Michael R. Katz

My friend lent me this book, and I think it disappointed him greatly that I didn't love it. I mean, I liked a few of the stories, but most of them were just portraits of unhappy marriages, and there's only so many times I can read that story in a row before I get bored. That said, I enjoyed learning about life in Russian at that time, about which I knew almost nothing. And of course some of the writing is just gorgeous - I do, after all, understand why Tolstoy is so highly lauded. He's just show more not my cup of tea. show less

Fairly disappointed in this book, the ending, Tolstoy's further explanations and defense among the controversy surrounding the publication of this novella. The added response and rebuttals of his wife and children provided nothing for me to further my understanding or acceptance of this minor text. For me, the problem of male sexual jealousy lies in deceit. If everybody was honest with each other and considered every possibility, including debauchery, life would be more fun and certainly show more less painful. And perhaps would not result in murder. The use of religion to curtail these natural animal desires creates a parallel world in which delusion becomes the norm. show less

This book is a literary book for literary types who take enjoyment from good technique alone. It has extraordinary technique and Dostoyevsky certainly has talent in portraying his protagonist. Unfortunately, the subject matter is a waste of the talent. The book was one amazingly boring monologue about a boring, petty man's petty encounters. It's like the opening scene in Eraserhead with the guy walking down the street stretched out to 2 hours. clip clop clip clop... At first, the monotonous show more monologue builds tension with the monotony. show less

Notes from Underground is a condensed, characteristic introduction to Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky has a knack for sacrificing flowery descriptions for bluntly critical, negative character portraits by a first-person narrator, ardent, grave action, and psychological, philosophical, and sociological study. Like Crime and Punishment's Raskolnikov, the Underground Man--one of the most unreliable narrators in literature--lives on the margins of society. He is self-conscious, sensitive, show more thought-paralyzed, condescending, delusional, socially awkward, paranoid, hypocritical, indecisive, contradictory, circuitous, impulsive, unpredictable, romantic, negative, misanthropic, bitter, friendless, introverted, reclusive, self-loathing, and polemical. The first part of the novel outlines his railing philosophies while living as a recluse, and the second more plot-oriented part leads up to the first. I particularly enjoyed a handful of surprisingly lucid, individualistic, Nietzsche-inspiring theories, the relatively comical scenes with the servant Apollon, and the questions raised about the value of (cathartic) writing and literature from an uncertain, certainly crazy narrator. My main complaint, which arises out of my assent, is the feeling that Dostoevsky's formal requirements were low and thus disorganized due to the consistently inconsistent narrator. show less