I laughed out loud many times! NFTU is the first Dostoyevsky I ever read, and since then, I have not read anything BUT Dostoyevsky (I read Notes about 3 months ago). I sat and read it start to finish, sitting outside on a rocky chair, laughing and grinning and then in a flash, becoming pensive. In an instant, I was in love with Fyodor and marveled at his insight.
The part where he talks about his servant, and then stops and says "but enough about him. We will talk of this man, this plague, later." I laughed for nearly a minute at his hatefulness. Looking back, it wasn't THAT funny, it just stuck out and hit the right spot at the right time.
Easily one of my favorites from the Russian master.
Everything is permitted...
"We look at the world, at governments, across the spectrum, some with more freedom, some with less. And we observe that the more repressive the State is, the closer life under it resembles Death. If dying is deliverance into a condition of total non-freedom, then the State tends, in the limit, to Death. The only way to address the problem of the State is with counter-Death, also known as Chemistry." -- Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day
Outside of Hamlet,the antichrist and especially King Lear no piece of literature has ever moved me quite as much and as consistently as dostoevskys novella. The first time i read it i was astonished at how accurately FD seemed able to read my mind, to anticipate my objections,and his hilarious and realistic insight into the 'underground' human condition. To be honest the first section 'notes from underground remains the most exhilirating read ever,and if it wasnt for Shakespeare i would say the most moving as well. Shakespeare cured me of dostoevsky and Nietzsche.