Notes From Underground | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | find yourself in the Underground Man

Notes From Underground | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | Correction

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Notes From Undergr...

	Notes From Underground Fyodor Dostoyevsky Signet Classics, 2004 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 136 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

find yourself in the Underground Man

Notes from the Underground is to the human psyche what an X-ray is to the human body. It strips away all the pretense, all the makeup, all the masks we are so accustomed to, exposing the bare, raw flesh of humanity.

In the novel, a nameless man attempts to write a truly honest account of himself and of certain events in his life. He is the Underground Man, as I shall call him, an introspective, overly-conscious, pathetic wretch paralyzed by his own too-clever mind. He knows what he is - a 'sick man' - and what he is not - definable. He doesn't fit in to any category; he doesn't belong anywhere.

The Underground Man has one deep, desperate longing: to be loved. Throughout the book he strives to gain acceptance, affirmation, or even acknowledgement as as human being. Instead, he is ignored, unwanted, treated as merely a presence, not a person. He is desperate to find meaning in a world that, frankly, doesn't care.

At first glance, the actions and thoughts of the Underground Man might strike one as odd, irrational, and even sick. Here is a man apart, we think, an absolute freak. But if we dare to look closer, we make a shocking discovery. We are the Underground Man. He is all of us. We all desire to be loved, wanted, accepted. We want somebody to notice us, to value us. The Underground Man merely takes this desire to an extreme that most of us, at least, dare not.

Notes from the Underground is both a mirror and a flashlight: it shows us what we are, and it brings to light all the things we try to keep in the darkness. "There are . . . things," writes the Underground Man, "which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind." Beware: reading Notes from the Underground may bring some of your secrets to light.

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Correction

A correction to "J. Thomas"'s comment below: Dostoevsky was not a Catholic, but an Orthodox Christian. Anyone who reads his larger works or his own personal writings knows very well how he felt about Catholicism, and why he thought Orthodoxy was the true faith, "the faith which has established the cosmos" (as we Orthodox declared yesterday on the Sunday of Orthodoxy.)

Besides for that, he is correct. Dostoevsky is a Christian author, an Orthodox author, and his entire work is permeated with the understanding that ideas can possess and kill, and only personal love, personal experience, personal suffering and sacrifice can save someone from the poison of ideology. His phronema (worldview) is uniquely Orthodox in his assertion that all ideas fall away into nothingness in view of the Incarnation-- which is to say the incarnation of God as man. The answer to bad ideas is not good ideas but the authoritative human image of Christ.

_Notes from the Underground_, especially in the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation, is fantastic. It is also very interesting to see how what he started in this book developed in books like _Crime in Punishment_ later on.

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Master At Work

You cannot help but wonder at Dostoevsky's brilliance. With such an extraordinary style, decades ahead of its time, it is no wonder his contemporary critics got it all wrong. No, the underground man is not comparable to its author; this only shows the depth of the author's grasp into the intricate labyrinth of man's psyche. I believe Dostoevsky's understanding of human behaviour is superior to many so-called classic psychologists with theories and countless volumes on the subject, and this book demonstrates it. The book is exceptional, but I wouldn't suggest this translation, it is somewhat hackneyed.

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Major misanthropy

The lonely and desolate protagonist has long been a target of authors. IN Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky births the landmark and premier loner novella. Dostoyevsky starts the literary franchise off with a bang. Often, an author will use a lack of a particular aspect of fiction to develop that same aspect. For instance, in Samuel Beckett's play, "Waiting for Godot," the characters literally sit around and wait for an enigmatic man named Godot. Godot never appears, but his coming paralyzes the play's plot but simultaneously drives it. In Notes from Underground, the same device is used in the character realm. The stark stratum of characters is dotted mainly by the narrator who goes unnamed and anonymous. Very little details are revealed to the audience, yet the inner-most ramblings and misanthropic threads are spilled all over the pages. The narrator sees people only as small insignificant ants and develops little to no discernable characters. This very idea fuels Dostoyevsky's existential philosophy and psychological point. He uses humor as a cruel device to lash out at the same world that has left him a withered old misanthrope. The novella is formed by its clear lack of development and simplistic view of life. Woody Allen once summarized in a joke: "Life is miserable, painful, irrational, tortuous and over much too quickly. Dostoyevsky's story served as a cultural magnet, inspiring such followers in both film and literature like Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese.

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pr, Beth B

"I am a sick man...I am a wicked man." Dostoevsky thus commences an incredible war, a war within a man. The nameless character is meant to be associated with everyone. He is apart of us all in our deepest, darkest hour. He constantly contradicts himself, making no sense and confusing the reader, yet doesn't that perfectly describe unjust anger? It is vile and contradictory. It goes against all that we know to be true and just, yet we still allow this contradiction to occur. Even when the character is confronted with the love and truth in the form of a woman named Liza, he insults her and shoves her love back in her face. It is incredibly irrational. This is because he looks at everything through a cracked door.
He is close-minded, which is the mother of his irrationality. He is too afraid that if he opens the door that everyone will see him and laugh. This is an insecurity that we all face. Everyone is afraid to let others in because that leaves room for hurt. But, without hurt, can we ever know true joy?

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