Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Series: None
Published: 1861
Publisher: Lots...
Pages: 233
"I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man," the irascible voice of a nameless narrator cries out. And so, from underground, emerge the passionate confessions of a suffering man; the brutal self-examination of a tormented soul; the bristling scorn and iconoclasm of alienated individual who has become one of the greatest antiheroes in all literature. Notes From Underground, published in 1864, marks a tuming point in Dostoevsky's writing: it announces the moral political, and social ideas he will treat on a monumental scale in Crime And Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. And it remains to this day one of the most searingly honest and universal testaments to human despair ever penned.“The political cataclysms and cultural revolutions of our century…confirm the status of Notes from Underground as one of the most sheerly astonishing and subversive creations of European fiction.”–from the Introduction by Donald Fanger
I am definitely a Dostoyevsky fan. I adored Crime and Punishment, and I enjoyed this.
I think what one begins to look forward to (or at least I) in Dostoyevsky's work is the hope laced underneath the pessimistic tone. He writes of mad people, and drives them into the ground. The thing is, we also makes us question our own sanity. The mad man is logical, and sometimes, maybe even right. That's not to say the Underground Man is someone we should strive to be. No, he's mad! But even though he's mad, I know at least I found myself thinking once or twice, "he's got a point, there."
For one, the idea that we always put ourselves first gave me pause to think. Whatever one's belief system, aren't we all trying to benefit ourselves? If we get drunk at a party, it's because we think it is best for the moment, even if we know we'll dread it later. If we are kind to a person, maybe it is because it gratifies our pride or pleases our God. The individual is always comparing the long-run or short-run, they are always weighing the costs and benefits of actions. Now, I'm not sure I entirely buy into the UM thinking because an individual takes on the costs with the benefits, and I do think there can be occasions where we chose what's detrimental to ourselves, but its arguments like this that kept me invested.
Part I mostly consists of these kind of arguments, stream of conscience first person insanity. Part II is, despite being in the real world, a little more nonsensical. It's one thing to listen to this guy rave while he's in a hole all by himself, but in the real world? Honestly, I was quite weirded out. But it's also in this that Dostoyevsky says, "See what happens when you suffer from excessive conscious? Stay away."
It's hard to say whether there is any potential redemption in the UM. I think there was, and that Dostoyevsky showed us when that point could've been. He also shows us the UM turn away from it. The consequence being, "I've just denied love, so I'm going to live in a shack/hole/thing all by myself forever." It's all quite interesting, though sometimes slow. And rather simple to me, but enjoyable none the less.
I think what one begins to look forward to (or at least I) in Dostoyevsky's work is the hope laced underneath the pessimistic tone. He writes of mad people, and drives them into the ground. The thing is, we also makes us question our own sanity. The mad man is logical, and sometimes, maybe even right. That's not to say the Underground Man is someone we should strive to be. No, he's mad! But even though he's mad, I know at least I found myself thinking once or twice, "he's got a point, there."
For one, the idea that we always put ourselves first gave me pause to think. Whatever one's belief system, aren't we all trying to benefit ourselves? If we get drunk at a party, it's because we think it is best for the moment, even if we know we'll dread it later. If we are kind to a person, maybe it is because it gratifies our pride or pleases our God. The individual is always comparing the long-run or short-run, they are always weighing the costs and benefits of actions. Now, I'm not sure I entirely buy into the UM thinking because an individual takes on the costs with the benefits, and I do think there can be occasions where we chose what's detrimental to ourselves, but its arguments like this that kept me invested.
Part I mostly consists of these kind of arguments, stream of conscience first person insanity. Part II is, despite being in the real world, a little more nonsensical. It's one thing to listen to this guy rave while he's in a hole all by himself, but in the real world? Honestly, I was quite weirded out. But it's also in this that Dostoyevsky says, "See what happens when you suffer from excessive conscious? Stay away."
It's hard to say whether there is any potential redemption in the UM. I think there was, and that Dostoyevsky showed us when that point could've been. He also shows us the UM turn away from it. The consequence being, "I've just denied love, so I'm going to live in a shack/hole/thing all by myself forever." It's all quite interesting, though sometimes slow. And rather simple to me, but enjoyable none the less.
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