and follow its line, one work at a time, across the map.
What it draws on
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, AD 1864
The Underground Man rails against reason and utility; Crime and Punishment puts the argument to the test. Raskolnikov acts on a theory, that an extraordinary man may kill for the general good, and the novel follows what it does to him.
Source: Wikipedia, Crime and Punishment
“In the novel, Dostoevsky pinpointed the dangers of both utilitarianism and rationalism, the main ideas of which inspired the radicals, continuing a fierce criticism he had already started with his Notes from Underground.” Read it there
Its heirs
Knut Hamsun, AD 1890
Hamsun's starving writer roams Kristiania as Raskolnikov roams St Petersburg: feverish, proud, talking to himself, his hunger and his pride feeding each other. Dostoevsky was one of Hamsun's great influences.
Source: Wikipedia, Hunger (Hamsun novel)
“Timothy Wientzen has written that Hunger was "quite unlike anything before seen in Scandinavian literature." The protagonist of the novel displays traits reminiscent of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment; the author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, being one of Hamsun's main influences.” Read it there
Franz Kafka, AD 1925
Kafka called Dostoevsky a blood relative. Like Raskolnikov, Josef K. lives under the eye of an investigating power that seems to know his guilt before he does, though in Kafka the crime is never named.
Source: Wikipedia, The Trial
“Some similarities between The Trial and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov suggest their possible influence on it, and Kafka went so far as to call Dostoevsky a blood relative.” Read it there
Albert Camus, AD 1942
Like Raskolnikov, Meursault kills a man and the novel follows him to judgement. But where Dostoevsky leads his murderer to confession and redemption, Camus's refuses both.
Source: Wikipedia, The Stranger (Camus novel)
“Sergei Hackel has explored parallels between L'Étranger and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.” Read it there