Notes from the Underground

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Summary: A writers guide
Review: An under-rated classic by the King. I reccomend this book to anyone who aspires to be an artist. This book digs deep down into the depths of the writers soul.

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Summary: Dostoyevsky explores the psyche of another warped manic
Review: Once again Dostoyevsky astounds us with detail as we delve inside the mind of one of his classicly demented characters. This story reads like a finely crafted case study of neurosis, and what may be most disturbing to the reader is how much this character has in common with himself. I tell you, with the price of entertainment reaching more and more absurd levels these days, Notes From Underground is one heck of a bargain for 80 cents. Don't pass it up folks.

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Summary: strange but wonderful
Review: An incredible book, one your whole family would deeply enjoy reading . Wait until next fall when the movie release comes out titled: " A lunatic in prison thinks he can write". Hope you enjoy what u are reading

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Summary: Dream of a Ridiculous Man
Review: The Dream is about one man's struggle with life in a real world. His idea of escape is to kill himself, but just before that he creates the world comletely opposite of ours. He transforms himself onto a planet similar to Earth only in a physical sense. Peple on the other Earth are happy in every aspect of their lives -- they even die happily, knowing that they had served to their community honorably. They are free of corruption and lies until He comes to them. He corrupts that utopia and teaches them how to lie. The people like it and start using it in their lives. After, the wars break out and nothing is the same on that Earth again. After waking up He understands what is wrong and now he is on his way of changing the real Earth. Looking at this piece of literature it might occur that utopia is communism -- many want it , but not many fight for it

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Summary: Story and toughts of a self made social outcast.
Review: A seemingly in-depth look into the life of a depressive recluse. The main character gives us many views on everyday people and their actions that should cause us, the reader, to evaluate our own understanding of the people who surround us. (Example: Why people will moan for days before seeing a dentist.) The writing is absolutely brilliant. Dostoyevsky does not seem to have created this character but instead pulled him from the street. The character was not one dimensional, an attribute that I found personally refreshing . The thoughts and emotions are complex and real and were constantly understated, adding to the impression that the book was written by the character himself, who lacks writing experience needed to capture these feelings. The main character views himself cut off and removed from society, rejected by all in nearly every way. He has become so obsessed with this notion that he has created this exact situation as a result of searching for justification of this impression. He has in fact created most of his own misery, and only continues to propagate more. Yet he seem himself as miserable and rejected and finds pride in this image. He imagines himself to be pitiful and also to be strong and fiercely independent as a result of his social isolation. He feels he poses a strength of spirit for being able to endure the loneliness and envisions himself as a martyr. This fuels his ego and he plans heroic acts in order to show the proof of his worth or to win attention and love. He however lacks the courage to complete the monumental self serving tasks he set before himself. Through a strange twist of logic these failures are also seen as something to be admired. It only makes him more pitiful and thus a greater martyr. When these failures are personally humiliating he retreats within in himself. Hating everyone and again fortifying his independence, claiming that all who depend on others are weak. Only to re-emerge more hungry for the affections of a companion. An emotional ebbing between pride of independence and ability to bravely endure the suffering quickly switching to the opposite pole of resenting people in general. Sustaining himself on the imagined praises or pity that he thinks would be lavished upon him if he were to be seen by others as he sees himself. A terribly tragic tale that emphasis the importance of perspective and removing one's self from a problem in order to perhaps gain a helpful assessment of it. The ideas and emotions presented give a haunting impression. The book should be read slowly and turned over in ones mind again and again.

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Summary: Notes from Underground
Review: Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground" is an existential classic. This book, like many of Dostoevsky's works, intertwines the notions of literature and philosophy, probing the depths of aesthetic contemplation through philosophy. Dostoevsky, used this manuscript as a testing or training ground for later ideas he would explore in his groundbreaking and notorious books such as "Crime and Punishment,""Brothers Karamazov," and "the Idiot." Also central to the theme of the writing one will enciounter many notions of autonomy, or freedom of the individual. The main character, "the Underground man," performs many absurd actions, often in spite of his own self. However, this deals with the notion as Sartre later expressed, is it better for the individual to choose for him or herself and be wrongs sometimes or once in a while, then to have others choose for oneself? The protagonist, is continuously struggling, with himself and the existential burden of constructing and being soley responsible for ones own existence, for owns own counciousness. "Notes from Underground" is a magnificent, psychological exploration, into the mind of the individual, free, autonomous and choosing completley for oneself, which is anything but an easy matter.

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Summary: good quick read
Review: I Enjoyed this book very much. Not as moving as many but not all classic literature has to be... The reviewer who rambled on (with some of the worst english Ive ever read) had not even tapped into what this novel was about. Wish amazon would keep reviews to one paragraph. Someone with that tough a time describing his dislikes probably should be in school and not online.

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Summary: find yourself in the Underground Man
Review: Notes from the Underground is to the human psyche what an X-ray is to the human body. It strips away all the pretense, all the makeup, all the masks we are so accustomed to, exposing the bare, raw flesh of humanity.

In the novel, a nameless man attempts to write a truly honest account of himself and of certain events in his life. He is the Underground Man, as I shall call him, an introspective, overly-conscious, pathetic wretch paralyzed by his own too-clever mind. He knows what he is - a 'sick man' - and what he is not - definable. He doesn't fit in to any category; he doesn't belong anywhere.

The Underground Man has one deep, desperate longing: to be loved. Throughout the book he strives to gain acceptance, affirmation, or even acknowledgement as as human being. Instead, he is ignored, unwanted, treated as merely a presence, not a person. He is desperate to find meaning in a world that, frankly, doesn't care.

At first glance, the actions and thoughts of the Underground Man might strike one as odd, irrational, and even sick. Here is a man apart, we think, an absolute freak. But if we dare to look closer, we make a shocking discovery. We are the Underground Man. He is all of us. We all desire to be loved, wanted, accepted. We want somebody to notice us, to value us. The Underground Man merely takes this desire to an extreme that most of us, at least, dare not.

Notes from the Underground is both a mirror and a flashlight: it shows us what we are, and it brings to light all the things we try to keep in the darkness. "There are . . . things," writes the Underground Man, "which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind." Beware: reading Notes from the Underground may bring some of your secrets to light.

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Summary: Not existentialism
Review: The person who last reviewed this book somehow developed a completly false perception of this book. If they knew anything about Dostoevsky, they would know that he was Catholic. If they read the intro or even just the quote from Dostoevsky at the bottom of the first page they would know that he was parodying this type of existenialist philosophy and this type of person. Anyway, this is a really good, quick read. Of course, its not on the level of his greater works, but definatly worth while.

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Summary: Major misanthropy
Review: The lonely and desolate protagonist has long been a target of authors. IN Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky births the landmark and premier loner novella. Dostoyevsky starts the literary franchise off with a bang. Often, an author will use a lack of a particular aspect of fiction to develop that same aspect. For instance, in Samuel Beckett's play, "Waiting for Godot," the characters literally sit around and wait for an enigmatic man named Godot. Godot never appears, but his coming paralyzes the play's plot but simultaneously drives it. In Notes from Underground, the same device is used in the character realm. The stark stratum of characters is dotted mainly by the narrator who goes unnamed and anonymous. Very little details are revealed to the audience, yet the inner-most ramblings and misanthropic threads are spilled all over the pages. The narrator sees people only as small insignificant ants and develops little to no discernable characters. This very idea fuels Dostoyevsky's existential philosophy and psychological point. He uses humor as a cruel device to lash out at the same world that has left him a withered old misanthrope. The novella is formed by its clear lack of development and simplistic view of life. Woody Allen once summarized in a joke: "Life is miserable, painful, irrational, tortuous and over much too quickly. Dostoyevsky's story served as a cultural magnet, inspiring such followers in both film and literature like Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese.