Notes from Underground

I just completed Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and I have to say, I'm impressed on multiple levels.

The book really pushes the antihero to the maximum limits. Actually I haven't seen such a great antihero character since reading Warren Ellis' character Spider Jerusalem in Transmetropolitan. He is edgy, impulsive, and yet passionate and brutal. It seems that he is very self loathing, and yet in the same he has such high expectations. It almost makes you feel like you are hearing this sad and lonely character who has this underlying sea of intelligence and life beneath him, but he cant seem to push it all forth. instead he relishes in the pain.

the man is so tormented that its almost surreal, but it is written in such a manner that you cant help but empathize with him. And at the moment you do, he laughs at you, telling you that he was just joking about that all along. So throughout you find yourself questioning the exact things he does, sometimes actually questioning if he himself believes what he is writing. that is until you hit the second part of the book where it ties all of his ideals together into a tight little package...

well played mr dostoevsky.

Back from Vacation

The nice thing about taking vacation is not having to worry about work or any stresses that are associated with it. I, of course, checked work email a couple of times in hopes of relieving any stress I would have coming to me when I came back to the office. Overall, I am really glad I did, as unfortunately there was a lot of crap I had to cover when I returned. I guess such is the reality of working for a corporation eh?

In other news I read much less than I anticipated while on the trip, but managed to finish The House of Thunder by Dean Koontz. not a bad book. More a psychological thriller than anything with some horror aspects to it. the concept was pretty interesting, although I don't want to give much away if anyone decides to read it in the future. I was extremely disappointed in the ending through. Honestly it was very anticlimactic (aka you read 330+ pages and then all of a sudden its summed up in 15 pages). Further, he ends with some trite cliche load of bullshit that really just pissed me off. Had he left the last paragraph out of it, I might not have called him a douchenugget.

On to another book - Notes From The Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Its one I have been really excited to read for quite sometime. I've read through the introduction a bit, and honestly... its some twit who is trying to sound monumentally intelligent by breaking down the work. Honestly the intro is really misplaced as it talks about things that happen in the book in detail at a few points, thus partially ruining some of the reading (or at least decreasing my drive for the book). They should have thought that out a bit better... you leave general explanations there and put an afterword if you really feel the need to go in depth with your analysis.

People are generally stupid. I'm coming to believe that more and more, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.