Notes from the underground, by Fydor Dostoevsky

Notes from the underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I've never read any Dostoevsky before, although I'd had friends who had read 'The idiot' for year twelve english literature. Needless to say I read with trepidation...

Basically it seemed to me the book was the rambling of a journal by a man who didn't seemed to fit with the world. There was a distrust of everything yet at the same time wanting to trust.

The book was split into two sections the first was just a monologue while the second told stories in some way explaining the first section. The second was a much more entertaining section. It brought the whole novel to life.

The wikipedia (see above hyperlink) suggests that the novel was the first existentialist literature. I suppose for most of us living now this is just taken for granted that we are individual and create our own destiny. Certainly I would think this is part of the American dream of been 'self made'. I can see this theme coming out in the book, 'the man' the narrator never been able to grasp it. I could image that when read by most Cultures of the early 19th Century this would have been a foreign idea existentialism, especially within the lower class.

Overall I thought it was a difficult read, because there was probably much more behind the words than I actually grasped.

Rated 3/5.