Your rating:
Dostoevsky’s most revolutionary novel, Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In complete retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original.
No posts yet
Kick off the convo with a theory, question, musing, or update
Your rating:
0A night of ramblings from a man living in self-imposed solitude speaking solely in crazed paradoxes.
I honestly did not enjoy this book but it is without a doubt a good book. I think everyone can see themselves, even a little bit, in the underground man. The thought yo-yo that occurs when in a precarious situation was exemplified scarily accurately with the narrator jumping from thinking he is in power and above all to being ashamed and inferior all within one thought.
The book is a constant back and forth of this man thinking through possible scenarios and makes you wonder how much of this is an accurate recollection or an inflated memory of a relatively normal situation.
This is a 2/5 for me because while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, I also wouldn’t NOT recommend it if someone said they were interested in reading it. As I said above, it’s definitely a good book but not one that I personally enjoyed.
0It’s very hard to sum up my thoughts about this novel as it is so very complex. At first glance, it is easy to criticize Dostoevsky’s writing as the main characters tend to be unreliable as a narrator, which can become a bit of a paradox if not closely inspected. This book being no exception, the underground man is an antihero with a victim complex.
Dostoevsky is a pioneer of realism in the world of literature, aiming not to rise above reality but to portray it and all its complexity and difficulty. This novel probes the mind of an individual on the margins of modern society and examines the effects modern life has on that man’s personality.
While this book sounds very gloomy, against my better judgment, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would recommend this to anyone who loves to dissect the human psyche and the society we live in, or just classic literature in general.
0
© 2024 Pagebound