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Summary: Notes from Underground is a dark but interesting read.
Review: Notes from Underground is a dark but interesting read. Dostoyevsky's book reads like a diary filled with all of his personal triumphs and tragedies. However, his book is very poetic. He reveals all of his emotional vunerabilites and frustrations. He does have the tendency to become depressing throughout the book. At times, this can become overwhelming. I wouldn't recommend this book for anybody that might be depressed or are looking for something uplifting to read. I do believe that anybody that enjoys Dostoyevsky will really enjoy Notes from Underground. Notes from Underground reads like he is telling you these stories to you in person, in a bar, during a drunken moment of clarity. I highly recommend this book for any fan of Dostoyevsky's works.
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Summary: Insanely (literally) good, just like the rest of his works
Review: Yet again Dostoyevsky has written something that goes beyond words. As someone else has definately noted before, the antihero (ie the narrator) talks directly to the reader in the first part, and draws the reader quite forcibly into his feelings, which are quite disturbing, but if you look closely at it, we see that it is an exaggeration of human nature. This antihero that Dostoyevsky created IS humanity, and is exactly what Huxley's Mond, Orwell's O'Brien, and Zamyatin's guardians (I may be wrong with the antagonist here, it has been a while) would simply hate to deal with, both because this is a very unhappy person who doesn't mind sharing the mood, but also that he is does not mind suffering- he welcomes it! He is the man who would shatter the "crystal palace" that society so covets, but is that what people really want? More and more it seems that however unlikely his story, Huxley's world of abundance and happiness is the path our world is taking, making it quite the more necessary for the Underground Man to exist, and to live.
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Summary: The Nature of Man
Review: In Notes From Underground, Dostoevsky creates a character that is a brooding, loathsome, miserable figure. As the notes progress, the narrator becomes even more frustrating, yet honest, to the reader. As one wants to hate what he says, the way he acts, and the views he has of the men and world around him, any honest reader will agree that they, at times, harbor some of, if not all of, the resentments and animosity that this wretched man does. At the same time, Dostoevsky uses his creation's words to make a mockery of the illogical, "lofty" views of man that many of his "progressive" contemporaries were espousing. My favorite sample from the Underground Man's notes: "...I'll demand to be respected, I'll persecute whoever does not show me respect. I live peacefully, die solemnly--why, this is charming, utterly charming! And I'd grow myself such a belly then, I'd fashion such a triple chin for myself, I'd fix myself up such a ruby nose that whoever came along would say, looking at me: 'Now there's a real plus! There's a real positive!'" This is a classic, fascinating, short, introspective, story.
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Summary: The most in-depth analyses of a toothache ever written!
Review: The basis of his subsequent masterpieces, to call "Notes from the Underground" dark and disturbing is like calling King Kong "ape-like." It is often considered a cornerstone of existential thought, which is apt, because Dostoevsky was nearly as important to existentialism as Kierkegaard or Sartre. His characters, particularly the "anti-hero" character prevalent in his works, were perhaps the most original and unique to be created since the time of Shakespeare and Cervantes. Modern literature is almost unthinkable without Dostoevksy's contributions, most of which originated in this novella.
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Summary: FYODOR THE FABULOUS
Review: If Fyodor Dostoyevsky was trying to portray a truly beautiful soul in The Idiot, then he was obviosly trying to portray a truly ugly soul in Notes from Underground. He succeeds immensely. From the opening paragraph (" . . . let it hurt still more!") one can just visualize this nameless narrator sitting in refuse, gnashing his teeth. The book is divided into two parts: The Mousehole, which is where the narrator talks to you--yes YOU, dear reader, whether you like it or not. And then there's the second part: Brought to Mind by a Fall of Wet Snow, which is the story-portion of the masterpiece. The story portion reads MUCH faster than the former, BUT should be read AFTER reading the first part--some people do it the other way around. The story portion is basically about our anti-hero trying to get revenge on someone. If your taste lies in lemon-yellow mittens and mindless bar-room brawls, you're in for a real treat. Now there's two ways of buying this book. 1) Get it new. But poor thing, unless you are in AP English or have Cliff's Notes--or are Dostoyevsky himself--you'll probably miss much of the symbolism and between-the-lines stuff that this work has to offer. If you get it by way number 2) Used, your copy will more than likely have high-school scribblings in it. If you can read the writing, you can toss Cliff's notes, well, off a cliff. Highly recommended.
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Summary: The Essence of Existentialist Fiction
Review: This book is superior to Nausea. I hope that everyone gets a chance to read it. This is a crucial doctrine of 19th century despair and anguish and a facet of individualism. It shows a man who is agonized by his own hypersensitive self-consciousness. The story is of course riddled with Dostoyevsky's trademark contradictory piety and skeptcism, redemption through fallen souls, etc. It's not the story of a particular man but a vision of modern man and his need to go underground. Read this book and go underground with him!
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Summary: Deep analysis of the human condition
Review: Notes From The Underground is Dostoevsky's grand look at the human condition from the perspective of a man living on the fringes of society. The short novel provides the key to much of the author's later and more fleshed out novels. Presented in two parts the novel tells the story of the unnamed Undergound Man who is forced into a life of inaction by the reason driven society that he finds himself in. Part I of the novel is a long monologue to an invisible audience which explains how the Underground Man came into existence. It is a masterpiece of Existentialist fiction and has been the cornerstone for many later writers including Freud and Camus. The ideas expressed in this part of the novel deal with the character's interactions with himself. This is also the mother of all anti-hero literature. Through the Underground Man's speech we identify him as an over sensitive man of great intellegence. We begin to identify with the character and understand him. While this part of the novel is idea laden it presents one of the great characters of modern fiction. Part II of the novel is much more accessible to today's reader. This part of the novel deals with the Underground Man's interactions with the society around him. It is in this section that we see that he incapable of reacting in a normal way with the persons that he comes into contact with. He is not the rational man of Part I but a person driven to inaction by his own personal circumstances. He is spiteful, mean spirited and incapable of giving or receiving love to or from others. On the whole this is a very important piece of world literature which deserves a very careful reading. The novel reads like an onion with each new chapter giving us deeper and deeper insight into the character. The modern reader may well grow tired of the writing style of the novel but if one has patience and reads carefully he will be rewarded.
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Summary: The Hilarity of Paranoia
Review: This is one of the funniest books I have read in a long time. But while being entertaining, it is also a poignant narration of the self-centered paranoia of a man who is desperate for people to like him. Unfortunately, because people never have really liked him, he also has a deep disdain for people. So in his thoughts and in his interactions with people, there are evidences of deep longing for companionship interspersed with a contempt for all of humanity. Dostoevsky is one of the most insightful writers of all time. He has provided us, in Notes from Underground, with a character who is really just the average person placed under a magnifying glass. Dostoevsky has done a beautiful job of showing how painful (yet irrational and silly) people's fears and paranoias are. It is one of the best examinations I have ever encountered about how people desire intimacy with other people, and what happens when others do not reciprocate that desire. This is a short book, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.
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Summary: A look in to the human condition
Review: Dostoyevsky begins this cornerstone work with the nameless antihero saying, "I", slowly, throughout the work, Dostoyevsky lures the reader into the mind of an antihero, till the last pages there is only talk of "we". After catching my breath after my first read, I found myself lured to rereading the last chaptern over . This book should be taken to heart by anyone interested in philosophy, politics, and psychology. Not only is this work a turning point in Dostoyevsky's life, but I feel it also leaves an seductive psychology abyss. An abyss that none one has dared to jump over, but only created cheap imitations.
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Summary: Don't overlook this book.
Review: Dostoyevsky is one of my favorite authors; that is why it saddens me to see the way people overlook this book in a way they don't with Crime and Punishment, or Brothers Karamazov (or, dare I say, even The Idiot?!) I will say something that perhaps has not been uttered often about this book: It made me laugh out loud. Probably because the main character of the book had some frighteningly similar thoughts to my own. This book reads like a window into a man's soul. He is torn apart by absurdist notions, and a desire to remain artistically and intellectual pure, fearing the "taint" of outside ideas. To put it shortly, this book is like watching a man pacing back and forth in his home, expounding on every little nuance of life that bothers, confounds, baffles, annoys, or perversely amuses him. This may sound boring; however, it is entertaining and enlightening. Imagine the man doing this raving to be an extremely witty (we're talking wittier than Oscar Wilde or Samuel Johnson -- THAT witty) individual, of great intellectual capacity, strong (often misdirected) passion, and a depth and breadth in reading not seen in today's society (through the necessary constraints of modern society, I would argue; please do not read my comment as a misanthropic statement on the ills of modern society, for I have no such notions) and you find you don't have a book that is boring at all -- you have a book so gripping, so outrageously entertaining, above all else, you don't even realize this fellow (who I imagine in my mind to madly gesticulate) has sucked you into his own demented little "box" of a world. Step inside, especially if you're familiar with Dostoyevsky's other work, or that of Camus or Kafka.
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