Rating: 
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: We all experience bouts of solitude, and this book is written in such a manner that we gain an incite into what that experience is like. The book is like a circle, after you read the second part, the first is illuminated, and you feel like reading it over from the beginning. Ultimately we will always see Dostoyevsky associated to "Crime and Punishment"(possibly through jokes about long books) and Brothers Karamazov, but it is NFU that might persuade you to read through the other, much more thorough and voluminous works. One of the greatest books you'll come upon.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: This is an amazing book. Really. A psychological study of a character you either hate or fear you're becoming(or perhaps cheer on, depending on your emotional makeup). NFU is part tragedy, part satire, part character study, part philosophical discussion, and part misanthrope's manifesto(if you identify with him, as I partially do, it opens up a whole new level of enjoyment).PS: The version to get is, for once, the Bantam Classics version. That translation is incredible: "Two times two makes four is a brazen fop who bars your way with arms akimbo, spitting." What color! What life! This translation crackles with energy and cleverness.
Rating:
Summary: Veracious analysis of the outcast
Review: A truly ingratiating book. The book may have a lugubrious setting, but the insight into a human mind and the social frustrations of an introvert are a wonder to behold. I personally found personal relavance in NFU.
Rating:
Summary: sheer and utter genius
Review: This brilliant novel is a work of sheer and utter genius
Rating:
Summary: An indescribable joy...
Review: Nietzsche called NFU an "indescribable joy", saying Dostoevsky is "the only pyschologist whom he ever learned anything from." It may seem paradoxical that you can derive joy out of such an unremittingly tragic book, but any astute reader interested in the human heart would have to agree with Nietzsche. Certainly one of the most profound and revolutionary works in literature, the keynote to existentialism, and modernity. There was simply nothing like this book in literature before it came along( of course there were works similiar to it afterwards, since it was so influential, e.g., Ellison's homage to NFU "Invisible Man").Dostoevsky's prescience blooms in this work, as this work foreshadows the fractured nature of the modern world. This work is intellectual dynamite in a hundred or so pages.
Rating:
Summary: A must for any introspective reader...
Review: Dostoevsky reveals so much to us through the cynical, self-deprecating ramblings of his "underground man". In our busy existence we seldom take the time to make a conscious examination of who we are, and we fail to realize the great potential and possibility present in our lives. Dostoevsky, however, creates a character that has become too acutely conscious of both the freedom and finitude of his life. We all have the possibility to become like the underground man...a great lesson can be learned from reading this novel.
Rating:
Summary: a great study of the human character...
Review: I think that everyone who reads this novella will find a little piece of themselves in the main character, whether they like it or not. It is an intense study of human peculiarities, particularly the ones we try desperately not to reveal to others. If anyone out there is currently in a psychology course, I highly recommend this short read.
Rating:
Summary: You have to read this one!
Review: I was the only person in my class that liked this book, besides the teacher. What do they know? A lot of people don't like this one because they can't relate...it disgusts them. I admit, the character is at the extreme end of any social problem, but anybody certainly can relate to feeling anxieties about talking to a girl or someone they like, even if it is on a much smaller scale. I think this book deserves a lot of praise, definately a lot of readers, because it deals with a hard to come to terms with idea: the complete inner destruction of a person's soul.
Rating:
Summary: One of his finest
Review: Dostoevsky is, by far, my Favorite author. This book is certainly one of the best four books of his. the others being 'Brothers Karamazov' 'Idiot' and 'Devils'. It is certainly a chief competitor for the role of the most wicked, pathetic, hopeful and hopeless book ever. (the others of dostoevsky would surely be among the other competent competitors). One of the reviewers wrote that Dostoevsky should have been a Psychologist. There is nothing more farther than the truth. Psychology is about the belief in the order of things. This book's main issue is probably the futility of rationalism. When i first read this book i was taken into it that in one point - when the Hero did something (i won't spoil) near the end I had to drop the book - because i could not bare the moral horror. Dostoevsky reveals the most terrible of all horrors which is the moral one. i was sweating and breathing hard - and i had to take a long break before i could get back. this book is like a fervent maelstrorm.
Rating: 
Summary: Psychologically Compelling
Review: Dostoevsky should have been a psychologist. The author sees very penetratingly into the heart of human emotions. Any "outsider" should read this book. The major fault is that the main character is not so much misunderstood as a jackass. The reader will have a hard time relating to him -- I was left with the feeling that his misery was of his own creation and that he was so unpleasant as to deserve his misfortune. Even so, this is a must-read for all those interested in existential literature.
|
