Notes From Underground (Bantam Classics)

Dostoyevsky is Dostoyevsky, and if you care about literature you will read his great works if you haven't already. But what makes this edition of one of those great works, Notes from Underground, great is that it is combined with other shorter works from different periods in his life. Dostoyevsky is serious stuff. Living in a time and a place of brutal oppression, he could do nothing else but write about the serious questions of life. And through the writings chosen for this collection, we can see the progression of his thoughts and beliefs as he aged.We start with `White Nights', a story of selflessness in which a young man helps a girl connect with her love even though he loves her too. Though this story has the grave tone common of 19th century Russian literature, it has a tinge of hopefulness in the man's sacrifice. This is the young and idealistic Dostoyevsky, before he was jailed for having `revolutionary ideas' and sentenced to death only to be pardoned moments from being shot. Obviously this had a great impact on his mind and went a long way towards destroying any hopefulness he had. The transition is seen in the three stories selected from The House of the Dead, his first successful work. Written in 1862, or about a decade after his imprisonment, these stories tell of senseless murderers and corporal punishers. Almost entirely devoid of emotion, we can see a Dostoyevsky who has gone inward and narrates simply and pragmatically. Life has become a matter of survival, with no room for the sentimentality of the protagonist in `White Nights'.Then in the main event, Notes from Underground, the emotion is back, but it has been transformed into anger and hatred in the form of the bitter and isolated narrator. There is much existentialist (this work is considered the founding work of existentialism) rambling in the first part, as he debates with us, the reader (even though these are his memoirs, not a two way discussion) about logic and determinism, arguing that man will not always do what's best for himself, as propounded by the utopians of the time, but will often act in direct antagonism towards themselves to display `individualism'. And, as he is an `individual', he cannot act properly in society, which is why he is now isolated and bitter. Then he gets into a proper narrative in Part II, as he demonstrates his ideas to us with stories from his earlier life. There are three parts to this, but the most interesting is the last: his brief encounter with a prostitute, where he shows the inkling of decency and love towards her, but rejects her when she returns it. Despite feeling much revulsion for the narrator to this point, there is a sense of poignancy at this end for him, and perhaps reflects both Dostoyevsky's struggle with society after his imprisonment, and our admiration for him despite his nihilistic views.The collection closes with Dream of a Ridiculous Man, a story written just a few years before his death. In it, a man decides life is meaningless and wants to commit suicide. He chances upon a little girl whose mother needs help, but he brushes the girl away. He then goes home, feels guilty, falls asleep, and has a dream. In the dream he goes to a utopia where everyone is happy until heteaches them to lie and ruins the society. He awakens a changed man who only wants to love others as himself. Near the end of his life, Dostoyevsky had found God.

The book is great but as always the dust jackets come a little damaged and with strange markings.

My favorite

Not all of this book is easy to read -- despite being more of a novella-length. Its sardonic, sarcastic, yet cautionary tone is told by a unreliable narrator who has been damaged by his experiences and it has changed him profoundly, making him sometimes contradictory or hypocritical, or simply as non-committal and flippant as those he criticizes. It's very interesting. We are forced to assess Dostoevsky's narrator's veracity as such a tainted individual, within the context of his often keen insights -- equally -- while wondering if his own mindset is that of a societal victim or a wise prophet of future doom with him as the example. Add in his anti-nihilist societal commentary as well, while he's sounding much like a nihilist at times too -- or is he being sarcastic -- or cathartic? It's very, very good, but one has to be willing to take the dive into it.Certainly, Crime and Punishment is easier to read, has some of the similar themes, and has more narrative foundation and flow, but Notes from Underground cuts straight to the brain-stem, eliminating much storytelling in lieu of mostly pure thoughts. Ambitious.

The ungrateful biped in all its glory. The best chapter is chapter seven of part two; a discourse on love and family. The following chapter is equally good in which the ugly truth of prostitution is presented. As a whole this is a decent read, but altogether one rambling, loathing diatribe after another which failed to captivate my undivided attention.

Perfect.This man could be any man, in any place, today. And these qualities are the ones that define universal literature. Being my first book of Dostoyevsky I can declare unabashedly this book the work of a genius. This is the testimony of a man that cheats himself into thinking his self-exile and poverty is the product of a despised society that doesn't recognize his genius (and this made me recall Oscar Wilde's short tale "The Remarkable Rocket"). His life is so minuscule, so devoid of true life, that the petty and forgettable events that occur to him are in his mind are epic battles. He is afraid to live and his mind is rot in bookish fantasies; but he doesn't cross the threshold of his home and work, rendering himself a prisoner. This is a quite spectacular portrait, nobody, not even the lower beings in the social scale, can feel offense from him due to his miserable life; and the end, without spoiling it, is a so complete insult against the anonymous man, that I couldn't avoid to think in the end of (again) Oscar Wilde's (again) short story "The Devoted Friend." I enjoyed it from beginning to end without knowing what to expect.This book applies to our times too. Social networks, especially Twitter, have armies of persons that spend the time there, making tragedies of forgettable trivialities, commenting them as if each word uttered by them were the most important declaration ever, for a public that barely can register (if they do at all) a fraction of a second before passing to the next post. As in "Notes from the Underground" the modern life is harming the humanity of so many. Is the paradox to have potential of more real and diverse human connections but being shy and get stuck only in the written word of books or internet, and unrealistic dreams for the mere fact that they will not move physically to the door to make them real, and they will blame others, victimizing themselves, because in their mind they are geniuses. The irony of writing here, in the loneliness of a borrowed laptop, as if I were writing to an eager audience certainly doesn't escape me x^PThis is another beautiful edition of AmazonClassics. Clean from errors, nice typography, X-Ray, in excellent formatting. The translation is a public domain one, around the end of 19th century I think, but it doesn't feel antiquated, it is a good translation. Amazing book to get.