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Summary: Review from a High School Student
Review: I had to read this book going into the tenth grade for english class, and while the message Dostoyevsky is attempting to get across is certainly a valid issue, the book was way over my head at the time. I found the Underground Man's constant rambling on about his life in the first part of the book to be extremely boring and eventless, while the second part was altogether irrelevant. I do think that the symbolism and Dostoyevsky's frustration with the period in which he lived is well written, though. If I was not forced to read this book for school and waited until I was a bit more intellectually mature to read it I do think that I would have appreciated and admired Dostoyevsky and his work.
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Summary: The City As a Dehumanizer
Review: "Notes from Underground" is considered to be Fyodor Dostoevsky's transition work, the novel which forecasted the creative genius of his later years. In that the work is important; but, it shouldn't be confused with his later writings."Notes from Underground" is the rambling missives of an unknown wretch. All we know of the man is that he was orphaned at an early age, sent to a school he didn't much like by distant relatives, and employed in the civil service of Petersburg. He considers himself to be far more intelligent than most others around him and, by extension, to be their superiors. What Dostoevsky presents in this man is the alienation of the city. One gets the feeling that the city is to blame for the man's misanthropic attitude. For some people the impersonality of the city is an affront to their dignity. To not be recognized for the qualities you feel you have simply because you are awash in a sea of humanity seems personally insulting to them. The narrator of "Notes from Underground" is one of these people. Although there may be some other deep psychological wounds inflicted on him from his earlier circumstances, I got the feeling that he could have overcome them in a less inhospitable environ. The city is what drove him to his self-imposed seclusion. That appears to be the main theme of "Notes from Underground". Dostoevsky is attempting to point out the dehumanizing aspects of the city. Petersburg is an especially degrading metropolis as it is an artificial city. It was a city built by sheer determination and intended not for living, but to rule an empire. The Underground Man is swallowed by Petersburg and almost seems happy to be so.
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Summary: The Mousehole Manifesto
Review: What usually goes unnoticed about "Notes From Underground" is that it's a kind of treatise. It consists of 2 chapters; the first is an argument and the second is a (very loose) story, and the purpose of the story is to bolster the argument. The narrator maintains that the Utopian dreams of the 19th century are rubbish. They are based, he says, on the belief that individuals behave with their own interests in view, that individuals do harm only because they're mistaken about these interests, that if they could be shown the sort of behavior that is really good for them they would immediately adopt it, and that a perfect society would immediately result. The narrator says, Nonsense: plenty of people act against their own interests, consiously and deliberately. It seems hard to swallow when you first read it. But then he proceeds with his story. The second chapter is a completely convincing account of a man who acts this way. He debases, degrades and tortures himself, knowing full well that his behavior is in no way to his advantage, and this is his whole existence. He's miserable as a result, yet completely unrepentent; you get the feeling that if he could do it all over again he wouldn't change a thing. He lives for the sake of spitting on "the beautiful and the lofty," yet he has the capacity to value it. The believeability---and recognizability---of this character makes his (and Dostoyevsky's) argument convincing indeed. The Peaver and Volokhonsky translation is terrific (although I disagree with them about changing the word "spiteful"). Their translations of Dostoyevsky are so good I actually hate to read anyone else's.
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Summary: "I am a sick man...."
Review: With these opening lines, the ultimate outsider novel was born almost 140 years ago. Despite the number of years since its publication, it has lost none of its meaning, insight, or social value as a work of art. If anything, it has gained popularity and standing due to the many divergent and contentious worldviews of so many outsiders from all walks of life today. Few people realize that Ralph Ellison's classic 'Invisible Man' owes more than just passing gratitude for inspiration. Dostoevsky, similar to Goethe, was a true genius of his age that will continue to move and inspire generations of readers for centuries to come. While this is his shortest novel, many would argue that it is also his best. Read it and decide for yourself....
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Summary: Where it all started
Review: Upon reading this book you can instantly see how Dostoyevsky got the foundations for what would become his most celebrated works, notably Crime and Punishment. I am now currently in the middle of my third consecutive reading, and might I mention I only got the book a week ago?
It is a short and (at least for Dostoyevsky) an easy read and very gripping. I found it very difficult to put down. In terms of the first sentence only Albert Camus' The Stranger (Maman died today.) can rival its impact, and from that point until the end, I was utterly amazed. I had never read anything that was able to speak to me so truly, its effect was ineffable. I had read Dostoyevsky before (C&P and various short stories), but this produced a whole new side of him to me, that I instantly took to heart.
A lot of the same ideas and values present in C&P can be found in a diluted form here, and as the introduction states, this was the stepping stone to all his more famous works, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, and of course Crime and Punishment.
Why did this novella have such a profound impact on me? The nameless narrator has this uncanningly human feel. It is so easy to connect with.
Anyone who gets sick and tired of the conformity, yet finds themselves conforming none the less. Anyone who has ever written something for themselves, yet wrote it in the manner such that others would be reading it. Anyone who has ever despised another member of the human race for some aisinine reason they don't even know. Anyone who has ever gone well out of their way for spite. Anyone who simply wishes to be able to go well out of their way for spite (i.e. they, like me, greatly admire George Costanza). Anyone who for whatever reason, has felt that they are inexplicably better than everyone else. Anyone who had something to prove to somebody, but was never able to do it.
If any of those are you, this book will change your life. If they do not apply to you, you will probably love this book amyway because it will give you insight into the human character.
The human character and the psyche are greatly examined here. In fact the narrator alludes to the pyschology of it all when he professes a desire to be thrown out of a window in a bar. Some of his desires reflect idiomatic actions of the time, such as the effect of sticking out one's tongue or delivering a slap. It is easy to understand their significance in 19th century Russia, because Dostoyevsky writes it so well here. You can really feel and relate to what the narrator is feeling and for this reason I believe Dostoyevsky to be one of the greatest story tellers of all time, and this one of his best works.
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Summary: Great Intro to Dostoyevsky
Review: For those readers who are interested in Dostoyevsky but aren't willing to commit to one of his more verbose works, this is a good one to try. The plot is classic Dostoyevsky but tends to read a bit easier. As with all of his works, be prepared to reflex on what you've read and even read certain passages repeatedly.
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Summary: I'm a Sick Man
Review: What a curious, unnamed, lead character. He was eccentric, bizarre and completely aliented from the world. This person, as the sex was never really identified, parallels the life of a hermit and one that I believe, so many live. He ponders his life comparing it to a toothache; speaks in great length about snow on the ground; his oddities that he embraces but loaths about himself. Sounds boring but, I assure thee, Dostoyevsky will never do that.
"I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man . . . I am an unattractive man . . . I believe my liver is diseased." These are the first lines of this epic tale where we are drawn into a world that really only Dostoyevsky can comprehend or fully know. The spite this man proturdes from his every orfus is doubled in amount. The protagonist despises nearly all but, has a strange sense of caring for people who dislike him.
In one word, this book is incredible. The peculiar stories, engagements and encounters he faces are believable. Dostoyevsky seems to always bring out the oddity in his heros; really reflecting himself in so many ways.
Dostoyevsky's incredible imagination in this book profoundly proves his exuberance for writing. I thoroughly enjoyed his self-analysis.
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Summary: a little dull/melodramatic
Review: some of this VERY short novel, sizzles, but not much. I found this a chore to read for the most part. The anti-hero is so pathetic that you just want to end the misery as soon as possible, and the stuff with the prostitute is too melodramtic. Obviously this was a pre-curser to his genius work Crime and Punishment. After reading NOTES,I believe it has gotten far too much praise than it deserves.
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Summary: notes.........
Review: This is the first book of a series of novels that form Dostoievsky's "second period" works, which includes "Crime and Punishment", "Karamazov Brothers", "The Idiot" and others. Though a short novel compared to the ones mentioned, we can find here the seeds of many subjects Dostoievsky was to develop further in his subsequent works. The book is divided into two parts. In the first one, the main character -an obscure student whose name is not even mentioned- introduces himself as a sick and spiteful man. He makes a long diatribe against subjects such as free will, rationalism and romanticism. He attempts to explain his ideas of life and the quest of being, relating man with a piano keyboard: man does not want to think of himself as an instrument that can be played by a superior force without having the power to use his will; rather he has to demonstrate he is a human being with an inner and singular self and not just a piece that belongs to a bigger mechanism. In the second part, this troubled man engages in telling us his difficulties to relate to other people. Here the author brings some characters into the scene, whose principal role is to show the main character's incapability to interact in society. The scene in which he delivers a wordy speech to a young prostitute in a dark cubicle is particularly touching. Dostoievsky is great. What else may I say?.
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Summary: Get a Different Translation of this Incredible Book!
Review: The Mirra Ginsburg translation is the worst translation of this book. I would recommend the Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky translation.
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