Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

★★★☆☆|☆☆
"I am a sick man....I am an angry man. I am an unattractive man. I think there is something wrong with my liver."
Timestamps below the fold ↓

Intro 0:00
Summary 0:05
Contradictory personality 2:45
Compassion or nah 3:26
Determinism 4:56
Conclusion 5:09

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[musashi-san____]

It's one of my favorite books. Ridiculous to say you don't see yourself in there. Oh, you will. We all will at some point.

[alix]

You can't know what he says unless you have been there, experience kind of suffering then read it again, you will understand even between the lines

[adamvanderpas]

Fyodor out here publishing books 103 years after his death.

[molkadarragi]

You're not actually supposed to sympathise with him or feel for him, you're supposed to relate to what he's saying.
He is basically unveiling what we're all scared to say outloud.
In the end of the novel he literally says " I have only in my mind carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway".
We are all the underground man at some point; wanting to feel superior, wanting to socialize when we're actually introverts, wanting to help people but then we don't know how to so we end up rejecting them.. these things represent us as human beings.. our indecisivness and constant confusion. We're not all perfectly put together..
I think you should re-read the book with this perspective in mind, you'rll feel differently about it.

[davidmuir]

It's fairly irrelevant whether you like the character layed out by Dostoyevsky. The character described is used to demonstrate that a psychology like his exists, has always existed, and will always exist within society. The fact that such a character can still be comprehended and related to 150 years after its conception bears this out to some extent.
He'd like to give the lie to the idea that we are all for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that high ideas and promises of progress may in fact only be wishful thinking leading to more not less suffering.
You may not like to have him at your book group, but I doubt he'd come if invited in any case.

[handsomeawkward]

This is my third Dostoevsky novel too. The underground man is horrifyingly similar to all the worst parts of myself. I feel like I could easily end up a lot like him. Hopefully discovering that fact makes it less likely that I will ever let it happen. I’m still a fairy young man, so I guess we will

Also, great review. Thanks for posting. I’ll be subscribing.

[JacketsOnFire]

I honestly think this book should be required reading. The Underground Man really reminds me of the many bitter intellectuals of society we have these days. Dostoyevsky criticisms of totalitarian utopian ideologies, which were going around during this time in the form of soviet socialism, is probably one of the best criticisms I’ve read. He criticizes the rationalist ideologies that were spurring out around the 1860s, 40 years before the soviet revolution. He tries to make the reader understand the necessity for suffering and how humans are “in love” with their own misery. With regards to the utopian ideas that were emerging, he argues that even if you give everyone exactly what they wanted or even needed, it wouldn’t justify a meaningful life. He believes that being unsatisfied with life is what is satisfying to us and it’s probably what we need as human beings. It’s a very intelligent book that not many get or understand if you don’t know much of Dostoyevsky’s life or the history of existentialism, pre-soviet history, rationalism, collectivism, intellectual arrogance or communism.

[gregsaunders]

The contradictions are deliberate. You're reading a book that is an expression, exploration and metaphor of the human mind. Labelling him "delusional" as a means of dismissing the things he says, and where your book club's main reaction to the entire book was to egotistically pontificate about giving the character your empathy, ironically proves the very thing he is saying. That is why I guess you didn't understand the book or enjoy it. It is hard to see the introspective mirror when there's a curtain of ignorance over it. The fascinating thing about the human condition is that it never changes. What Dostoyevsky wrote 155 years ago describes your behavior perfectly. It's mind boggling to think you read this book, dismissed it as delusional ramblings of a school shooter and criticized it for being the very thing it admits and explains, then went on living your life as one of the people extensively described by the writer. Truly fascinating.

". . .In short, one may say anything about the history of the world - anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one cannot say is that it is rational. The very word sticks in one's throat. And, indeed, this is even the kind of thing that continually happens. After all, there are continually turning up in life moral and rational people, sages, and lovers of humanity, who make it their goal for life to live as morally and rationally as possible, to be, so to speak, a light to their neighbors, simply in order to show them that it is really possible to live morally and rationally in this world. And so what? We all know that those very people sooner or later toward the end of their lives have been false to themselves, playing some trick, often a most indecent one." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From the Underground (1864)

[MilesMariae]

I think at the beginning he actually presents an 'anti determinism' perspective.

[brianherrmann]

I found it hard to read the first time. But then I reread it and got a lot more out of it. It shows the dangers of viewing humans as purely rational beings. He makes the case that striving to be rational all the time leads to inaction and inaction leads to resentment and resentment leads you not only to destroy your own life, but to destroy the lives of others too. It is a reaction to the hyper-rationalism and utopianism that came out of the Enlightenment.

[daniellee]

I just finished this book. I'm a novice reader as I just started but trying to read this was dreadful. I figured it was my skill that is lacking but after a while of just figuring him out, I started to understand him more and more...in which I started to loathe him more. I was able to connect him to a few I know (not at his level) and I was able to figure him out through my lens. I assume a book like this is where the reader is supposed to take it apon themselves to view this spiteful man to their own. I'm rather pleased, even if I could barely understand his higher vocabulary...but I'm sure that was part of the point of his character.

I think I'll have to come back and read it again later. Maybe then I'll understand it differently.

[god]

This book is Mental breakdown put into words....

[SethNoorzad]

I just read it. He seems like a man who just does not know how to connect with others. I related to his awkwardness a lot. Like it was awkwardness taken to an extreme. But he doesn't seem to be so bothered by it. It's not like super cringe because he's just already gone and accepting of it in a way. We don't see the human being longing for love inside of him -- directly, at least. I found that strange.

[SteffiMcCallion]

I adore Notes. I agree with everything you’ve said but I actually enjoy disliking characters in books and often thrive from note feeling obliged to feel compassion. It is a breath of fresh air.

[bwatson]

The Underground Man can be looked at in a similar vein as Patrick Bateman from American Psycho or Tyler Durden from Fight Club.

Just like those characters were cautionary embodiments of what's pathological and ugly about particular contemporary ideologies, Dostoyevsky was doing the equivalent for the ideologies of his era (secular, materialist rationalism, and the changes that were occuring in Russian society at the time due to the advent of Modernity).

[resilientrecoveryministries]

Reminded me of me in high-school. I hated and feared my more socially adequate peers. I felt myself above them (based on nothing at all) and yet craved their validation. It to me now that I really was superior, I'd have been more comfortable in my own skin and more compassionate to them.

[alizegolden]

For those talking crazy about her review can you explain what you thought of the novel? You guys are just saying "You obviously didn't get it or stick to girlie novels" Then help her understand.

[rinkachui]

I enjoy the book. Reminds me that I can easily go down that path of I'm not careful.

[MrSilvaEnglishLiterature]

I'm currently reading this book and writing a reading journal. The Underground Man is a very interesting character... And all that "sublime and beautiful" stuff, "his" philosophy of taking pleasure in feeling pain and ailing others with his own pain... He surely is a representative of a generation still living.
Great video! Cheers from Brazil!

[slmiller]

I shared many of same thoughts and concepts you pulled out of this reading experience.