RFD: Dostoevsky - Notes from Underground

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I've never felt so brutalized by a piece of literature.

― sundar subramanian, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That's what the bloke should have said on the bus when I smacked him round the face with a copy of Anita & Me by Meera Syal,however what actually happened was him and his two mates started punching me.

― Pete, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You're so right, Sundar. Notes from the Underground is RAW - a remorseless exercise in paranoia and insecurity, made all the more absorbing by the fact that the book transplants you right into the guy's head.

― Trevor, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yeah, it's not bad.... I'm trying tot hink of brutalizing lit - what exactly do you mean by this? How does it burtalize you?

― goeff, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't speak for Sundar, but I thought it was a very apt description because reading the Underground Man's account is a very draining experience. Dostoevsky's own genuine misery and despair is expressed through the Underground Man, and the very act of reading it made me feel like I too had gone through a traumatic event.

― Trevor, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ooh alice wrote an essay about this. i wonder what she thinks...

― ambrose, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Haven't read it since I was a teen, when I think I identified with the Underground Man a bit too much.

Also--Inspired Howard Devoto to write the fab "Song from Under the Floorboards"!

Goeff-I like the new spelling.

― Arthur, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hey maryann this reminds me, ricko's coming down here today!

― , Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

arthur - i am trying to sell my newly spelt soul to some willing devil.

― goeff, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I still have to finish the second part, but so far I am disappointed because it's not brutalizing me enough. Hopefully it all comes together in the end.

I've heard similar things from a number of people, Sundar. Maybe I just don't have enough consciousness in me.

― Josh, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

four years pass...

Wow. I just finished this. Dostoevsky is my hero.

"The Double" was more relentlessly brutal though. Similarly tortured protagonist, but more acute and constant frustration, paranoia, etc. Prototypical nightmare.

― sleep (sleep), Friday, 19 May 2006 19:16 (nineteen years ago)

yes, an incredible book.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 19 May 2006 19:53 (nineteen years ago)

something i ought to re-read now that i'm older, i think.

― electro-acoustic lycanthrope (orion), Saturday, 20 May 2006 02:47 (nineteen years ago)

I finished this today! Incredible, yeah.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Saturday, 20 May 2006 05:15 (nineteen years ago)

Brutal, yeah, but very very funny.

― Action Tim Vision (noodle vague), Saturday, 20 May 2006 10:32 (nineteen years ago)

I thought the scene with the horse carriage wreck in Crime and Punishment was quite brutal.

― Earl Nash (earlnash), Saturday, 20 May 2006 18:35 (nineteen years ago)

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