Notes from the Underground

Rating:
Summary: A Slime of His Time
Review: The first words of this deeply disturbing, but powerful, novel are "I am a sick man....I am a spiteful man." and these may refer equally to the main character and to the author. Dostoevsky has written an amazing portrait of a loner, whose introverted, sick thoughts spill out on the pages in demented brilliance. The novel is a product of European cynicism, nihilism, and inertia, all of which reached a certain height in the paralyzed upper circles of 19th century Russia. Nobody could write such a book without some personal acquaintance with the mean moods of this anti-hero. The main character, who does nothing except hide from the world, is a total misfit, a loser in life at home, at work, and in love---a jerk, a dweeb, a dork, a geek in modern American parlance---yet through Dostoyevsky's clear prose, we see into his wounded soul. "Actually, I hold no brief for suffering, nor am I arguing for well-being." he writes, "I argue for...my own whim and the assurance of my right to it, if need be." He is apart from society, recognizes no social obligation. He argues that suffering is still better than mere consciousness, because it sharpens the awareness of your being, therefore suffering is in man's interest Someone who can argue that is not going to write an average novel. This is in fact not an average novel at all, but a book concerned with the play of ideas, ideas that flash around like comets and meteorites inside Dostoevsky's head. It can no more escape Dostoevsky's brain than a Woody Allen movie can escape Woody Allen.

The plot line of NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND is extremely slim. It concerns an underground man, a man like a rat or a bug, who lives outside, or more likely, underneath the world's gaze. It is a lonely, tortured life lived inside a single skull with almost no contacts with the rest of the world except for a vicious servant. The "action" of the book comes only when the protagonist worms his way into a dinner with former schoolmates. They don't want him, he despises all of them. So, as you can imagine, a good time is had by all. The underground man winds up in a brothel with an innocent, hapless prostitute named Liza. He wishes for some relationship, he immediately abhors the very thought of contact with another person. The result is worse than you can predict, though I will say that it involves "the beneficial nature of insults and hatred".

In the tradition of novels of introspective self-hatred, Dostoevsky's has to be one of the first. I wondered as I read how much Kafka owed him, for after all, the hero here is a cockroach too, only remaining in human form. I realized how much Dostoevsky had influenced the Japanese writers of the 20th century---Tanizaki, Mishima, Soseki, Kawabata, and others. The pages are brilliant, but full of vile stupidity, useless, arid intellectualism, hatred of one's best and love of one's worst qualities, withdrawal from life, and self-loathing. A less American novel would be hard to imagine. But, some of these characteristics are found in almost everyone at some point in their life, unpleasant as that realization may be. I have to give NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND five stars, though I can't say I enjoyed it. It is simply one of the most impressive novels ever written.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect for the eogtistical coward
Review: First of all, with a name like "Fyodor Dostoyevsky" how in the world can a guy get published? Perhaps he shouldn't be. That is my opinion. Maybe Crime and Punishment was good, but Notes from the Underground is absolutely awful. To be completely honest, I haven't even gotten to Part 2 yet, but the book is like Johnny Got His Gun and Walden on speed (quoted directly from my English teacher). The main character in this book, the Underground Man, is no more than a coward who has time to write books on how he is much too intelligent to act in life. The first seventeen pages leave the reader with a migraine, and after that, it all goes downhill. By the end of the book, I'm almost positive that one will be half insane and screaming, "Twice two is four, but twice two equals five is charming." Do not waste your time reading this so-called "classic."

Rating:
Summary: Post-Modernist Nihilism Incarnated...
Review: "I AM A SICK MAN...I AM A WICKED MAN." Constance Garnett's classic translation of the second sentence(Ya zloy chelovek)of Dostoyevsky's prophetic caricature of Post Modernist men, women and "Wet Snow" anti-culture of death they wallow-in, is typically rendered "spiteful". A reader can see and hear this UNDERGROUND MAN gnashing his teeth in unrelentant bitterness and self-loathing. NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND--acclaimed as it is--in my estimate is Big D's most difficult work to stomach if not penetrate. The VOICE is no Nietzschean superman proclaiming "Beyond Good & Evil" liberation from shackles of Christian Humanism, or Enlightenement Decadence. Rather,it's an outraged voice craving nothing but POWER and right(droit de seigneur)to SELF-HOMAGE in it ["Power, power that's what I wanted then; the game was what I wanted; I wanted to achieve your tears, your humiliation, your hysterics--that's what I wanted then!" p.121]. AND NOW: See our PM mediocrities destroy schools; Churches; families. See them demand the right to kill their own children. See them treat War like a game (drawing maps in the sand in midst of combat)to amuse each other in onanistic displays of self-glorification and petulant envy.

When Dostoyevsky wrote this bizarre anti-human tirade, the American Civil War raged; and the Russian Revolution was a murderous idea ready to erupt(in three decades).The former would attempt to deal SLAVERY a death blow; the latter would revive it in an unimaginable orgy of totalitarian brutality. Dostoyevsky understood the nature of the HOLLOW MEN.(And women). They are the cowards...who in revenge for being born...can become the most conscienceless killers.In other works, particularly CRIME & PUNISHMENT;and THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, Dostoyevsky provides and characterizes(at least)the possibility of the triumph of hope and Goodness. UNDERGROUND MAN is vile incarnation of banality of Evil.The "story" is short because, perhaps, Dostoyevsky realized a wicked anti-gospel is perverse TRUTH few need without immunization against disease-like deadliness. A Gorgon's Voice is deadly. NOTES is a great cautionary work; a dangerous-vision medicine ...like atropine...to be studied to confront danger not to applaud, or be seduced by demonic glamour of self-worship in power...

Rating:
Summary: The Underground
Review: Dostoyevsky has written a macabre short novel. Throughout the book there permeates a dark sense of menace - the nameless characters mental unrest is captured with great prose style. The characters mental indecision is also expressed clearly, with rather confused and verbal lines.

There are two chapters in this novel. The first deals with the philosophical aspects of Dostoyevsky's own opinions, summed up generally as: A rather idiosyncratic kind of existentialism, and ultimate angst at a society laced with custom and stifled social stratification. While the second section deals with events in the characters life which have led to this philsophical stance. We are exposed to the pernicious, and obbsessive behaviour of the character, as he is driven into fits of rage and anxiety of the tritest of events.

Dostoyevsky has written a compelling book: sinister, unstable and in-depth. Each page casts a shadow. Each line is filled with sharp nihilism. Read this book with a light on!

Rating:
Summary: Clear translation
Review: Constance Garnett: bye!

Pevear and Volohonsky have done it again. The idiom is a little too updated in places, but as usual they capture the choppiness of the Russian in English. Dostoevsky for the modern reader! Outstanding!

This is the translation I recommend to my AP literature class.

Rating:
Summary: One of Dostoevsky's Best
Review: First my confession: the first two encounters with this celebrated novella both ended with the book being rudely dismissed across the room near pg. 30. But ahh, the third reading felt positively as if a portable supernova had detonated between my two hands. My duty then as a reviewer is to tell you how you should approach this book and ultimately convince you to read it.

The most important thing you need to know about this book is that it is a POLEMICAL SATIRE. There is a great ideological distance between the narrator and Dostoevsky - in no way does he reflect the author's outlook. This fact is not obvious seeing that even his contemporaries were perplexed and generations of critics stymied. The opponent of Dostoevsky's polemic is the radical socialist Chernyshevsky, whose novel "What is to be Done?" (incidentally, Lenin's favorite novel) is parodied piecemeal throughout the novella. What the underground man represents is the logical extreme of a man who totally embraces Chernyshevsky's "rational egoism" and its socialist program. Chernyshevsky believed that once man is shown the truth through science and reason, the "new man" will inevitably renounce all irrational behavior. He also proposes that a new society be founded on socialist and materialistic principles, where the individual will is subjected for the betterment of humanity. In this book, Dostoyevsky seeks to undermine Chernyshevsky by showing that a strict adherence to this radical thought ends in a terrible cul de sac called the "man from underground". Where it diverges from being a mere satire is the fabulous and tortuous dialogue-monologue of this embittered man.

Although Chernyshevsky's overconfidence in science seems incredibly naïve to us now, this was certainly not the case in the 1860's. For example, the book mentions H.T. Buckle, an ambitious historian who attempted to "promote" history to an analytical science (for the refutation, consult Isaiah Berlin's "Proper Study of Mankind), as a living influence. The underground man, then, stands as nineteenth century's most heartfelt rebellion against this atmosphere of stifling rationality. But why should belief in science lead to rigor? Take the following reasoning offered by the narrator. Someone slaps him and he feels offended. But the "rational" part of him tells him that, according to "natural law" and scientific determinism, the slap is the result of environmental factors. Thus the offender is blameless because "the laws of nature cannot be forgiven" (pg.9). But then what is he to do with the resentment that he feels? This leads him a little later to the following wonderful outburst: "My God, but what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmetic if for some reason these laws and two times two is four are not to my liking?" (pg.14). An entirely logical universe where human action is governed by something "like a table of logarithms" (pg. 24) leads to a false comfort in moral relativism. This still does not mean that the underground man prefers irrationality. He merely points out that what is offensive is precisely the fact that men who would send "all these logarithms to the devil" (pg.25) would attract followers. What this new rational universe lacks is man's freedom of will, and man will have it, the narrator warns, even by losing his reason, "so as to do without reason and still have his own way!" (pg.31).

From the very preface, a dismissive quotation ("Etc., etc., etc.") of Nekrasov's hyperromantic poem, there is a curious inversion of Romanticism that sets the tone for part II. We find, amazingly, that the underground man in his youth was a die-hard romantic! The narrator tells us how he brooded in his youth until he developed an overwhelming urge to "embrace the whole of mankind". Of course, what actually transpired - at the gathering around his schoolfellow Zverkov - is tragicomic: the underground man finds himself shamefully ignored and even insulted. Worse yet, the one truly romantic character, the sympathetic prostitute called Liza, is treated in a most harrowingly heartless manner. So the underground man is merely a romantic gone truly sour. This actually isn't too surprising if you think about it: cynics are romantics. You wouldn't be bitter about something unless you had an ideal in mind.

There's obviously a lot more to this little book. If you're looking for better explanations, what the excellent introduction by Richard Pevear leaves out, the relevant chapter in Joseph Frank's "The Stir of Liberation" will fill in the blanks. This along with Mochulsky's "Dostoevsky" is recommended for further reading.

I'll be blunt as possible: this book is a revolutionary masterpiece, as shocking as Nietzsche's "Zarathustra" and just as daring in composition. Overall, I feel that the book stands less as an advocate for irrationalism but more as a stark warning to romantic utopian fantasies that has a nasty habit of ending in cold murder. You REALLY ought to read this.

Rating:
Summary: The volition to reform
Review: The man from the underground struggles with his inner demons and the consciousness of his own depravity and his unwillingness to make concessions due to reason. He believes one's own free will, or volition, must supercede reason, which should be relegated to the conformist proletariat masses.

Dostoyevsky leaves an indelible impression in such a short masterpiece. Read it in one sitting and come away impressed and pondering the validity of Dostoyevsky and his singular, dark theme of determinism.

Rating:
Summary: Worth a second read
Review: When I read this book for the first time I read it in high school the first section was gibberish to me and in the second part I learned that dostoevsky's characters are mean to prostitutes.

The second, more carefull and guided tour through this book that I had through a philosophy class was much more enlightening - understanding the first section gives the reader a lot more insight to the underground man's motivations and actions in the second section.
To summarize the godforsakenly long paper that I had to write on this book, The underground man sees any limitations or rules as direct affronts to his freedom. He sees determinism, or the idea that all of our actions have prior causes, as depressing and that actions that are predetermined are necessarily unfree. Even Reason is a straightjacket, for a man who acts in all situations according to the dictates of Reason is a slave to the limitations of Reason nonetheless. The only way the Underground Man sees freedom as possible is by acting agaist one's own best wishes, or doing stupid things that are harmfull to oneself, just because one can and to express one's freedom. Either that, or acting in a purely spontaneous fashion. Of course, the Underground Man's days in the dusty cellar have addled his existential brain, because acting against one's own best wishes in the name of freedom is still acting for a cause, only one puts freedom this time as the highest of priorities. That and acting spontaneously for no reason whatsoever can't really be considered acting freely, because one has no personal control over said actions.
Well, that's still rather muddled, but hopefully slightly more palatable than our russian literary leftist's words.

Rating:
Summary: A stunning penetration into human nature
Review: Though very short, one gets the feeling upon completing this work that they have read a very profound book. This is, in my view, one of the best and most essential short novels ever written. Dostoevsky is known for his stunning penetration into human nature and the social hieararchy, and here we see for the first time what a true master he was. The book, in its brevity, touches upon many profoundly important issues: philosophical, religious, social, political. Indeed, it was right in the heart of what were the prevalent intellectual modes of the time it was written. It remains relevant today. (Indeed, as has been well pointed out, this book works, also, as a springboard towards Dostoevsky's later, more ambitious novels.) Part of the reason the book works so well is because the narrarator (who is never named) is so recognizably, touchingly, and pathetically human. Anyone who considers themselves an outcast, or who feels they've never been able to fit in, who is uncomfortable in social situations, feels themselves to be morally or intellectually superior to others for reasons they cannot even fathom, or who are overly emotional and susceptible to constant bouts of depression - or any such things - will undoubtedly identify and sympathasize with Dostoevsky's creation. Another reason it works so well is because of the way in which it is written. Far from being written in the traditional novel or documentary style, this book gives the impression that one is reading a diary of a person's private thoughts - which gives off the very neat effect that you seem to be reading some private, someting you're not supposed to be reading. We see the thoughts as they come to the character, not in any linear narration. He may well be neurotic, psychotic, manic depressive, bi-polar, or egocentric - but he is human, nonetheless. This is a singular, profound, and important literary work of unique value and craftsmanship that sticks a penetrating and insightful knife straight through the heart of human nature.

Rating:
Summary: A Fine Novella - Brilliant Criticism and Fantastic Tale
Review: Notes from the Underground is divided into two chapters - one in which the nameless narrator speaks from the present, from "underground," and the other in which the failure, distress, and confusion of his life - in the past - is narrated Dostoevsky-style. Both parts serve as complements to each other, but the first part is undeniably profound.

The first chapter contains many fascinating notions, making it the most rewarding section of the work - the concept that consciousness is not necessarily a good which proves to be a critique of intellectual elitism (Why is it that someone that is mentally "challenged" is considered disabled and someone that has excessive intelligence is not, when both are impaired socially?), the delight in perverse suffering, the crippling inertia of excessive consciousness, a stunning critique of the Enlightenment and its utopian rationalistic thought, a assertion of free-will and individuality over scientific/materialist determinism, and much more. Much of it gets right into the issues that were popular at the time in mainstream European philosophy. He touches on such topics as rationalism, romanticism, German idealism, Hegel, the pessimism of Schopenhauer, etc. The ideas are fantastic, yet the narrator is constantly contradicting himself, asserting one existence as superior here and another later. Anyone of "excess consciousness" is likely to relate with this narrator more so than one would ever like. There is something strangely appealing in regards to characters like him, Raskolnikov, Hannibal, etc.

What is noticeably missing, which I would argue is for the better, is Dostoevsky's usual Christian worldview. I have just read that it was actually taken out of the book by the censors, as Dostoevsky actually had included his "Christian alternative" in the first chapter once the narrator had defeated his own ideas with his endless contradictions. I'm thankful for its absence because the ambiguity is what makes this novel so great. Likewise, Crime and Punishment was a fantastic and thought provoking novel, filled with plenty of critical theory and insights about human nature...until the ending in which Dostoevsky uncritically asserted his Christian dogma through the "salvation through suffering" of Raskolnikov at the hands of Sonya. I believe our nameless narrator would call that something that only happens in books.

This novel is fantastic, as Dostoevsky's usually are, and the narrative technique that he used to write this story is a fantastically effective one. This is not very long, nor hard to read...so certainly read it; it will not be a waste of your time.