Final Post

I think that this book was definitely worth reading. Had you asked me before the discussion, I might have answered otherwise. If you are unable to see the meaning yourself, or unable to have someone help you see the meaning then I do not think that this book would be worth reading. I am not afraid to admit that when I first read this book I am almost sure I did not even get half of what we spoke about in the discussion. If we had read it alone and never discussed it in class it would have been the biggest waste. This book provides an extensive amount of meaningful social commentary. Dostoyevsky points out and criticizes the most basic aspects of society that many people never seem to think of. He criticizes the very core of our being only to go ahead and participate and the very thing he despises in the end. His contradictions all seem to make sense together, in same twisted way. I do think that heavily contemplating and thinking about what it is exactly Dostoyevsky is saying about us all might drive someone slightly insane. Essentially, one of the biggest things that I got out of the book is that all of what we have is close to nothing.
The class discussions, as long as they were, helped me tremendously. They allowed me to really understand what Dostoyevsky was trying to get at throughout his work. Hearing other people's thoughts in class allowed me to see things in a new perspective. I think that it is beneficial for us to hear other people's opinion as it keeps us open minded. Hearing other people's opinions also permits us to see material in a way that we may not have been seeing it before.
I think that what I will most remember about the book was how accurate Dostoyevsky's work seemed to be despite i not being written today. I know that that is not a peculiarly individual aspect of the book, however nearly everything Dostoyevsky said is relevant today. Maybe that's the problem, though; someone can point out all our flaws and we never seem to learn. This may be a bit controversial since the underground man never takes a side and directly calls it a flaw, but the point remains the same. I think if someone read this many years from now, every critique would remain entirely accurate because maybe, just as Dostoyevsky said himself, there was really nothing for us left to change into.