Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short masterpiece about a ranting, slightly mad civil servant. The stylistic inventiveness, and the insights into the absurdities and weakness of humans seem so fresh and incisive today that if published now Notes would be considered an avant-garde post-modernist triumph. In some ways this is a heavy text, laden with conversational philosophizing; but the vividness of the narrator make it a wonderful read, and funny.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short masterpiece about a ranting, slightly mad civil servant. The stylistic inventiveness, and the insights into the absurdities and weakness of humans seem so fresh and incisive today that if published now Notes would be considered an avant-garde post-modernist triumph. In some ways this is a heavy text, laden with conversational philosophizing; but the vividness of the narrator make it a wonderful read, and funny.