Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

'I am a sick person. I am a spiteful person. An unattractive person, too . . .' In the depths of a cellar in St. Petersburg, a civil servant spews forth a passionate and furious note on the ills of society. The underground man's manifesto reveals his erratic, self-contradictory and even sadistic nature. Yet in Dostoyevsky's most radical and disturbing character, there is the uncomfortable flicker of recognition of the human condition. When the narrator ventures above ground, he attends a dinner with a group of old school friends. It is here, paralysed by his own social awkwardness, that he carries out extraordinary acts and cements his status as a true and original outsider.

Dostoyevsky is one of the few psychologists from whom I have learned something * * Nietzsche * *
An author whose Christian sympathy is ordinarily devoted to human misery, sin, vice, the depths of lust and crime, rather than to nobility of body and soul. . [Notes From Underground is] an awe- and terror-inspiring example of this sympathy -- Thomas Mann
Notes From Underground, with its mood of intellectual irony and alienation, can be seen as the first modern novel . . . That sense of the meaninglessness of existence that runs through much of twentieth-century writing - from Conrad and Kafka to Beckett and beyond - starts in Dostoyevsky's work -- Malcolm Bradbury
Notes From Underground established Dostoevsky's reputation as the most innovative and challenging writer of fiction in his generation in Russia -- Rowan Williams * * Guardian * *
Notes From Underground transcends art and literature, and its place is among the great mystical revelations of mankind . . . It cannot be recommended to those who are not either sufficiently strong to overcome it or sufficiently innocent to remain unpoisoned. It is a strong poison, which is most safely left untouched -- D.S. Mirsky in HISTORY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE
One of the most revolutionary and original works of world literature * * Walter Kaufman * *

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow in 1821. He has written many works of fiction including Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. He died in St. Petersburg on 9th February 1881.

Natasha Randall has worked as a translator for many years in New York, Moscow and St. Petersburg. She has translated a number of the Russian greats including Mikhail Lermontov. Her writing has appeared in A Public Space, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, The Moscow Times, BookForum, The New York Times, HALI magazine, The Strad magazine, The St. Petersburg Times (FL), and on National Public Radio. She also wrote a column on books and publishing for Publishing News (UK) from 2002 to 2007. She writes articles on the topics of literature, Islamic art, Russian culture and music.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780857860217
ISBN 10	0857860216
Title	Notes From Underground
Author	Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Series	Canons
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Canongate Books
Year published	2012-10-25
Number of pages	160
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.