Notes From Underground (1864) (edit title/settings)

• Rated 5 stars

“Wanted to read this because I noticed in the movie Life of Pi, Pi was reading this book and The Stranger. Read Crime and Punishment a year or two ago, just finished this and reading The Brothers Karamazov right now. Dostoyevsky has become one of my favorite authors. This book clarified my current "existential" thoughts like no other.”

• Rated 3 stars

“What a nut job. Something to talk about though.”

• Rated 4 stars

“I often wonder when I read a book that has been translated if it has remained true to its author’s intent and if the author would really give it his blessing. Anyhow, I’m digressing here, but this translation business has always made me wonder, yet not quite enough to want to learn the language of origin.

I’ve often been asked while reading what the book is about. In the case of Notes from Underground, it would be a rather difficult question to answer. Rather, it is the observations, and sometimes rantings of a bitter man alienated from society in a self-imposed existence.

The unnamed narrator is an extremely bitter man who has intentionally isolated himself from those around him. The book opens with him describing himself as a sick and wicked man. He believes himself superior to most, however, he also realizes that those very same people have the ability to make him feel inferior which becomes his lifelong struggle. A very sad and self-loathing individual who fears rather than embraces life, and should be a reminder to us all of the darkness within that should be reflected upon and considered only a part of the whole of our beings.

Liza is a prostitute the underground man meets and attempts to convince her to change her lifestyle. She is young and somewhat naive and is gullible to men who promise to rescue her. When she shows up at the rundown apartment of the underground man, she is treated terribly when he reacts out of embarrassment over his home. Liza shows unexpected understanding and grace, which, unfortunately, only angers the underground man further. She is the woman you hope will prevail.

An Officer is a man who unintentionally humiliates the underground man in a bar when he literally picks him up and puts him back down when he is blocking his way. This man is totally unaware of the obsessed stranger who stalks him for years hoping to exact his revenge. A comical character most can relate to as being totally oblivious to having offended someone.

I’m sure I’d enjoy the company of this independent man. There are many things I’d want to discuss; his time in prison, his last-minute stay of execution, life in 19th century Russia, and, of course, his ability to capture man’s self-doubts on paper so adroitly.

My rating for Notes from Underground is a 9 out of 10.
”

• Rated 3 stars

“Book Worm said: ★★★

This is a very bizarre book, written entirely from the point of view of a male narrator, at first it appears that he is writing to a particular group of gentlemen until he explains that all he is doing is writing notes and that he finds it easier to address an audience than to write to himself.

As the novel progress I got the feeling we were dealing with a man suffering from Aspergers he is obviously highly intelligent and yet cannot engage socially and often misses social clues from his peers.

At the start of the novel he is arguing for free will and showing determinism by the simple fact that no matter what you may want the outcome to be 2+2 will always equal 4, he is also trying to assert himself into a higher social footing than that to which he is assigned.

In the second half of the novel he is trying to show that love is not a real emotion by destroying the hopes of a young woman who is looking to escape prostitution.

The novel ends abruptly when it appears that we have been reading the notes at an indeterminate point in the future from when they were written and that they have been edited for our benefit by someone other than the writer.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Notes from the Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky
★★★

This is a very bizarre book, written entirely from the point of view of a male narrator, at first it appears that he is writing to a particular group of gentlemen until he explains that all he is doing is writing notes and that he finds it easier to address an audience than to write to himself.

As the novel progress I got the feeling we were dealing with a man suffering from Aspergers he is obviously highly intelligent and yet cannot engage socially and often misses social clues from his peers.

At the start of the novel he is arguing for free will and showing determinism by the simple fact that no matter what you may want the outcome to be 2+2 will always equal 4, he is also trying to assert himself into a higher social footing than that to which he is assigned.

In the second half of the novel he is trying to show that love is not a real emotion by destroying the hopes of a young woman who is looking to escape prostitution.

The novel ends abruptly when it appears that we have been reading the notes at an indeterminate point in the future from when they were written and that they have been edited for our benefit by someone other than the writer.
”

• Rated 3 stars

“While I appreciate it as the first existential novel written that marks an important literary divide as well as an important divide in ideas of the individual between the 19th and 20th century, I did not particularly enjoy this book. There were some comical parts but overall, the main character and narrator are so loathsome that I hard time really following his ideas and rants. Great book of historical importance but not particularly appealing beyond that.”

• Rated 3 stars

“I enjoyed it, but if I really want to understand it I should find some critical essays to guide me.”

• Rated 0 stars

“S'good”

• Rated 4 stars

“"And in fact I'm now asking an idle question of my own: which is better--cheap happiness, or lofty suffering? Well, which is better?"”

• Rated 5 stars

“Read for the Novel & Collapse of Humanism at uni. Interesting more for the philosophical ideas rather than the plot. The underground man is detestable but recogniseable at the same time, and one my favourite characters.”