Dostoyevsky has written a macabre short novel. Throughout the book there permeates a dark sense of menace - the nameless characters mental unrest is captured with great prose style. The characters mental indecision is also expressed clearly, with rather confused and verbal lines.

There are two chapters in this novel. The first deals with the philosophical aspects of Dostoyevsky's own opinions, summed up generally as: A rather idiosyncratic kind of existentialism, and ultimate angst at a society laced with custom and stifled social stratification. While the second section deals with events in the characters life which have led to this philsophical stance. We are exposed to the pernicious, and obbsessive behaviour of the character, as he is driven into fits of rage and anxiety of the tritest of events.

Dostoyevsky has written a compelling book: sinister, unstable and in-depth. Each page casts a shadow. Each line is filled with sharp nihilism. Read this book with a light on!

Quick read? I finished Crime and Punishment and thought I'd zip through Notes like a snack before going on to the Brothers Karamozov, afterall, it's barely over 100 pages. Quick read? Think again.

Imagine being locked in a very small room with a verbose, insane, brilliant, jaded, before-his-times, clerk-come-philosopher....with a wicked sense of humor, and a toothache that's lasted a month. Pleasant company....are you searching for the door yet?

For the first hour, he's going to rant about his philosophy of revenge, the pointlessness of his life, his superiority, his failure, oh yeah, and his tooth. FOr the second half of the book, he's going to tell you a tale, with the title "Apropos of the Wet Snow". Because of course, there's wet snow outside on the ground.

I will leave you with this encouragement. If you can get through this book, you will appreciate Doestoevsky more, understand Crime and Punishment better, and probably enjoy a good laugh more than once.

Notes from the Underground is not light reading, but it is well worth the effort. And the translation by Pevear, including the translators notes at the back, is excellent.

"Notes" is a true classic, with Dostoevsky at his most psychologically insightful. In this book you will find the roots of many of the ideas that Freud would later make common knowledge, particularly that of the contradictory impulses and emotions which unconsciously fight to drive the actions of each individual. To Dostoevsky, a human being can never be governed by reason alone despite popular views of his day. Upon reading this book, you will fall victim to some of these contradictory emotions yourself, as you are torn between loving and hating Dostoevsky's antihero. This nameless narrator is a man who believes to be the victim of excessive consciousness, but in reality, although no doubt a possessor of extreme intelligence, is consumed by desires beyond his control. At times this narrator serves as a mouthpiece for some of Dostoevsky's own philosophical views, at times he is an object of satire, but no matter what his purpose, he always holds our attenti! on and never fails to interest. The ending of the novel is particularly shattering.

Dostoyevsky is, of course, the greatest novelist, and this great book is no let down. Though it was slow for me initially (I feared that I would be bogged down in Russian society) it soon picked up and became absolutely engrossing. Here is a continuation of Dotoyevsky's attack on the "disease" of modernism that he hints at in Raskolnokov's Siberian Dreams (from Crime and Punishment). This novel is valuble not only for it's humanity in the face of dehumanizing ideology, but also as an eye into the Russian conscience. It provides a fascinating look at how Russian intellectuals were primed for Communism. Heart Rending, fascinating, informative. The greatest!! (P.S. Given the respect given to Judiaism at one point in the novel, the 'Yid' comments are colloquial and part of a portrait. I don't believe they can be taken as genuine anti-semitic commments)!

This is an amazing book. Pervaded by Dostoevsky's usual characterization, the author reaches into the souls of his numerous characters as only he and very few others can. This story has Dostoevsky's favorite existential philosophic undercurrents. The story is an account of how the budding socialist revolutionary movement affects one small Russian town. Dostoevsky gives this phenomenon the treatment it deserves - a mocking condescension with an amusing portrayal or people who are drawn to radical movements. The result is a novel filled with humor. The tragedy is is presented as a natural consequence of people who are making mistakes at every step, confusing sensibility for absurdity. That is what their "possession" really is. It is about a whole generation caught up in the materialization and nihilism of the 19th century resulting from the scientific revolution. To me, this book is on par or surpasses The Brothers Karamazov. It may be viewed as either an atheistic challenge taken up in the latter book or as a repudiation of atheism manifested in one level of the latter. Whatever it is, it's more proof that Dostoevsky is the greatest writer who ever lived.

This ia a great book with many plotlines, truly entertaining and intellectually stimulating. Despite a characteristic criminal underpinnings, the novel is dedicated to another question which was very important to Dostoyevsky: Are individuals responsible for the ideas they produce. The main character, Stavrogin, is awash with doctrines he recycled from the old toothless liberal tradition. His personal charisma is so great that people around burn up with his ideas and turn into blind fanatics of a particular intellectual fad. The novel's got them all: religious nationalism, self-deifying egotism, revolutionary nihilism, totalitarian elitism. The advent of all these ill-conceived personal philosophies was ignited by the man who has absolutely no faith. While the self-styled anarchists wreak the havoc on a small provincial town, the protagonist has to decide whether he is responsible for people's serious interpretations of the theories he made up as a means of avoiding intellectual ennui. The novel is centered around the final encounter of the passive, aloof, and faithless "intellectual father" and vigorously fanatic "children". Truly captivating and probably the most easily readable of Dostoyevsky's books.