A review by olavboi1003
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

challenging dark reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

A really peculiar book. The first forty pages are terrible, and near gibberish. I understand that the existentialist subject matter of the first part was new literary ground at the time Dostoevsky wrote it, but nowadays you would be better of reading Camus' The Outsider or Sartre's Nausea. The second part, though, is a lot better. A lot more propulsive and insightful than the rambling start of the book, and quite dramatically dense. The relationships between the characters tells me as a reader more about existensialism than any number of pages from the opening chapter. 

So, quite poorly paced, and I think it is a lot to ask of your readership to sit through forty pages of drivel before you get to the meat of the story, but interesting nonetheless, and undeniably well written towards the end. 
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