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    Notes from Underground
    Notes from Underground
    Notes from Underground
    Ebook157 pages2 hours

    Notes from Underground

    By Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Mint Editions

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    “It may seem paradoxical to speak of such insights as liberating, or to find in the Underground Man’s impassioned rejection of rational humanitarianism a call to arms. Yet each age we live through as individuals demands a certain kind of book- just as each era thieves the last with a magpie’s lust for the gewgaws of thought. Oddly enough, now I come to look at Notes again- and examine it in the round- I discover that my revised impression of it as a text at once jejune and cynical, callow as well as wise, is not, perhaps, too far from reality.” -Will Self

    ““(Dostoevsky)... is the man more than any other who has created modern prose, and intensified it to its present-day pitch.” -James Joyce

    Notes from the Underground is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ninth novel, and considered to be one of the first examples of the existential novel. In this radically inventive work, an alienated former minor administrator in nineteenth-century Russia has broken away from society and withdrawn into an underground identity. With its piercing insight into political, social, and moral issues, this classic is one of the most provocative work of literature ever written.

    In the first half of the novel, the unnamed narrator, a cynical recluse in 1860’s St. Petersburg, attacks the ideologies of inherent laws of self-interest; he is crippled with self-loathing, and bound by his contempt of certain political attitudes of his day. He welcomes any psychic or physical pain in his life as he believe it rails against the complacency of modern society. The second half, entitled “Apropos of the Wet Snow”, the narrator relates his alienated relationships he experiences with others, including old school chums and a prostitute named Liza, who is only demeaned in his misanthropic mind. A singular document of the depravity of human consciousness, this is one of the most powerful pieces of literature ever written.

    With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Notes from the Underground is both modern and readable.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMint Editions
    Release dateOct 6, 2020
    ISBN9781513268149
    Author

    Fyodor Dostoyevsky

    Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) was a Russian novelist and philosopher whose works examined the human psyche of the nineteenth century. Dostoyevsky is considered one of the greatest writers in world literature, with titles such as Crime and Punishment; Notes from Underground, one of the first existential novellas ever written; and Poor Folk, Russia’s first “social novel.”

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    Reviews for Notes from Underground

    4/5

    2,519 ratings31 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Seems to be pretty standard for Fyodor's protagonists to confuse agonizing and obsessing over things with being intelligent and cultured.
    • 4/5
      The story of a man that goes through his life and no one seems to notice him. On the few occasions that they do he feels compelled to drive them away with his self loathing.. I think many people do live lives similar to the protagonist here that become reclusive and spiteful and don't realize that many of their problems that bring on themselves. As always with Dostoevsky the writing is beautiful as well as painful to read. An existential nowhere man living a life of terrible insignificance.
    • 5/5
      My favourite Dostoyevsky and have read several times.
    • 5/5
      Amazing how he can twist and turn a thought from nowhere and make it grow into a full blown psychological drama.
    • 4/5
      Notes from the Underground. Fyodor Dostoevsky. 1993. I tried to like this book, but, alas, I didn’t. I know it is a classic and that people far smarter than I am think it is a great novel. It was just an ordeal to get through. If you want to read Dostoevsky, try Crime and Punishment first.
    • 5/5
      A sublimely important book.
    • 3/5
      This particular copy of mine has a handful of short stories within it. There are a few pieces that were quite depressing and very fitting as Dostoyevsky works. This was a book that I had to teach to my sophomores when I was teaching 10th grade English and I can't say it had the kids very riveted unfortunately.
    • 5/5
      With the opening sentences: "Dostoevsky introduces the unifying idea of his tale: the instability, the perpetual 'dialectic' of isolated consciousness". - Richard Pevear in the introduction.

      I've read two other translations. This one is excellent. It was like seeing an old friend with new clothes, ones that fit better and were complementary.
    • 4/5
      An entertaining at times critique of philosophy such as rationalism among others, overall not my cup of tea.
    • 3/5
      Possibly the first existential novel (novella). The unnamed writer, 40 years old, tells us he is writing to no one but argues that man must choose (free will) and will choose not to live by logic and in fact will choose against logic. The second part, gives us the background of the writer and how he ended up underground. Then the very end, we learn that even this has been edited and we the reader do not know what is the truth. Rating 3.43.
    • 2/5
      Yeah yeah I know this is "important" or whatever, it's also kind of annoying. But hey, you won't find a bigger fan of "Crime and Punishment" than me.
    • 5/5
      This is a fantastic book that addresses the question of "what is the self?". The underground man can only represent us who find ourselves lost and unsure yet despised by our own ineptitude. For those who have not yet to begin exploring "what a self is" or "what and why makes the self?" I highly suggest you start here.
    • 3/5
      I can see what it is that literary critics like about this book but I found that it required a bit more concentration than I was willing to give it.
    • 5/5
      A terrifying look into one man's confession. The end is more haunting after you have swam through his thoughts at the start of the story.
    • 5/5
      You can't help getting drawn into Dostoyevsky's "Notes from Underground" as you follow the rantings of a spiteful, bitter person. Dostoyevsky has created a character whose every action leads to his own self-destruction, pain and alienation from others.
    • 4/5
      For such a short work I was finding this hard going until I realised the problem was with my mindset and over reverent reading of Russian literature. When I realised it was a comedy and worked out something of the Russian sense of humour it all clicked - it's viciously funny enough to anticipate the satire boom of the mid 20th century. Still have problems with the sort of existentialist viewpoint presented here, but at least Dostoyevsky's wit makes it enjoyably palatable.
    • 3/5
      This was decent, but I felt that there was a certain sense of lacking from the second part of the novel that did not make it as interesting and worthwhile as the first. I expected there to be somewhat more of a reveal and that I was set up for something great that never really happened. That was a bit of a letdown, but the book is nonetheless still worthwhile for those who like Dostoyevsky and Russian literature-- as well as classics.3 stars.
    • 5/5
      All of Dostoyevsky's novels are works of genius, but, as far as I am concerned, this is the best one of them all.
    • 2/5
      What a horrible person -- sad, sick, poisonous. If this guy is supposed to be a metaphor for modern man, what's the point of going on?
    • 3/5
      This guy is batcrap crazy. I don't think I'd ever want him as a friend (though I guarantee I would be his friend, because I seem to attract crazy), but he's certainly amusing to watch/listen to.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book, especially the first part. the writer, the underground man see that the old ideas and values no longer offer the lessons we need to live life in a honest and full way. However the undergrond man also sees that the "new age" approach is no better. He hopes of a soluntion but is afraid there is no solution
    • 3/5
      I preferred the second half of this one to the first half, which is philosophical rambling more than a story.
    • 5/5
      There are some truly brilliant moments in the book that took me completely by surprise, and I was always excited when I had the chance to pick it back up to read after having to put it down.
    • 3/5
      Vrijmoedige monoloog van een eigenzinnig, arrogant en wispelturig man. Het eerste deel is absoluut een sleutel tot het hele oeuvre van Dostojevski, het tweede deel doet erg gogoliaans aan. Onderliggende boodschap: de verscheurde moderne mens als gevolg van het wetenschappelijk positivisme.Eerste lectuur toen ik 17 jaar was, onmiddellijk herkend als sleutelroman
    • 4/5
      Possibly the only book Dostoevsky wrote which leaves me wanting more. I guess that's what happens when you go for 130 pages instead of 800. There's not much to say, except that I really think this isn't over-rated, and I had so many uncomfortable moments of self-recognition that I was scared to think what an a-hole I am. Chilling.
    • 4/5
      Typically Dostoyevskian black humour and sense of angst. Themes of the admiribility of conscienceless evil, and free will. His protagonist insists that we do not operate by some calculus of our best interests, and that it is an essential part of being human that we exercise our right not to operate in such a mathematical way.
    • 5/5
      painful articulation of the internal side of a self marginalized person
    • 4/5
      A remarkably upsetting book narrated by an awful character
    • 3/5
      Ahead of its time, deeply psychological, and enhanced by a crafty translation, this Dostoevsky novella is a brilliant precursor to the Modernist Age of literature.
    • 3/5
      I read this for #1001Books, and did not care too much for this one by Dostoevsky -- Underground Man (unnamed protagonist) does ramble on and on! Perhaps I would have appreciated this more with a different translation. Not long after, I read Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and loved it.

    Book preview

    Notes from Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

    PART 1

    Chapter 1

    I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don’t consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of course, I can’t explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot pay out the doctors by not consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don’t consult a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad, well—let it get worse!

    I have been going on like that for a long time—twenty years. Now I am forty. I used to be in the government service, but am no longer. I was a spiteful official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. I did not take bribes, you see, so I was bound to find a recompense in that, at least. (A poor jest, but I will not scratch it out. I wrote it thinking it would sound very witty; but now that I have seen myself that I only wanted to show off in a despicable way, I will not scratch it out on purpose!)

    When petitioners used to come for information to the table at which I sat, I used to grind my teeth at them, and felt intense enjoyment when I succeeded in making anybody unhappy. I almost did succeed. For the most part they were all timid people—of course, they were petitioners. But of the uppish ones there was one officer in particular I could not endure. He simply would not be humble, and clanked his sword in a disgusting way. I carried on a feud with him for eighteen months over that sword. At last I got the better of him. He left off clanking it. That happened in my youth, though.

    But do you know, gentlemen, what was the chief point about my spite? Why, the whole point, the real sting of it lay in the fact that continually, even in the moment of the acutest spleen, I was inwardly conscious with shame that I was not only not a spiteful but not even an embittered man, that I was simply scaring sparrows at random and amusing myself by it. I might foam at the mouth, but bring me a doll to play with, give me a cup of tea with sugar in it, and maybe I should be appeased. I might even be genuinely touched, though probably I should grind my teeth at myself afterwards and lie awake at night with shame for months after. That was my way.

    I was lying when I said just now that I was a spiteful official. I was lying from spite. I was simply amusing myself with the petitioners and with the officer, and in reality I never could become spiteful. I was conscious every moment in myself of many, very many elements absolutely opposite to that. I felt them positively swarming in me, these opposite elements. I knew that they had been swarming in me all my life and craving some outlet from me, but I would not let them, would not let them, purposely would not let them come out. They tormented me till I was ashamed: they drove me to convulsions and—sickened me, at last, how they sickened me! Now, are not you fancying, gentlemen, that I am expressing remorse for something now, that I am asking your forgiveness for something? I am sure you are fancying that… However, I assure you I do not care if you are…

    It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything. Yes, a man in the nineteenth century must and morally ought to be pre-eminently a characterless creature; a man of character, an active man is pre-eminently a limited creature. That is my conviction of forty years. I am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows. I tell all old men that to their face, all these venerable old men, all these silver-haired and reverend seniors! I tell the whole world that to its face! I have a right to say so, for I shall go on living to sixty myself. To seventy! To eighty! … Stay, let me take breath…

    You imagine no doubt, gentlemen, that I want to amuse you. You are mistaken in that, too. I am by no means such a mirthful person as you imagine, or as you may imagine; however, irritated by all this babble (and I feel that you are irritated) you think fit to ask me who I am—then my answer is, I am a collegiate assessor. I was in the service that I might have something to eat (and solely for that reason), and when last year a distant relation left me six thousand roubles in his will I immediately retired from the service and settled down in my corner. I used to live in this corner before, but now I have settled down in it. My room is a wretched, horrid one in the outskirts of the town. My servant is an old country-woman, ill-natured from stupidity, and, moreover, there is always a nasty smell about her. I am told that the Petersburg climate is bad for me, and that with my small means it is very expensive to live in Petersburg. I know all that better than all these sage and experienced counsellors and monitors… But I am remaining in Petersburg; I am not going away from Petersburg! I am not going away because… ech! Why, it is absolutely no matter whether I am going away or not going away.

    But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure?

    Answer: Of himself.

    Well, so I will talk about myself.

    Chapter 2

    I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not, why I could not even become an insect. I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness—a real thorough-going illness. For man’s everyday needs, it would have been quite enough to have the ordinary human consciousness, that is, half or a quarter of the amount which falls to the lot of a cultivated man of our unhappy nineteenth century, especially one who has the fatal ill-luck to inhabit Petersburg, the most theoretical and intentional town on the whole terrestrial globe. (There are intentional and unintentional towns.) It would have been quite enough, for instance, to have the consciousness by which all so-called direct persons and men of action live. I bet you think I am writing all this from affectation, to be witty at the expense of men of action; and what is more, that from ill-bred affectation, I am clanking a sword like my officer. But, gentlemen, whoever can pride himself on his diseases and even swagger over them?

    Though, after all, everyone does do that; people do pride themselves on their diseases, and I do, may be, more than anyone. We will not dispute it; my contention was absurd. But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease. I stick to that. Let us leave that, too, for a minute. Tell me this: why does it happen that at the very, yes, at the very moments when I am most capable of feeling every refinement of all that is sublime and beautiful, as they used to say at one time, it would, as though of design, happen to me not only to feel but to do such ugly things, such that… Well, in short, actions that all, perhaps, commit; but which, as though purposely, occurred to me at the very time when I was most conscious that they ought not to be committed. The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was sublime and beautiful, the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether. But the chief point was that all this was, as it were, not accidental in me, but as though it were bound to be so. It was as though it were my most normal condition, and not in the least disease or depravity, so that at last all desire in me to struggle against this depravity passed. It ended by my almost believing (perhaps actually believing) that this was perhaps my normal condition. But at first, in the beginning, what agonies I endured in that struggle! I did not believe it was the same with other people, and all my life I hid this fact about myself as a secret. I was ashamed (even now, perhaps, I am ashamed): I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret abnormal, despicable enjoyment in returning home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night, acutely conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome action again, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing, gnawing at myself for it, tearing and consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and at last—into positive real enjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! I insist upon that. I have spoken of this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment? I will explain; the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one’s own degradation; it was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.

    And the worst of it was, and the root of it all, that it was all in accord with the normal fundamental laws of over-acute consciousness, and with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws, and that consequently one was not only unable to change but could do absolutely nothing. Thus it would follow, as the result of acute consciousness, that one is not to blame in being a scoundrel; as though that were any consolation to the scoundrel once he has come to realise that he actually is a scoundrel. But enough… Ech, I have talked a lot of nonsense, but what have I explained? How is enjoyment in this to be explained? But I will explain it. I will get to the bottom of it! That is why I have taken up my pen…

    I, for instance, have a great deal of AMOUR PROPRE. I am as suspicious and prone to take offence as a humpback or a dwarf. But upon my word I sometimes have had moments when if I had happened to be slapped in the face I should, perhaps, have been positively glad of it. I say, in earnest, that I should probably have been able to discover even in that a peculiar sort of enjoyment—the enjoyment, of course, of despair; but in despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one’s position. And when one is slapped in the face—why then the consciousness of being rubbed into a pulp would positively overwhelm one. The worst of it is, look at it which way one will, it still turns out that I was always the most to blame in everything. And what is most humiliating of all, to blame for no fault of my own but, so to say, through the laws of nature. In the first place, to blame because I am cleverer than any of the people surrounding me. (I have always considered myself cleverer than any of the people surrounding me,

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