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quasinocturnal 's review for:
Notes from Underground and the Double
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
5 stars for Notes from Underground, 3 for Double.
Notes from Underground... what could I say or not say about this novel(la).
Its literary standard is perhaps self-evident to those familiar with Dostoevsky. One could say there is nothing to say about this, in the sense that it is characteristic Dostoevsky.
Clearly not his masterwork, in view of its limited scope and range of ideas, Notes from Underground is a manifesto to the lost soul; or to put it in a more contemporary context of an intelligent individual ridden by paranoia, depression, and solitude.
The absurd moralising, the manic fits, all the little pieces delineate expertly, eloquently, and masterly the down-trodden, under siege mind of a person who is a victim of the incompatibility of their characteristics and those of their contemporary society.
The first part of the book is focused on the fictional author in isolation. Their traits, the intensity of their paranoia and solitude. The second part focuses on their interactions with other folk. And it is in the latter, that the fictional narrator is outside their comfort zone and ultimately stumbles upon realisations about themselves which, though aware of them, they had deeply concealed and fortified in their mind.
The piece can also be seen as sociopolitical criticism on any societal model that is founded on structured classes (covertly or openly). The moralising of the prostitute in the second part -- a morally ludicrous and misogynistic moralising, as it is admitted in the novel itself -- can also metamorphose into a critic of said societal model of inequality with the brothel standing for "the system", the prostitute for the worker, and the fictional narrator some caricature of a left-out, impecunious philosopher whose incapacity to bring about change is expressed through bombastic speeches whose actual value is degraded by their own flamboyance and pretentiousness. So to speak, I believe that there is a multitude of possible renderings of the themes that were discussed in this novel. Dostoevsky's works are heavily philosophical, which often has this (the parallels one may draw from the actual story) as a consequence.
A magnificent short piece, with very beautiful expression, and an honest look on a destructive aspect of the depression of an inert intellectual who is incongruent to their time.
Notes from Underground... what could I say or not say about this novel(la).
Its literary standard is perhaps self-evident to those familiar with Dostoevsky. One could say there is nothing to say about this, in the sense that it is characteristic Dostoevsky.
Clearly not his masterwork, in view of its limited scope and range of ideas, Notes from Underground is a manifesto to the lost soul; or to put it in a more contemporary context of an intelligent individual ridden by paranoia, depression, and solitude.
The absurd moralising, the manic fits, all the little pieces delineate expertly, eloquently, and masterly the down-trodden, under siege mind of a person who is a victim of the incompatibility of their characteristics and those of their contemporary society.
The first part of the book is focused on the fictional author in isolation. Their traits, the intensity of their paranoia and solitude. The second part focuses on their interactions with other folk. And it is in the latter, that the fictional narrator is outside their comfort zone and ultimately stumbles upon realisations about themselves which, though aware of them, they had deeply concealed and fortified in their mind.
The piece can also be seen as sociopolitical criticism on any societal model that is founded on structured classes (covertly or openly). The moralising of the prostitute in the second part -- a morally ludicrous and misogynistic moralising, as it is admitted in the novel itself -- can also metamorphose into a critic of said societal model of inequality with the brothel standing for "the system", the prostitute for the worker, and the fictional narrator some caricature of a left-out, impecunious philosopher whose incapacity to bring about change is expressed through bombastic speeches whose actual value is degraded by their own flamboyance and pretentiousness. So to speak, I believe that there is a multitude of possible renderings of the themes that were discussed in this novel. Dostoevsky's works are heavily philosophical, which often has this (the parallels one may draw from the actual story) as a consequence.
A magnificent short piece, with very beautiful expression, and an honest look on a destructive aspect of the depression of an inert intellectual who is incongruent to their time.