Notes from Underground: A Norton Critical Edition / Edition 2

by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Michael R. Katz

Overview

The text for this edition of Notes from Underground is Michael Katz’s acclaimed translation of the 1863 novel, which is introduced and annotated specifically for English-speaking readers.

"Backgrounds and Sources" includes relevant writings by Dostoevsky, among them "Winter Notes on Summer Impressions," the author’s account of a formative trip to the West. New to the Second Edition are excerpts from V. F. Odoevksy’s "Russian Nights" and I. S. Turgenev’s "Hamlet of Shchigrovsk District." In "Responses", Michael Katz links this seminal novel to the theme of the underground man in six famous works, two of them new to the Second Edition: an excerpt from M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s The Swallows, Woody Allen’s Notes from the Overfed, Robert Walser’s The Child, an excerpt from Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man, an excerpt from Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, and an excerpt from Jean-Paul Sartre’s Erostratus. "Criticism" brings together eleven interpretations by both Russian and Western critics from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, two of them new to the Second Edition. Included are essays by Nikolai K. Mikhailovsky, Vasily Rozanov, Lev Shestov, M. M. Bakhtin, Ralph E. Matlaw, Victor Erlich, Robert Louis Jackson, Gary Saul Morson, Richard H. Weisberg, Joseph Frank, and Tzvetan Todorov. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393976120
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/05/2000
Series:	Norton Critical Editions Series
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	116,490
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and many other novels.

Michael R. Katz is C. V. Starr Professor Emeritus of Russian and East European Studies at Middlebury College. He has published translations of more than fifteen Russian novels, including Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground. He lives in Cornwall, Vermont.

Table of Contents

Preface
The Text of Notes From Underground
Backgrounds and Sources
Selected Letters from Fyodor Dostoevsky to Mikhail Dostoevsky (1859-64)
Fyodor Dostoevsky · [Socialism and Christianity]
Fyodor Dostoevsky · From Winter Notes on Summer Impressions
N.G. Chernyshevsky · From What Is To Be Done?

Responses
PARODY
M.E. Salykov-Shchedrin · From "The Swallows"
Woody Allen · Notes from the Overfed
IMITATION/INSPIRATION
Robert Walser · The Child
Ralph Ellison · From The Invisible Man
John Lennon and Paul McCartney · "Nowhere Man"

Criticism
Nicolai Mikhailovsky · [Dostoevsky's Cruel Intent]
Vasily Rozanov · [Thought and Art in Notes From Underground]
Lev Shestov · [Dostoevsky and Nietzsche]
M.M. Bakhtin [Discourse in Dostoevsky]
Ralph E. Matlaw · Structure and Integration in Notes From Underground
Victor Erlich · Notes on the Uses of Monologue in Artistic Prose
Robert Louis Jackson · [Freedom in Notes From Underground]
Gary Saul Morson · [Anti-Utopianism in Notes From Undergound]
Richard H. Weisberg · The Formalistic Model: Notes From Underground
Joseph Frank · Notes From Underground

A Chronology of Dostoevsky's Life and Work
Selected Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

This revised Norton Critical Edition is based on Michael Katz's translation of the 1863 novel, which is introduced and annotated specifically for English-speaking readers. After the complete text of the novel, a section on background and sources offers selections from Dostoevsky's letters to his brother, some of his writings on socialism and Christianity and on his trip to the West, and excerpts from writings by Dostoevsky's contemporaries. A section on responses offers parodies and works of imitation by writers including Woody Allen, Ralph Ellison, and Jean-Paul Sartre. There are also critical interpretations by both Russian and Western critics from the 19th and 20th centuries. Includes a chronology. Katz teaches Russian at Middlebury College. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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