Notes from the Underground

Rating:
Summary: Accurate Look into Human Mind
Review: Dostoevsky is a master of psychology in this book. I highly reccomend it, although it may drive you crazy from thinking about it too much.

Rating:
Summary: a dark seed from which many dark trees have grown
Review: There is one thing that must be understood when reading this novel: The first novel Dostoevsky wrote after being send to prison in Siberia for four years (and another four years to work there) was "House of the Dead", an autobiographical book about his time in prison. That book is still very remniscent of his early work, it is a "social" book, that still believes in the essential goodness of the human soul. This one is the book he wrote after "House of the Dead" and it is clear that Dostoevsky doesn't believe in anything he used to believe in anymore. This is the one work of Dostoevsky that is truly a testimony to the bitterness he felt after his harsh life in Siberia. It's a "revaluation of all values". This is the voice of Dostoevsky himself, in my opinion, the voice of someone who's seen everything he so believed in shattered into pieces. Read the first part, where he repeatedly dismisses utilitarianism. He has broken with his socialist past, with his leftie friends like Belinsky. This novel is an outburst of rage against the lies he used to believe in before life broke him. Here, he doesn't seem to care about humanity anymore, or tries not to care anymore, anyway.
I know many people would say one shouldn't confuse this work with an autobiography, but the sentiments expressed by the underground man seem to me to be those of Dostoevsky himself. I think that is the secret, and when I found out this "secret" it send a chill down my spine, because I always thought Dostoevsky was a good christian who wanted to live like Alyosha or Myshkin.
After this book, he started writing different books again, in which redemption and goodness was possible. In my opinion, "Notes from the Underground" is an essential read if you want to understand the true nature of those later works, like "Karamazov" and "Crime & Punishment". You will hear the voice of the underground man again, in Iwan, and Raskolnikow. You will hear the true message, and not the christianity and humanism of characters like Father Zosima and Alyosha.

Rating:
Summary: not what it looks like
Review: this is just another translation of the book. it is not a study guide

Rating:
Summary: He is a spiteful man
Review: He is a spiteful man. He is an angry man. He is a man alone in his cellar thinking about himself and the world. He despises everything and everyone most of all himself. He despises himself and spites himself brilliantly. He despises too those perfectionists , socialists utopians who are going to reform the world, and who are deluding themselves and killing others. Yet as he despites spites himself has contempt for himself he wins in some way our respect and even admiration. For his anger and his spite seem to have an integrity and honesty. For in a way we too share his anger at the hypocrisy of the world, at the endless triviality and double- dealing , at the dishonesty which pervades so much public utterance. And in our sympathy with him we too come alive because his voice is so alive in his spite and in his anger. And so he is a great character of literature, and we are his somewhat happy readers- for we too would like to hit on the head with our words all those who have deceived,misled and betrayed us. Even ourselves.


Rating:
Summary: Blown away! A new personal favorite.
Review: Wow, how can you read something like this and be expected to comment on it? Dostoevsky's Underground Man is a schrewd social critic, philosopher, and irrational egoist. His arguements for the merits of suffering are hillarious, introspective, and deeply honest. If you ever read any thing in your life, make it this book.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutly Wonderful
Review: Dostoevsky's man from underground is the epitome of an anti-hero. He is a man we can all relate to, but secretly despise. Though once a leftist himself, Notes from Underground is Dostoevsky's attempt to rebut the ideals of socialism and rational egoism in favor of traditional Russian values. He champions acting on your passions, not out of self-profit, which according to him, is not always what's best. Sometimes going against yourself is what is necessary in the long run. The story is told from the viewpoint of an intelligent, insightful but wicked man, who lives on the fringes of a society that shuns him. He feels out of place, and is not quite sure that he really wants to have a place. He despises the societal norms, as Dostoevsky puts it "the crystal palace." What he really wants is peace, freedom from his conscious and to be needed. The story contains thick political philosophy plus a penetrating view of the human psyche; can be hard to follow at times, but is defiantly worth the read. It is altogether an insightful view of the clashing political ideologies of the late 19th early 20th centuries, one of my personal favorites.

Rating:
Summary: An exceptional translation (& explanation)
Review: This is a difficult novel. Although it's not nearly as long as other works of Dostoyevsky's, it doesn't make it any easier. For this reason, I'm especially glad that I chose the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation. Not only is the book translated well, there are tons of explanitory notes that help clarify what's going on in the story, pick up on cultural and period references, as well as help show for what purpose the book was written in the first place. Without these helps, I think I wouldn't have come away from this book with nearly as much of an understanding of it, and my rating probably would have been more in the neighbourhood of a three. However, because I understand a lot more about what was going on, I was able to appreciate what Dostoyevsky was trying to say with this book.