Like the second part of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, this sequel to ?New Notes from Underground?, originally promised in Inquiry (Vol. 33, No. 1, March 1990), focuses on the underground man's state of mind and life circumstances. Dramatizing the existential situation of the ?as if or fictive personality of our time, this memoir elucidates the absurd pathos of social identity formation. Written in a postmodern ethos in which the ?as if personality type has become pervasive, the underground man demonstrates his (...) thesis by sketching the absurd development of his own philosophical persona. Reflections of the underground man and a shadow brother critically address Nietzschean questions regarding the value of truth and the role of myth in life ? these meditations occurring in a contemporary nihilistic culture in which classical distinctions between myth and history, fiction and truth have collapsed. (shrink)