I actually remember doing research on the Theatre of the Absurd and it said that Eugene Ionesco had a part in the play. I wish I was there so I could've seen it.

Thanks, axon I wasn't aware of that. This is the discussion, right? The main reason I think Turgenev and Dostoevsky quarreled was because Turgenev idealized a confident, realistic character that is the opposite of what Dostoevsky idealized in Notes From the Underground. There's also the fact that throughout most of his life, Turgenev lived in Europe, basically forgetting his homeland, and developing a writing style similar to European authors.

For anyone that is interested in the relationship between Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ivan Turgenev, I found a very interesting site that illustrates exactly how it happens. Here it is: Click Here
For anyone that has read the Possessed, Turgenev is made fun of there in the character Karamazinov.

Pushkin is my second favorite, next to Dostoevsky. Thanks to him, I'm trying to relearn reading in russian. http://www.lib.ru is the best place to go, if you want to read anything in russian.

In my library, there is a special edition of Notes From the Underground, which includes The Grand Inquisitioner, as well as excerts from What is To Be Done, the Swallows, and various other letters and texts conserning that book. It is very interesting to understand the pretext for that book, and see the different idealogies clashing against one another. Here's the book from bn.com: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=3U69PBwAuP&isbn=0452285585&itm=13

I think he didn't know who Nellie was. Otherwise, when he went into the apartment and was with Nellie, why didn't he try to do something like take her away with him? I think it's the latter proposition that you are suggesting.

Yes, the beautiful thing about this story is that it's relative to the person reading it. Makar wants happiness, I should not say for other people, but for Varvara, and therefore wants to win her heart, since a man cannot just shower on gift after gift and except to nothing out of it. Varvara, noticing how old and hopeless he is, decided to leave out of that situation, and leave him be, and all those cries in her letters at the end might have been pretense. But then you wonder, does "Poor People" actually mean, poor as in having no money, or poor as in those that need sympathy.

The first book I read was Crime and Punishment, over this winter. I've been meaning to read it for a long time, but never got around to it. From there on, I am hooked. So far, I've read C&P, of course, Notes from the Underground, The Gambler, Poor People, and am now almost finished with Insulted and the Injured. I'm planning to read every book by him.

the version I checked out has two shorter stories in it as well, Poor Folk, I think, and something else.

That is the version that I read. It's probably a William Heinemann series, we have a bunch of them with Dostoevsky's short stories in our library. The third story was The Landlady, a very poorly wriiten, enigmatic short story. I would not recommend reading that story. The Gambler was also poorly written, but it had it's interesting moments. I especially liked the part where the grandma began gambling and would not stop.

Well, I think that's what Dostoevsky was trying to portray. Why else did he include those journal entries of Varvara in the beginning? I think what Dostoevsky was trying to show in Poor People was two people dealing with their poverty. Makar, for instance, only wants love and to be happy for other people, he doesn't care about material things such as money, unlike Varvara.

Well, that all can be argued. As far as her intentionaly trying to use Makar, I don't think that's fair. She is just weak and does not know to do, she considers money as happiness, rather than love. It's pretty messed up how she leaves him by himself, and knows intentionally that he cannot survive without her. I think that's pretty selfish, almost childish.