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Notes from Underground (Vintage Classics)
: This is one of the finest books I've read in a long time. Dostoyevsky is a master at creating nasty characters that you love. The lead character (clearly a jesus figure) is saved through life and suffering.
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.
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.
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.
 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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