The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams →

Henry Adams was born in Boston in 1838 a great-grandson of the Second President John Adams and grandson of the 6th President John Quincy Adams. He was a professor at Harvard and editor of the North American Review.

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 The book ‘The Education of Henry Adams” is an autobiography that focuses on his own and the countries, development from 1838 to 1905. It is a critic of the 19th century approach to education as well as well as many of the political and technological changes that took place between the civil war and the first world war.  

In Chapter 25 he says, “Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts” He then adds that “historians undertake to arrange sequences, called stories or histories, assuming in silence a relation of cause and effect.

 Of the year 1862 and the civil war Henry Adams “could never bear to think without a shudder.'' His father had been appointed as Minister to Great Britain and Henry went with him as a secretary and he experienced first-hand the English governmental feeling that strongly favored the Confederacy.

 ''Resistance to something was the law of New England nature; the boy looked out on the world with the instinct of resistance; for numberless generations his predecessors had viewed the world chiefly as a thing to be reformed, filled with evil forces to be abolished, and they saw no reason to suppose that they had wholly succeeded in the abolition; the duty was unchanged. That duty implied not only resistance to evil, but hatred of it. Boys naturally look on all force as an enemy, and generally find it so, but the New Englander, whether boy or man, in his long struggle with a stingy or hostile universe had learned also to love the pleasure of hating; his joys were few.”

Quotes

• “Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.” ...

• “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

• “Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.” ...

• “No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.”

Never Go Back, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child →

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Book Photo Disclaimer: I refuse to post any picture with Tom Cruise in it. How he got to play Jack Reacher in the movies is beyond logical understanding.

“Never Go Back” refers to Reacher’s former Northeastern Virginia headquarters, where he served as CO of an elite military police team. However, the real reason for going back started four books back, in “61 Hours,” with a flirtatious telephone call to the woman who currently has Reacher’s old job, Maj. Susan Turner.  

This book starts with his return, but it turns out to be a trap. Someone knew he was coming, and he was forced back into the military, arrested, and charged with homicide and even a paternity suit. At first, this seems to just be aimed at getting him to run and never go back. The message is delivered by a couple of tough guys who fail to intimidate Reacher—of course!

Major Turner is also arrested shortly after Reacher arrives. Her replacement seems unqualified and allows a soldier in Afghanistan to be killed.

Both Turner and Reacher find themselves locked up in adjacent cells and escape together. They quickly learn that they are both attracted to much more than just their phone voices. Turner's thoughts about Reacher seem to reveal a level of lust not seen before in the prior books.

Their escape sends them with little money fleeing West Virginia and going cross-country to Los Angeles, where they investigate the paternity charge. Reacher meets the child who has some striking similarities to him. She is very tall for a teenage girl. They meet in a diner, and her backtalk and way of thinking are very much in Reacher's style.

The plot is spread from a planned meeting with an Afghan tribal leader to LA neighborhoods and points between.

see Literary Favorites Section for Lee Child for more on this author and also links to all his books reviewed on this site

Quotes

• “If you can't acquaint an opponent with reason, you must acquaint his head with the sidewalk.” ...

• “How much do you work out?" ...

• “Like they were puppets, and the puppeteer had sneezed.” ...

• “A person either runs or he fights. ...

The 8th Habit by Stephen R. Covey →

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Covey tells us we move from effectiveness to greatness when we find our voice. That happens when our body, mind, heart, and spirit are all fully engaged in what is most important to us.

If we use our own natural talent it will follow that we will love what we do, and it will be of more interest to us. We will know we are on the right track because an inner voice, our conscience, will confirm it to us.

Covey’s view is that many in business today have either not found their voices or have lost their voices. This happens he says when they don’t serve the whole man only requiring a token of the skills of those who work there. One example of just coasting along is when people just work to fill a bodily need or even addiction. This approach often leaves out the need to fully use one’s talent and creativity.  

For Covey our voice is a good metaphor for understanding.  When we allow our voice to be heard in an organization fully engaged then we resonate our values and goals and it attracts support and builds synergy.  

Quotes

8th Habit Dedication: “To the humble, courageous, “great” ones among us who exemplify how leadership is a choice, not a position.”

“We can take one of two roads in life: One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other the road to greatness and meaning.”

“To know and not to do, is really not to know.”

“people are working harder than ever, but because they lack clarity and vision, they aren’t getting very far. They, in essence, are pushing a rope...with all of their might.” 

When all you want is a person's body and you don't really want their mind, heart or spirit, you have reduced a person to a thing.”“To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground” 

“what is most personal ,is most general.”

 “No matter how long we’ve walked life’s pathway to mediocrity, we can always choose to switch paths. Always. It’s never too late. We can find our voice.” 

The Innocent Man by John Grisham →

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The Innocent Man, by John Grisham, is based on the true story of Ronald Williamson, an Oklahoma man who had narrowly escaped execution, only to die of liver disease. Williamson's was a star pitcher and catcher on his high school team, drafted by the Oakland A's only to have his career end 6 years later with an arm injury.  John Grisham found this of interest as he had aspired to be a baseball player before dropping out and going into law and then writing.   

Ron returned to his hometown and lived with his mother always believing he would someday return to the big leagues.  Debra Sue Carter was a cocktail waitress who was raped and killed after Ron’s return. The case went unsolved for over 3 years but Ron and a friend of his, Dennis Fritz, were finally arrested for the murder. The only evidence was a statement from Glen Gore who was the person who put Ron at the scene of the crime. Ron was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, while Fritz received a life sentence.

DNA placed Glen Gore at the crime scene, but it didn’t happen until 5 days before the planned execution. Five years later Ron died in a nursing home from cirrhosis of the liver.

Grisham said he bought rights to the story after reading it in the newspaper and it became his first nonfiction book. The story has many of the common themes of Grisham’s novels but the experience of reading it is very different. You miss the dialog of the characters and depend on the updates and reports of what has happened.

Doubleday’s president Stephen Rubin said of the book that it was a natural story for Grisham to write since it had many themes like those in his books, such as wrongful conviction, the death penalty and it was a legal thriller.

I didn’t think it qualified as a legal thriller because the plot wasn’t revealed in dialog through the characters but as news reports of what had happened. 

Quotes

“No star fades faster than that of a high school athlete.” 

“A hundred years earlier, in Hopt v. Utah, the Supreme Court ruled that a confession is not admissible if it is obtained by operating on the hopes or fears of the accused, and in doing so deprives him of the freedom of will or self-control necessary to make a voluntary statement. In 1897, the Court, in Bram v. United States, said that a statement must be free and voluntary, not extracted by any sorts of threats or violence or promises, however slight. A” 

“There’s an old adage in bad trial lawyering that when you don’t have the facts, do a lot of yelling.”

See Literary Favorites Section under John Grishman for more information on this author and links to all his reviews on this site

The Art of T.S. Eliot by Helen Gardner →

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The Art of T.S. Eliot by Helen Gardner focuses on the poetic style and images of Eliot’s work. The author sees his earlier work only as preparing him for his masterpiece, “Four Quartets”, which she identifies as a turning point in his work.

The real world did not reflect all that Eliot believed about the spiritual world where he saw hope for redemption. His poems were about art, old age, regret and redemption. His hope, in a religious sense, was that the making of art was the highest justification of human life. These are poems of self-examination and regret where art helped fill the need for penance.

Gardner's says of Eliot’s earlier work that he often imitated the voices of other poets but then moves on to a more independent style. He wrote “The Waste Land,” in a way that underscored the musicality inherent in natural rhythms.  This thematic evolution did not overshadow his core ideas which seem best understood in the Quartets.

Eliot’s famous quote: “We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring. Will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time,”,

This leaves a question: Did Eliot move onto plays after his poetry because after the Quartets he had nothing left to say? Maybe he really did feel he arrived at where he started?

T.S. Eliot Quotes

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

Do I dare disturb the universe?

The True Life of J.S. Bach, by Klaus Eidam →

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician best known in his day as a virtuoso organist as well as a composer. Church music was very important in his day and his music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom, despite its immense complexities. The music fit together in a way that left many amazed, but others seeing in it reinforce the idea that music is actually revealed.

Klaus Eidam wrote “The True Life of J.S. Bach” and challenges other writers’ thoughts about Bach presenting his image and music as a progressive consequence of the German Enlightenment.

Musicologist Jules Combarieu believed, much like Bach, that music is the “science of thinking in tones” and that harmony is derived from mathematics. Bach implied, and Eidam went further in his writings saying, that harmony comes from mathematics, even before it came into being in music and is defined as a hidden arithmetic movement.

Eidam was deeply moved by Bach’s organ piece, “Toccata and Fugue in D minor.” The piece opens with a toccata section, followed by a fugue that ends in a coda. It is one of the most famous works in the organ repertoire and does leave you wondering how anyone could have written it.

The book concludes discussing musical relationships and suggests that they parallel the rhythm of the cosmos within the deep structure of music.

Quotes

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.

It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.

As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen →

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Allen’s book, “As a Man Thinketh” starts out :

“Mind is the Master power that molds and makes,

And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes

The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,

Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:

He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:

Environment is but his looking-glass.”

Published in 1903, Allen's book remains a timeless beacon of self-help literature. It was an early leader in the genre  , drawing profound insights from Proverbs 23:6-8 in the King James version of the Bible, and focusing on the enduring power of thought.

The book vividly illustrates how the power of thought, when consciously applied, can be a transformative force in each individual's life, leading to the creation of both favorable and unfavorable conditions.

Allen's book is not just a theoretical guide but a practical tool that empowers readers to take control of their lives. He aptly described it as " a book that will help you to help yourself,” "a pocket companion for thoughtful people,” and "a book on the power and proper application of thought.”

Quotes

• "Men do not attract what they want, but what they are."

• "A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts."

• "Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment, of these if you but remain true to them your world will, at last, be built."

• "The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors, that which it loves, and also that which it fears. It reached the height of its cherished aspirations. It falls to the level of its unchastened desires– and circumstances are how the soul receives its own."

• "Men are anxious to improve their circumstances but are unwilling to improve themselves; they, therefore, remain bound."

• A thought precedes "Every action and feeling."

• "Right thinking begins with the words we say to ourselves."

• "Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself."

• "You cannot travel within and stand still without.

Past Tense, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child →

Past Tense, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child, delivers insight into the Reacher family’s history, going back to the place of birth for his father. The trip leaves him on foot in the middle of rural New Hampshire, walking where he has to choose between going to Portsmouth or Lacona at a fork in the road.

Thirty miles from the town, a young Canadian couple has car trouble and stops at a small motel buried on a small road in the forest where they are only guests. They find the motel unsettling, and Child leaves us just as uncertain about their fate for much of the book. This is a noticeable change in the past plots that work well.

Reacher finds questionable evidence of his father’s existence, but a 75-year-old assault case named Stan Reacher is called surprising, similar to some trouble Reacher finds in town. He wakes up from a sound sleep from a noise below the threshold of consciousness, is prompted to find and help a woman under attack, and gives her assailant a beating. The assailant has a similar profile to the assault case victim found on his father’s police records.

More connections are found, and they take him, just in time, to the strange motel where the Canadian couple desperately needs him.

This Reacher story has some new plot twists and ultimately holds our interest.

Interesting Items

Someone, somewhere, buys one of Child’s Jack Reacher crime thrillers every 13 seconds. 

Past Tense, published in November, is the 23rd Reacher novel.

The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis →

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C.S. Lewis said that we will be transformed in eternity, wherever we eventually go.  “The Weight of Glory” discusses the transformation processes and was presented in 1941 when Lewis delivered a sermon at the pulpit of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford.

“It’s a serious thing,” Lewis says, “to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw them now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.” We’re all immortal and all continue in eternity. Being with God will make us Godlike.  Understanding the “weight of glory” will direct us to be different in how we serve others, but even with that change, getting over the feeling of our selfishness is an important challenge.

Lewis tells us that men today tend to think the highest virtue is unselfishness but explains that the Christians of old would have said it was Love. Replacing Love with the term “unselfish” carries with it the suggestion that the goal is not primarily securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.”

Obtaining this view of glory means that we except that there are no ordinary people, which means we have neve talked to a mere mortal, and that directs us to conduct all our dealings with each other with love. This means that your neighbor is the holiest object you will encounter and an important part of why you’re here.

Lewis says that “almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth, but our real goal is elsewhere.”

Finding the path to glory in how we serve, and love others is much of Lewis’s core message. By following that we take on the weight of a more compassionate vision of Christianity and a different understanding of what true faith and forgiveness is.

Memorable Quotes

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, because by it I see everything else.”

See Literary Favorites Section for more on C.S. Lewis Click Here

One Shot, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child →

Lee Child’s book, “One Shot, a Jack Reacher novel”, is a book you won’t want to put down and is a great read, but it is time to ask why this formula has worked so well over 20++ books? How does this big tough guy, who wanders the country, deals with bad guys and beautiful women, continue to resonate with what seems to be the same old plot?

Reacher now seems so familiar to us that he is like a family member we know very well. We look forward to finding out what our friend is up to now but is the same old plot? Yes and no. It is the same old Reacher but what is surprising is that the plots continue to surprise us in the twists and turns they take, and they continue to be exciting fast paced. You don’t see what is coming.

By comparison I have put down a Steven King novel because I could see exactly what was coming and just wasn’t ready to deal with it. One time it was a couple of months before I wanted to go back, but I did go back. King is still a favorite, but Child’s plots are indeed canny.

Reacher sees the news on TV and learns of the Friday Night Massacre sniper attack and he decides to go to Indiana where James Barr, a former Army Infantry sniper has been arrested for killing 5 people insisting he’s the wrong man: His only request is to “Get Jack Reacher for me.” Barr knew of Reacher when he was in the army year ago.

Barr may want to have Reacher found but that is odd since Barr had been involved in an identical crime back years ago in the military and Reacher wants to make sure that he is convicted of the murders this time. The facts of the crime are solid, and the only real question is how was it possible that Barr didn’t commit the crime as he claimed?

Innocent people are killed, Reacher is framed, and as the police turn against him  he goes underground vowing revenge.  

O yes, by the way, a beautiful woman from his military past shows up, of course.

You really don’t know for sure who the puppet master, #1 bad guy really is until the end. Another good read. Can Lee Child keep this series going?

Top Quotes

“Never forgive, never forget. ...

• “No, I'm a man with a rule. ...

• “I'm not afraid of death. ...

• “I'm not a vagrant. ...

• “He had fallen out of the ugly tree, and hit every branch.” ...

• “I don't care about the little guy. ...

• “I was in the machine. ...

• “A handgun at two hundred feet is the same thing as crossing your fingers and making a wish.”

Reflections on the Psalms, by C.S. Lewis →

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Psalms 1 begins: “Blessed is the one, who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law, day and night.” Psalms written as poetry, song, praises, and prayers of meditation.

C.S Lewis’s “Reflections on the Psalms begins saying: “This is not a work of scholarship, I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself.” His approach conveys his intent of presenting himself as just another student rather than the obvious great teacher that he was. 

The message is of the Lord looking over the righteous, but some critics say that it applies a Christ centered worldview of God, in contrast to the Old Testament view. 

Lewis tells us that words like “devilish” used in the chapter titled, “The Cursing’s” can feel like the spirit of hatred which strikes us in the face like the heat from a furnace mouth. In tackling these types of scripture we find that the more that is written about them the more trivial and even comical they become, suggesting that they just ought to be left alone. Lewis didn’t leave them alone but attempted to find real connections to the Lord he knew in them.

Lewis is well known for his allegorical writings, but he still insists on downplaying that aspect of his work saying, “some of the allegories thus imposed on my own books have been so ingenious and interesting that I often wish I had thought of them myself.” 

In the final chapters, Lewis deals with the idea of “Second Meanings” and with the manner in which the “Scriptures” came to be written, and they’re how the second meanings evolved, even comparing Pagan mythology and religion. “Lewis’s musings on myth have alarmed some of his less literate admirers, just as they have riled his less literate critics, who both misunderstood his language, believing it to imply the factual falsity of the Christian faith.”

Lewis addresses the assumption of saying, “because it comes in the Bible, all this vindictive hatred must somehow be good.” Lewis disputes this saying this is incorrect and to help change this view he tells us “every psalm must be read as a poem, we must dissect the language used, recognizing the words not as a spur-of-the-moment outburst, but a well-planned and honest prayer to God.”

The book is a meditation of the human condition and is of value in gaining more understanding and perspective. 

Is C.S. Lewis a Great Literary Influence? Of course he is. See Literary Influence Section - click here

Quotes

“The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance.”

“No single book of Scripture, not even of the New Testament, has, perhaps, ever taken such hold on the heart of Christendom.”
― J.J. Stewart Perowne

“The psalms teach us about God and our relationship with Him; that is the heart of theology. The Psalter may be thought of as a portrait gallery of God, presenting us with multiple images of who God is.”
― Tremper Longman

The Secret Life of Bees a novel by Sue Monk Kidd

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This is the story of Lily Owens, born in 1950, as told by her in 1964 in South Carolina. The Civil Rights Act is just passing, Lyndon Johnson is running for President, and some blacks are voting for the first time.

Lily’s mother died when she was four years old, and Rosaleen, a black stand-in mother, raised her. Rosaleen has gotten in trouble and arrested trying to vote. After another terrible fight with T. Ray, Lily decides to run away for good, but first, she has to get Rosaleen, who was beaten up in jail and is in the hospital under guard.  She finds a way to help Rosaleen escape, and they both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina, a town that holds the secret of her mother’s past. She chose to run to this town because of a picture of a Black Madonna with Tiburon’s name on the back. Her mother had the image in her things, and her choice to go to the city was random, she thought.

They find a place to stay in Tiburon at a honey farm with May, June, and August, black beekeeping sisters, who not only open their arms to help them but share their special affinity for the world of bees and honey and the Black Madonna. Lily learns about bees and even finds a boyfriend.

This novel's beauty of language allows you to feel the time, place, and characters. Lily is white, and even though the people she draws close to are black, we see them through her eyes and heart.

The bees add to the story of a countryside that seems alive, and we almost feel the heat of the day and the sounds of the night.

We connect with Lily’s secret life and feelings. Even some of the expected moody adolescent girl concerns and the pain she feels for the loss of her mother are feelings we share.

August is the oldest sister and helps Lily understand herself and “find the mother in herself.”

What Does the Secret Life of Bees tell us about Christianity? You can see a short essay on this subject in the Daily Comments section or click on the title.

Quotes

“If you need something from somebody, always give that person a way to hand it to you.” 

“Knowing can be a curse on a person's life. I'd traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn't know which was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question because once you know the truth, you can't ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.” 

“It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.”

 “Stories have to be told, or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.”

Gone Girl, a novel, by Gillian Flynn →

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Both Nick and Amy are talking directly to us, the readers, in Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl”. We first meet them both at a party where they are first drawn to each other. We jump ahead 8 months and they meet again, finish falling in love and get married. They seem like the perfect couple living in their brownstone, Brooklyn Heights home. Nick loses his job and they move back to North Carthage Missouri. Amy hates leaving New York.

Both characters are interesting but as the story proceeds neither really believe that they are living happily ever after. To celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary Amy got up and started making crepes and then Nick came into the kitchen, happy about the crepes, wondering why Amy was humming the theme song from “M*A*S*H.” (“suicide is painless”).

This novel is really a modern-day version of the old movie, War of Roses, the 1989 movie where Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner played the parts of the doomed Roses. It is hard to tell whether both Amy and Nick are doomed as the plot takes sudden turns and we are left wondering which of the conflicting stories is true. It is obvious they are skilled at lying to each other and we wonder if they are lying to us.

Amy’s parents are successful writers of a book about a wonderful girl named Amazing Amy. Modern Day Amy seems to be writing her own life’s book as she goes through each day filled with odd details.

Nick borrowed the last of Amy’s money to buy a bar for himself and his twin sister, but Nick also has his own secret life that doesn’t involve Amy.  

Flynn’s skill in creating the plot of this novel is clear as we turn the pages, surprised from the beginning to the end and subject to sudden and unpredictable changes of mood and mind. The characters are ones we don’t want to let go of but many may be glad to let go of this couple in the end.

Quotes

“There’s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.” 

“There's a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her.” 

“Love makes you want to be a better man—right, right. But maybe love, real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.” 

“It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.” 

Without Fail a Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child →

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“Without Fail”, Lee Child’s sixth book, takes place after a Presidential election with threats being made against Vice President-elect Brook Armstrong, the junior senator from North Dakota.

M.E.Froehlich  is in charge of the secret service team assigned to protect Armstrong. She wants to make sure he is safe and she wants to find someone with the real life skill to test that. It doesn’t take her long to think of Jack Reacher because she had been the girlfriend of his brother Joe (see Killing Floor book one) and she had a clear idea of how effective he would be.

Jack has no home address, travels without identification, luggage or credit cards, and Froelich’s efforts to find him required her government connections. When she first meets him, she says: "I want to hire you to assassinate the Vice President of the United States." When he learns that she just wants the VP’s defenses tested, he agrees. A few days later he returns reporting and showing pictures of how many ways he found to have penetrated Armstrong’s security.

With the test behind him Reacher is drawn into an active criminal plot where he needs to find someone who really is after the Vice President. It becomes clear that whoever is behind this has put a lot of time and work into a plan, intent on killing. Reacher is confident in his ability to solve the mystery but the Secret Service has drawn different conclusions and then with problems they have to pass the lead to the FBI.   Reacher sees what they don’t and sets off on his own.

The criminal plot and the serious threat it presents is clear long before a motive is. Reacher is the one that finds the motive.  The weakness of the story is really that the motive and some of the focus of the threat are not realistic perhaps not believable. Even with that weakness in the plot the Reacher character’s approach is to respond breaking down in every changing detail, down to a second by second accounting of the progress. This pulls us into the story, raises the tension and holds our interest to the end.

Quotes

“A good coat is like a good lawyer. it covers your ass.” 

“problem shared is a problem halved.” 

See Literary Favorite Section for more about Lee Child and links to his other book reviews - click here

Notes From The Underground by Fyoder Dostoevsky →

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Notes From The Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky is interesting but challenging to follow, and the dialog rambles. It resembles Faulkner's “string of consciousness” style. If comparing Underground to James Joyce’s Ulysses is unflattering to one of the two books, then Dostoevsky would be the one to take offense. (opinion from the reviewer)

Fyoder Dostoevsky thought that men lived in an indifferent and hostile world and that their own choices defined the meaning of their lives. His book, Notes From Underground, is told by an anonymous narrator who investigates the truths he feels are important by presenting his thoughts to us.

The narrator’s thoughts seem like an endless stream of consciousness, often leaving us wondering if he really has a point to make. He tries to assure us, saying, “Everything that can be said about him, and more particularly about him, he already knows………He has overheard, anticipated, and invented it all.” This leaves us realizing that even if he is sure of himself, he is using his own dialog to investigate or invent a variety of truths, and we are still left wondering what the point is.

The novel begins with the narrator telling us “I am a sick man……..I am a wicked man.”  He adds to this his declaration that he is “sufficiently educated not to be superstitious, but I am.” We also learn that he is also a minor civil servant living in nineteenth-century St. Petersburg, Russia and he has withdrawn into what he calls the “underground” in total alienation and isolation from society.

The narrator's "underground", or mind, is full of fears and desires. He approaches many of his concerns as a psychologist, commenting on industrialism, utopianism, Western markets, and "the grip of science and technology on truth."

When this book was written, Russia was beginning to absorb the ideas and culture of Western Europe at an accelerated pace, and the Underground Man responded by rejecting the new thoughts and feeling that man’s free will needed defending. Or perhaps it was just a license to ramble on about everything.

Quotes

“How can a man of consciousness have the slightest respect for himself?”

“I've never been a coward at heart, although I've always been a coward in action;”

“An intelligent man cannot become anything serious, and only the fool who becomes anything.”

“I swear to you gentlemen, that to be overly conscious is a sickness, a real, thorough sickness.”

 
“To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.”