I enjoyed this book very much. The book comes in two parts, and while the second part is packed with dry humour, the first part is the perfect textbook to becoming vain enough to feel contempt even towards your own self, and a step-by-step guide to existentialism and finding pleasure in shame and pain, and denying it in all "consciousness that falls to educated individuals of the 19th century." I found the whole book very humorous, and interesting both in a philosophical and a psychological way.
Reading this book for the first time, I burst out laughing every few pages, highlighting this witty phrase and that, but looking through the book a second time, I couldn't help but sympathise with the narrator, which made me realise that in the playful parts there was always a suffocating sadness, mortification and solitude on the narrator's part, intensified unnecessarily by the amusement experienced by the reader as a result of the narrator's unpleasant feelings. While desperate to explain his thoughts to his readers, show himself to be superior and be recognised for his intelligence, throughout the whole book, the narrator is ashamed of being read and suffers from the feeling of a constant need justify himself (ladies, if you happen to be looking for a man with a cute character...). These feelings of the narrator spoke to me deeply, and I am still very much touched by this book.
Definitely a must-read; I am also looking forward to reading more of Dostoevsky's works.
Reading this book for the first time, I burst out laughing every few pages, highlighting this witty phrase and that, but looking through the book a second time, I couldn't help but sympathise with the narrator, which made me realise that in the playful parts there was always a suffocating sadness, mortification and solitude on the narrator's part, intensified unnecessarily by the amusement experienced by the reader as a result of the narrator's unpleasant feelings. While desperate to explain his thoughts to his readers, show himself to be superior and be recognised for his intelligence, throughout the whole book, the narrator is ashamed of being read and suffers from the feeling of a constant need justify himself (ladies, if you happen to be looking for a man with a cute character...). These feelings of the narrator spoke to me deeply, and I am still very much touched by this book.
Definitely a must-read; I am also looking forward to reading more of Dostoevsky's works.
No comments:
Post a Comment