Reading Russian

A foundational text of Existentialism that has influenced writers from Franz Kafka to Ralph Ellison to Imre Kert©sz, Dostoevsky's snow-covered Notes from the Underground - presented here in its entirety, in both the original Russian and a new, facing English translation - is bitingly sarcastic, intellectually provocative, and emotionally wrenching. Composed by an anonymous "Underground Man," it consists of two parts: first, of a radical philosophical manifesto in defense of human freedom at its most irrational; and, second, of an uncomfortably honest account of a life paralyzed by hyper-reflexivity, endless daydreaming, petty resentment, and a total lack of any meaningful human contact. When a chance at something resembling love suddenly appears where least expected - and with it, an opportunity to break free from his hellish, self-imposed "underground" - our hero struggles to accept it, and gives us what is surely one of the most repulsive finales in all of literature.

Designed to help students of Russian begin to enjoy real Russian literature in the original without constantly reaching for a dictionary, this parallel-text edition features a new translation made specifically for this purpose, as well as detailed Russian vocabulary notes, including all the important forms you need (especially aspectual pairs and conjugation types for all verbs). The original Russian text is marked for stress, but is otherwise unedited and unsimplified.

About the Author...  Mark Pettus holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Princeton University. Altogether, he's spent around six years living, studying, and working in Russia. Today he is a lecturer in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton. Mark is the author of the Russian Through Propaganda textbook series (Books 1 and 2), and its continuation, Russian Through Poems and Paintings (Books 3 and 4). He is now working on additional books for students of Russian, including the Reading Russian series of which the present volume is a part.