Notes From Underground and the Grand Inquisitor

by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ralph E. Matlaw (translator)

Vintage paperback

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Russia, Philosophy, Russian Literature, Religion

252 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский (Russian)

Works, such as the novels Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), of Russian writer Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky or Dostoevski combine religious mysticism with profound psychological insight.

Very influential writings of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin included Problems of Dostoyevsky's Works (1929),

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky composed short stories, essays, and journals. His literature explores humans in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century and engages with a variety of philosophies and themes. People most acclaimed his Demons(1872) .

Many literary critics rate him among the greatest authors of world literature and consider multiple books written by him to be highly influential masterpieces. They consider his Notes from Underground of the first existentialist literature. He is also well regarded as a philosopher and theologian.

(Russian: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский) (see also Fiodor Dostoïevski)

Reviews

[Jim Elkins]

What is Psychological Complexity?

Why revisit "Notes from Underground" now? First, because the psychology of the first part, in particular, is so complex that it continues to evade readers. I know I did not understand much of what the narrator was proposing when I first read “Notes from Underground” in high school or college, and I was curious how much sense it could make to me now. In particular I wondered if it could be a model for psychological complexity in contemporary fiction.

Second, it is interesting to consider a book as influential as this while thinking of at least some of the many authors that influenced it and were influenced by it. For me that very crowded field raises questions of reading: how is it possible to comprehend an authorial voice, or a narrator’s perspective, in a book that is the confluence of so many writers’ voices?

1. What is psychological complexity in a novel? And how might "Notes from Underground" be exemplary of such complexity?

I dimly recall from my first reading of “Notes from Underground” in high school or college that I couldn’t quite put myself in the narrator’s place: I couldn’t understand how he reasoned, or feel things the way he did. In part that’s a theme of the book, but the imaginary “gentlemen” who are addressed throughout do understand what the narrator is saying, even if they think his ideas are ridiculous. I remember I didn’t even understand why the “gentlemen” would laugh or object or argue (as the narrator supposes) at certain points. There were many tell-tale signs that I was not fully understanding the personality that was being presented to me.

It turns out I wasn’t alone. There is still an active literature on what Dostoevsky intended, and what his principal concepts are meant to signify. I think a fair number of conscientious readers still have difficulty understanding the narrator’s psychological state and his beliefs, and in distinguishing those from the author’s. (Several recent scholars just propose the narrator is identical to the author.) “Notes from Underground” has, in this sense, an exemplary psychological complexity. It might even represent a certain limit of complexity for the novel. (In that respect it is significant that the book’s first part departs from the novel form in the direction of the political or psychological treatise, as if the novel form weren’t sufficient for the ideas.)

Two remarks on the secondary literature before I continue. An example of the kind of misunderstanding I think still exists in the literature is Alina Wyman’s essay “The Specter of Freedom: ressentiment and Dostoevskij’s Notes from Underground” (Springer Verlag, online, 2007). She mentions scholars who connect the theme of resentment in “Notes from Underground” with Nietzsche’s ressentiment, but she prefers Max Scheler’s Nature of Sympathy (1954), which “sees the origin of this moral malady in the perversion of Christ’s teachings rather than in His original message, as Nietzsche does.” (Nietzsche would have hated Scheler! The very idea that ressentiment can be remade into a gateway to Christian faith, or that “the most effective preventive remedy against ressentiment” is forgiveness, go against the entire diagnosis of Christianity in Nietzsche’s account.) Wyman is interested in proposing the author of “Notes from Underground” as a Christian apologist: the text, she writes, “turns our attention to the ‘costs’ of the Christian ideal: in a world exposed to the ultimate horizon of desire through Christ, those lacking the serenity of faith may be doomed to the merciless torment of ressentiment.” But surely this is not in “Notes from Underground”: it can be read, retrospectively, back from Crime and Punishment, but that is a reading from the outside—from above ground. The narrator has both the philosophic bent of Ivan Karamazov and the "Smerdyakovism" of Smerdyakov in "The Brothers Karamazov"--that is, a pointless perverse systematic evil--but little of Alyosha's redemptive spirituality. ("Smerdyakovism" comes from an excellent piece by Kostica Bradatan, Los Angeles Review of Books, July 31, 2014.)

In the earlier literature, “Notes from Underground” seems to have been itself underground. (Perhaps someone who knows the history of the reception of individual Dostoevsky texts can help me with this.) Scholars were interested in Dostoevsky’s politics and his Christianity, and “Notes from Underground” did not fit those themes. “Humility is the first and foremost virtue for Dostoevsky,” according to George Strem (Russian Review, January 1957), who only mentions “Notes from Underground” once, in passing. It makes sense that Marmeladov, in Crime and Punishment, “seeks self-debasement with an almost masochistic abandon, for it is his way of atoning… for his sins,” Strem says, but that kind of explanation wouldn’t work with “Notes from Underground.”

So what constitutes psychological complexity in this text? It isn’t the anti-utopian polemic, which has been well studied; and I hope it isn’t the narrator’s tendency to claim things he’s said aren’t true, because iterated self-doubt exists much more extensively in Beckett. Complexity could be said to be the effect of the different concepts Dostoevsky has his narrator introduce, one after another, in the form of a philosophic treatise—but for me, enumerable concepts are not in themselves a source of complexity, even though they become complex when their connections begin to appear.

Here are two proposals for how complexity arises.

First, complexity appears when the first numbered section moves quickly through five or six propositions: the narrator is spiteful; he knows he is neither spiteful nor even embittered; he knows he cannot actually have any qualities; he asserts that “intelligent” people can never have qualities (they can never “become anything”); and finally, that nineteenth-century men “must and morally ought” to be “characterless.” Those are all different states of mind, and they are not presented as simultaneously present in the narrator’s mind: they aren’t successive insights, but views on a problem that might recur, in any order. This is the fourth of William Empson’s seven types of ambiguity: a complicated state of mind that is revealed by a number of mutually contradictory or incompatible ideas, which are not all present in the author’s mind at any one time. If the exposition here—which is typical of the first part of “Notes from Underground”—is understood as a partly randomly ordered succession of thoughts that are themselves never fully present in the narrator’s mind, then there is no possibility of fully understanding the ideas proposed in the text, and also, at the same time, no possibility of achieving an orderly partial understanding.

Second, it is psychologically complex when, in the second numbered section, the narrator says he is firmly convinced that “every kind of consciousness” (including, by implication, the five or six states of awareness of spite and character in the opening numbered section) is a “disease.” That is, on the face of it, a condemnation of anything the book might contain: but before he can develop the thought, he says he will “leave it… for a minute,” and he poses a question to the reader: why is it, he wants to know, that when he is most susceptible to feeling “the sublime and beautiful” (in scare quotes in the English, as if he doubts them altogether), that he finds himself also capable of the most “ugly” thoughts and actions? A reader will want to guess the answer is spite, because that is the quality the narrator introduced in the opening section: but what makes this complex is not that spite is the wrong answer, but that the question has occurred to the narrator at all, especially just after he has made his claim about consciousness. As the section develops, it turns out that self-loathing, bitterness, and an overly intense awareness of degradation can become sources of pleasure, and that theme is the one that ends up being developed in the short novel that is part two of “Notes from Underground.” But again, that isn’t in any obvious way an answer to his question about how ugly sentiments arise from the possibility of “the sublime and beautiful,” and it isn’t clearly related to the opening idea about consciousness and disease. The ideas are all related, and it is possible just to read through this and the following sections, noting the themes and concepts: but the narrator’s way of thinking here is, I think, extremely difficult to follow. It has an illogic (really, almost a sort of dementia) that is different in kind from the themes that are being proposed, and that contrast—between ideas that are individually problematic and connections between them that are difficult to grasp—is a second source of complexity.

Neither of these two sources of complexity seems to bother the scholars I have read, who are more interested in ressentiment, spite, divided consciousness (see Aileen Kelly, on Slavic Review, summer 1988), character, cleverness, cowardice, pride, boredom and ennui (section 5), laziness (section 6), perversity (section 7, for example), utopias, and so forth. The secondary literature seems mostly concerned with philosophemes, constrainable concepts, and political and religious positions. Those are all important, and to a large degree they can be extracted from the text and discussed individually. But the text itself is of another order. It is, I think, a model of psychological complexity even for the contemporary novel, and it is so for reasons like the two I have given, not for ressentiment, character, and so on.

As an appendix to this sketch I want to register skepticism about another common reading, which has it that "Notes from Underground" is a record of endless thinking, structureless meditations, wandering directionless ideas and impressions. The more I read the book, the less I see of that. It is tightly directed by an intense desire to make sense. It's a matter of how much energy and attention a reader can bring to bear.


2. How is it possible to read a book that is the confluence of so many writers' voices? Can such a book be read, or is it more a matter of listening in on simultaneous conversations?

Some of the voices that echo in the book belong to philosophers. Schopenhauer is present whenever the narrator speaks about his will, blind will, the will of the masses. Nietzsche is anticipated—not only his readings of Dostoevsky, but his criticism of Schopenhauer—whenever the narrator speaks of overcoming or resentment (more on that later). This book was clearly important to Kafka: the underground man is continuously shivering, blushing, hypersensitive, insecure, haunted. I also think of Kafka when I laugh, nervously, at the outrageous self-destructive things the narrator says, especially toward the end when he uses a sequence of what might be called the world’s worst pick-up lines on a woman he ends up rejecting anyway. I don’t think Musil would have been possible without the underground man’s “characterless” life. Poe is in the background of passages about the narrator’s “cave,” and his haunted life. Freud comes to mind whenever the narrator wonders how much of his life can ever be understood, and when he speaks against reason and rationality. I hear Thomas Bernhard (I mean of course Dostoevsky’s influence on him) whenever the narrator rants and rages in unstoppable pages of prose. (“In the next room two gloomy, angry-looking persons were eating their dinners in silence…. one could hear… nasty little shrieks in French: there were ladies at the dinner. It was sickening.”) I hear Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke in the narrator’s reminiscences of his abysmal school experiences. And then of course there are the Utopian philosophers Dostoevsky was writing against, and the Russian, English, and French contemporaries he was outdoing. James Wood proposes "Rameau's Nephew" as a source, and he also thinks Stendhal's Julien in "The Red and the Black" is a model. The list could be enormous: the book is crowded with voices.

I wonder if the only way to read such a book is as a palimpsest, or as a Bakhtin-style dialogue. The very presence of so many voices, however, makes the search for the author’s voice more pressing. The tendency, I think, is for the author’s voice to be forced into a void: it appears as the opposite of all the other voices, or as the remainder when the other voices are subtracted. (I would note in passing that this problem cannot be adequately resolved by reading the book as a conversation among many writers’ and philosophers’ voices. That kind of reading gives up on the pressure the text itself has exerted on history. It would not be an echo chamber if its author’s voice had not been so strong.)

For me, Dostoevsky’s voice comes out most strongly when I consider the architecture of the text. It has a famously odd structure: the first part is a philosophic treatise in a confessional mode (that anticipates, for example, Nietzsche’s later books), and the second is a short novel or a long story that appears, inevitably, to illustrate the first part. This strange double structure—philosophy undermined by a confessional voice, confessional novel undermined by philosophy—appears, by default, as Dostoevsky’s own. I also hear Dostoevsky in the entangled flow of his thoughts, which isn’t the same as any of the writers I’ve mentioned: but I am aware that if I were to write at length on that trait, my analysis would appear as the opposite of whatever models, precedents, and standards contrast against it. In my search for something that might count as Dostoevsky’s voice in “Notes from Underground,” I also think of his other novels (an unavoidable, if only partly legitimate, way of approaching the problem), and biographies such as the stupendous book by Lenid Typskin (I have remarks on that on this site). This search becomes even more of a conundrum when I realize that the problem of finding the author’s voice is very common, because it also happens in weak or average novels, written by mediocre authors whose voices are the sum total of their influences. Here, where Dostoevsky’s voice was the opposite of anything weak or undefined—it was enormously influential as a voice, and continues to be—the number of authors influenced by the book creates a facsimile of the same problem. I do not have a good answer to this second problem.

[Josh Karaczewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this was published today, "The Asshole" might be an appropriate title for its mercurial, unpleasant, unreliable narrator. Ever wonder why that guy in the office is so mean, and always revels in bringing everybody down? This book will give you some insight into what might be going on in that asshole's head. It may not help you to sympathize with him, but it could turn some of your annoyance to pity.

A demanding read that will require you to reread sections for understanding (I certainly had to), this book was dense, but short enough that it didn't get beyond the "I want to continue reading" point to the "I just need to slog through and finish" point.

Reading as a writer, this book was a valuable study in character - on their motivations and contradictions, and how they are driven to self-abusive, unreasonable actions.

[Paul Gaya Ochieng Simeon Juma · Rating 5 out of 5]

There at times when am sitted watching a movie with my pals and midway through I want to abandon it. At that point, one of my friends who has had the opportunity to watch the movie before advises me to be patient, the action has not yet started.

A reader of Dostoevsky's novels must always be patient to enjoy his books.

Here's another masterpiece of his. Notes from underground, the story of a retired civil servant who is trying to find love and happiness among his friends.

The book is deeply philosophical and psychological. This makes the book one of the best books in my shelf.

I highly recommend this book to all fans of russian literature.

The grand inquisitor is an excerpt from Dostoyevsky's novel 'the brothers karamazov', which I have read.

[Davvybrookbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is surely the most important book I have read this year. Dostoevsky’s deplorable narrator in Notes from Underground has been entwined throughout so many great works I have read over the last few years. A few of many that surfaced during reading are to Nabokov’s unreliable narrator in Pale Fire, to James Joyce’s Ulysses in particular regarding the conversation with the prostitute, to Huysmans Against Nature as it responds to Romanticism and decadence, to Kafka’s Metamorphosis with our man’s alienation and detachment from society, to Jon Fosse’s deranged, misogynistic artist narrator in Melancholia I, and many more. All are derivatives and clearly influenced by the ‘underground’ unconscious development by Dostoevsky. It is his psychological power to recognize man’s irrationality, man’s inner torment, man’s fall from social grace and estrangement from polite society. These are no longer must be seen as his moral or religious failings, though surely many will view him through such a lens. Another view, like many of the references above begin to frame the man’s destabilization, his vanity, and his difficulty of seeing himself as part of society as a result of poor mental health, and in particular of social anxiety and status anxiety.

The part on the anthill, chicken coop and crystal palace emerges as a discourse of three models of utopian society presented in the first part. It must be revisited after completing the second part as nothing makes much sense upon the first reading.

Man is irrational, capricious; he refuses to be categorized and limited, precisely because he is a man. The narrator scoffs and rails at "two times two makes four," "the wall," "piano key," the recurrent abstractions that stand for rationalism and scientific determinism, as they indicate to him an inhumanity, a reduction of the will, a finality that signifies death. He finds further symbols for man's social organization in three communal organizations: the anthill, the chicken coop and the crystal palace.

[Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think my brain is melted but I don't care about my brain anymore so I think it worked.

[♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5

[Alex Lopez · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What's better? Cheap happiness or exalted sufferings?" That will stick with me for a long time. Such a clear picture of how important it is to be honest with ourselves. Everybody to some extent is suffering an internal battle one way or another. Thank you Dostoyevsky

[Jess Tangri · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a lot that could be said about this book, and the brilliance behind every part, but what I felt the most during this was the sewers of humankind - the darkest flaws and the simplest traits in our psychology - rejection, hatred, self vilification, projection, loathing, pity, righteousness. If you focus on the character himself as just a character, and not a mirror into the soul of society then you will probably be very frustrated and pretty indignant at the end of this book, but are we not all our own unreliable narrators?

[Corbett Buchly · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's great about this volume is it not only provides an invaluable introduction but also an appendix that includes other relevant works, all of which inform the context into which Notes fits philosophically and in terms of the literary politics. In this work, I've found a Dostoevsky that is a very clever writer, who can deftly hide his ideas within unlikable characters. I've found a philosopher that I sometimes agree with, but by whom I am always entertained. While some of the thinking in these works may be dated, much of it is still very relevant to modern society, and the ideas of individualism, brotherhood, connection to nature vs. the disease of the soul that comes from living without nature, and equality.

[Ben Helzner · Rating 4 out of 5]

me when I'm not the chief sufferer: "I was, of course, myself the chief sufferer, because I was fully conscious of the disgusting meanness of my spiteful stupidity"

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narrator of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground may well be one of the most self-aware unreliable narrators in literature. The anonymous narrator of the story does not necessarily possess self-awareness in general, but he is aware that he is unreliable, and indeed he practically boasts about it.

The average unreliable narrator is either trying to deliberately deceive the reader, or is deceived him/herself. This may be self-deception or it may be ignorance about what is really going on. In Notes from the Underground, the narrator revels in making statements about himself that he immediately contradicts, and sometimes immediately reaffirms.

This constantly fluctuating viewpoint is occasionally tiresome to read, and it creates uncertainty about how far Dostoevsky identifies with the arguments expressed. I suspect that this most ambiguous of authors enjoyed spinning a web of uncertainty around his own beliefs, which changed so much over the years as to create an identity crisis within himself.

The story falls in two parts. In Part One, the narrator introduces himself, and expresses his opinions about nature, rationalism and hyper-consciousness. Part Two finally coalesces into some sort of storyline, as the narrator describes three incidents in his life.

He seeks to insult a soldier he dislikes, but his efforts are barely noticed. He invites himself to the leaving party of a friend where he makes himself unpleasant. Finally he visits a prostitute, and seeks to rescue her. However when she visits his shabby apartment, she realises that he is more deserving of pity than her, so this spiteful and insignificant man is cruel to her and drives her away.

Despite its episodic structure and mercurial narrator, the story does have a purpose to it. Dostoevsky had turned his back on his early liberal and rational ideals, and Notes from Underground represents an attack on those beliefs.

As the anonymous narrator argues, the problem with the scientific approach to life is that it risks reducing human beings to mere instruments without any self-will, performing the only rational function that is available to them. Human beings have a natural tendency to rebel against any attempt to turn them into mere organ stops. The desire for free will is important, even if this means the freedom to suffer and behave badly.

The structure of the book reflects this wish to fight for the freedom to behave or misbehave according to irrational impulses. It explains the narrator’s constant recanting and reaffirming of certain viewpoints. This is a jumble of confused thoughts, not a logical, orderly process.

It also accounts for the three incidents in Part Two, where the narrator behaves badly and in a self-destructive manner. Our ‘hero’ is an unpleasant man because he represents the unpleasant side of human nature, the ‘underground’ of our consciousness.

This is an important counterblast to the more naïve rationalism expressed by some liberals in Dostoevsky’s day. Those who wish to argue for the move towards a more functionalist society often have a tendency to underestimate that which is dysfunctional in human nature.

We are not all rational beings whose behaviour can be corrected with education and knowledge until we learn to become more perfect. We are destructive and self-destructive, governed as much by spite and self-loathing as we are by reason and logic.

Dosotevsky then understood that human nature is dysfunctional. Where I part ways with the author is in his wish to glorify this dysfunctionality. For Dostoevsky, it is better to have these irrational and destructive tendencies than for us to be rational, which he insists on regarding as a path that leads only to reducing us to machines.

It would not perhaps have been as bad if Dostoevsky was extolling irrational impulses that are helpful or worthy, or if he was acknowledging and trying to understand the dark unreasonable id in human nature, even as he deplores it. Instead he is almost celebrating it.

In doing so, Dostoevsky provides an apology for himself. Whatever the author’s good impulses, he had a strong irrational and self-destructive streak. He gambled recklessly and spent much of his life in debt. He fell out with friends regularly. He also supported those monstrously irrational structures, the Czarist monarchy and the Russian Church.

The result is a book that expresses a low opinion of human nature, even while showing compassion for its flaws. It has been said that Dostoevsky insisted on portraying all human beings as if they were fallen angels. It might be more accurately to say that he regarded them as sinful children who needed a strong authoritative touch.

This argument is expressed in ‘The Grand Inquisitor’, which is also included in my copy of Notes from Underground. There are a few shorter works for the Dostoevsky connoisseur, but I will dispense with those for this review.

‘The Grand Inquisitor’ is not an independent short story, but rather a story-within-a-story found in The Brothers Karamazov. As the writer of the Introduction to my book hastens to point out, ‘The Grand Inquisitor’ loses some of its meaning when taken out of the context of the larger book, where other narratives provide counterpoints.

However there is some value in reading it as a stand-alone work. When placed in a larger book, the chapter about ‘The Grand Inquisitor’ risks trying the patience of the reader by stopping the tale of the Karamazov brothers cold in favour of over 20 pages of dense theological discussion about Christ. Freed from the book, the reader has the chance to concentrate on this story by its own merits.

At first glance, the story appears to contradict Notes from Underground. It describes Jesus returning to earth during the Spanish Inquisition to look at his creation. He performs a number of miracles, but instead of being pleased The Grand Inquisitor arrests Christ, and locks him up in a cell.

The remainder of the story is a long speech by the Grand Inquisitor justifying his decision to incarcerate and possibly put to death his own god. The Inquisitor argues that Christ’s legacy has been iniquitous, and uses the three temptations of Christ by Satan as examples of Christ’s failure.

For the Inquisitor, the Devil is the hero because he asked Christ all the right questions, but Christ refused to answer them correctly. When Satan asked Christ to turn stones to bread, Christ refused because man cannot live by bread alone. The Inquisitor believes that this was a mistake because giving people earthly bread would enslave them to the church, but Christ gives them freedom instead.
The second temptation of the Devil was for Christ to throw himself off a cliff and be rescued by angels. Again the Inquisitor feels that Christ should have accepted this offer, as the human race needs mystification and miracles to bind them to the church, not free choice. Finally Satan offers Christ the chance to rule all the kingdoms of the world, but this, the Inquisitor believes is what Christ should have done – asserted his rule over everyone to begin with.

The pattern outlined here is that Christ offered people freedom to choose, and to behave well, but that this was wrong. Freedom only makes people unhappy, and the freedom to choose creates an elite of the saved, meaning that the majority of people will be damned. By taking away their freedom, the Inquisitor hopes to restore happiness to the people.

This is a curious notion, and one that seems to have the opposite message to Notes from Underground. But only at first glance. The story is related in context by the atheist Ivan Karamazov, but Dostoevsky does not identify with Ivan. He identifies with the devout Alyosha. Nonetheless Alyosha’s simple pieties are bland and ineffective against Ivan’s eloquent blasphemies. Is Dostoevsky stating the opposite meaning to that he intended?

I think not. Dostoevsky often plays fast and loose with conventional Bible statements, and I suspect it is impossible for any intellectual with a detailed knowledge of the Bible to read it without analysing, critiquing and questioning what he reads. For Dostoevsky however, this process ends in reaffirming the scriptures, albeit with some doubts.

In reality, Dostoevsky is identifying with Christ, even in this story. The Inquisition may be compared to the rationalist liberals in Notes from Underground. They are seeking to take away people’s freedom, but Dostoevsky, like Christ, supports the right of people to choose misery and freedom instead of becoming happy well-fed animals.

However plausible the Inquisitor’s arguments, they do not alter the fact that he is standing for oppression of the worst kind, and the reader is unlikely to feel that his vision of the world is one that we wish to see. There may be much misery in the human condition, but a uniformity of belief is not the answer. Hence we end up back where we began, with an assertion of the right of humans to be dysfunctional and free.

‘The Grand Inquisitor’ is a brilliantly wrought story. I am less enthusiastic about Notes from Underground, with its repulsive and garrulous narrator and its excess of purple prose. I am not sure that the three stories that make up Part 2 gel together. They seem like fragments that could just have easily been replaced by three different stories making the same point. However the book certainly provokes much interesting thought.

[Miguel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading Notes from Underground back in April. Set it aside after a few weeks because I wasn’t in the mood for Russian polemics. And now…I did it. I will say it’s not like Notes from a Dead House as I expected; Dostoevsky leans into the more philosophical side of things, dealing with the tragedy of man and freedom, rationality, and free will. Honestly, a lot of it went over my head (as you do reading the Russians), and I’m still processing/rereading it to better grasp the thesis of this long, winding essay. I would recommend getting this edition, which, besides The Grand Inquisitor, also contains additional readings related to Notes. We eating!

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I am a little amused at the intense emo of it all (actually Crime and Punishment shocked me especially because that was the first FD novel I read and my understanding was it was fictional autobiography and the mad wanting to run away from his human nature and all the self hatred and disgust at ordinary people, so much like being a teenager today, but by aping the supposed Superman Napoleon seemed so incredibly delusional but yet true to certain teenage boys). This novel I understand preceded Crime. It is more like the diary of the type of guy who today might go postal soon. It is a manifesto that is so tone perfect I would hesitate giving it to some readers if I wasn't sure they knew FD was not endorsing this but demonstrating this frame of thinking. This edition included writings of other contemporary authors FD was responding to and scoffing at. There was a vigorous intellectual argument going on regarding what was rational human norms vs. Irrational emotional responses, self interest vs. unselfish giving. But FD seemed to be applying that to his own personal demons where very dark ruminations at the unfairness of justice and professional opportunity as well as political danger mixed in to bring out a level of pain and rage in his writing that is all outside voice. While invigorating to read you know if you met this guy on the street you'd feel the threat radiating off of him. Deeply admirable examination of how ideas mix with an irritable depressed isolated personality.

[Linda Burr · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was a really strange book...i loved the brother's karamozov when i read it years ago...this book is difficult to explain except to say that the main character/narrator is so turned in on himself that it makes reading his words difficult. there were 'truths' in his ramblings but mostly felt like reading the musings of someone insane. very disturbing, weird book.

[Kel Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first taste of Dostoyvesky and I am completely impressed. Considering the body of work that has been praised for so long, I am delighted that I have so much to look forward to. Where to start?

[Fyodor Underground · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fellow Dostoevsky fans!

I have set up a Tumblr blog, where I, as the underground man, will be posting each paragraph of Notes From Underground. If you are interested, you can find it here

[Dasha Smirnova · Rating 5 out of 5]

The very essence of his philosophy and understanding of human nature.

[William T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pub. 1864 / Transl. Garnett, 1918; rev. Matlaw, 1960

[Jeanette]

"Of course, I cannot break through a wall by battering my head against it if I really do not have the strength to break through it, but I am not going to resign myself to it simply because it is a stone wall and I am not strong enough.
As though such a stone wall really were a consolation and really did contain some word of conciliation, if only because it is as true as two times two makes four. Oh, absurdity of absurdities! How much better it is to understand it all, to be conscious of it all, all the impossibilities and the stone walls, not to resign yourself to a single one of those impossibilities and stone walls if it disgusts you to resign yourself; to reach, through the most inevitable, logical combinations, the most revolting conclusions on the everlasting theme that you are yourself somehow to blame even for the stone wall, though again it is as clear as day you are not to blame in the least, and therefore grinding your teeth in silent impotence sensuously to sink into inertia, brooding on the fact that it turns out that there is even no one for you to feel vindictive against, that you have not, and perhaps never will have, an object for your spite, that it is a sleight-of-hand, a bit of juggling, a card-sharper's trick, that it is simply a mess, no knowing what and no knowing who, but in spite of all these uncertainties, and jugglings, still there is an ache in you, and the more you do not know, the worse the ache." (12)

"The fact is, gentlemen, it seems that something that is dearer to almost every man than his greatest advantages must really exist, or (not to be illogical) there is one most advantageous advantage (the very one omitted of which we spoke just now) which is more important and more advantageous than all other advantages, for which, if necessary, a man is ready to act in opposition to all laws, that is, in opposition to reason, honor, peace, prosperity 0 in short, in opposition to all those wonderful and useful things in only he can attain that fundamental, most advantageous advantage which is dearer to him than all." (20)

"After all, this very stupid thing [the idea of desiring only what is rational], after all, this caprice of ours, may really be more advantageous for us, gentlemen, than anything else on earth, especially in some cases. And in particular it may be more advantageous than any advantages even when it does us obvious harm, and contradicts the soundest conclusions of our reason about our advantage - because in any case it preserves for us what is most precious and most important - that is, our personality, our individuality. Some, you see, maintain that this really is the most precious thing for man; desire can, of course, if it desires, be in agreement with reason; particularly if it does not abuse this practice but does so in moderation, it is both useful and sometimes even praiseworthy. But very often, and even most often, desire completely and stubbornly opposes reason, and... and... and do you know that that, too, is useful and sometimes even praiseworthy?" (26)

"Gentlemen, let us suppose that man is not stupid. (Indeed, after all, one cannot say that about him anyway, if only for the one consideration that, if man is stupid, then, after all, who is wise?) But if he is not stupid, he is just the same monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. I even believe that the best definition of man is - a creature that walks on two legs and is ungrateful. But that is not all, that is not his worst defect; his worst defect is his perpetual immorality, perpetual - from the days of the Floor to the Schleswig-Holstein period of human destiny. Immorality, and consequently lack of good sense; for it has long been accepted that lack of good sense is due to no other cause than immorality." (26)

"...Heine maintains that a true autobiography is almost an impossibility, and that man is bound to lie about himself." (35)

"I was standing by the billiard-table and in my ignorance blocking up the way, and he wanted to pass; he took me by the shoulders and without a word - without a warning or an explanation - moved me from where I was standing to another spot and passed by as thought he had not noticed me. I could even have forgiven blows, but I absolutely could not forgive his having moved me and so completely failing to notice me." (43)

"I have never been a coward at heart, though I have always been a coward in action. (43)

"Now I suddenly realized vividly how absurd, revolting as a spider, was the idea of vice which, without love, grossly and shamelessly begins directly with that in which true love finds its consummation." (77)

"I did not understand that she was hiding her feelings by sarcasm and that this is usually the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded, and that their pride makes them refuse to surrender till the last moment and shrink from expressing their feelings to you." (86)

"But if you were anywhere else, living as decent people live, I would perhaps be more than attracted by you, I would fall in love with you, would be glad of a look from you, let alone a word. I would hang about your door, would go down on my knees to you, we would become engaged and I would even consider it an honor to do so. I would not dare to have an impure thought about you. But here, after all, I know that I have only to whistle and you have to come with me whether you like it or not. I don't consult your wishes, but you mine. The lowest laborer hires himself as a workman but he doesn't make a slave of himself altogether; besides, he knows that he will be free again. But when will you be free? Only think what you are giving up here! What is it you are making a slave of? It is your soul, together with your body; you are selling your soul which you have no right o dispose of!" (87)

"Love! But after all, that's everything, but after all, it's a jewel, it's a maiden's treasure, love - why, after all a man would be ready to give his soul, to face death to gain that love." (88) // the honor of inspiring such beauty and depth in another

"Perhaps she was like you, proud, ready to take offence, not like the others [prositutes]; perhaps she looked like a queen, and knew that happiness was in store for the man who would love her and whom she would love." (89) // to know oneself, to carry oneself well, to inspire beautiful things in others

"...it was as though he were chemically combined with my existence." (100)

"...and have nowadays come to the point of sometimes thinking that love really consists in the right - freely given by the beloved object - to be tyrannized over." (111)

"Tell me, does one really have to be without individuality to be happy? Does redemption lie in impersonality? On the contrary, on the contrary, say I, not only must one not be without individuality, but that is just what one has to become, an individual, even more and to a higher degree than it is known in the West today. Understand me: voluntary, completely conscious and totally unconstrained self-sacrifice for the benefit of all, is, in my opinion, a token of the greatest achievement of individuality, of its greatest power, its greatest self-control, the greatest freedom of its own will. To sacrifice one's life willingly for others, to be crucified, burned at the stake for others willingly, can only be done at the highest point of the attainment of individuality. A highly developed individuality, completely convinced of its right to be individual, no longer fearing anything for itself, cannot possibly do anything else with its individuality, that is, can find no greater use for itself than to give itself up entirely for others, so that others too may become equally autonomous and happy individualities." [excerpts from Dostoyevsky's Winter Notes on Summer Impressions] (184)

"Of course, there is a great attraction to live if not in brotherly fashion, at least simply on some rational basis, that is to live well, with everything guaranteed to you and only work and acquiescence demanded in turn from you. But there is another joker here. It seems that man is guaranteed everything, is promised food, drink, work, and in turn only the smallest iota of his personal freedom is asked for the general good, the smallest, smallest iota. No, man does not want to live according to those calculations, he will not surrender the single iota. It seems to him, in his stupidity, that it is a prison, and that he would be better off by himself, because he would be completely free that way And after all, though he is beaten when he is free, though he has no work, though he dies of hunger and has no freedom at all, the queer fellow still prefers his freedom. Of course, all the socialist can do is throw up his hands and tell him that he is a fool, immature, a child, that he does not understand his own advantage. That an ant, some mute, insignificant ant is more intelligent than he, because life in the anthill is good, everything is well ordered, everyone is well fed, happy, each knowns what his task is. In short: man is still a long way from the anthill!" [excerpts from Dostoyevsky's Winter Notes on Summer Impressions ] (187) // because the men who set up such a situation are not as trustworthy as an ant. what do ants know of immorality and selfishness and others of the basest human emotions?

"'Young Pen! You will participate in the critical section. Therefore instill in yourself the principle that a real apple is better than a painted apple, the more so as one can eat a real apple, but one cannot eat a painted apple. Consequently art is nonsense and a luxury and can only serve to amuse children. That "new idea," so grand in its simplicity, must henceforth replace all courses in aesthetics for you and will immediately give you the necessary point of view for analyzing all so-called "works of art." Do you understand?' But Munificent grew so courageous with joy, while o the other hand he started to lose his courage, that he did not dare to say anything even against that. That, in the first place, a real apple and a painted apple are two entirely different subjects and cannot in any way be compared; that, in the second place, let us grant that a real apple can be eaten, but that a painted apple is painted specially to be looked at, not to be eaten; that, after all, not everything in the world can be eaten, and that one cannot limit the utility of all things and works to their edibility." (218) [excerpt from Dostoyevsky's Mr. Shchedrin, or, Schism Among the Nihilists]

"That is what you did with art, with moral ideals, with the historical march of events, with all life. Where is your practical sense? You are going against life. We are not supposed to prescribe laws for life but to study life and extract laws from life itself for ourselves." (228) [excerpt from Dostoyevsky's Mr. Shchedrin, or, Schism Among the Nihilists]

"Before you can do anything you have to make yourselves into something, to assume your own shape, to become yourselves. Then and only then will you be able to have your say, to present your own form of a world-view. But you are abstractions, you are shadows, you are nothing. And nothing can come from nothing. You are foreign ideas. You are a mirage. You do not stand on soil but on air. The light shines right under you -" (228) [excerpt from Dostoyevsky's Mr. Shchedrin, or, Schism Among the Nihilists]

[Yuan]

I have a really hard 'rating' this book, given the reasons I like it and dislike it are completely separate issues, and I don't think one should reflect on the other. Dostoevsky very much deserves his reputation as a writer, being capable of capturing the basest aspects of humanity in a way that feels disturbingly familiar.

But reading this book grates.

"Yuan," you might say, "this book is supposed to grate. The narrator is clearly written in such a way as to evoke feelings of disgust and pity."

Yes, and I completely agree. And Dostoevsky is able to do that to an incredible degree. But that is not the reason the book grates. The book grates because of Dostoevsky's general philosophy of humanity. In the introduction of this edition, Matlaw explains that this book was written in response to Nikolay Chernyshevsky's What Is To Be Done?, a book that inspired the socialist revolution in Russia. Dostoevsky was strongly skeptical of socialism, believing that utopianism required a certain nobility of spirit that was lacking in humanity. And thus he wrote this book, about a wicked spiteful man that would rather harm himself out of spite than go along with what others believe to be in his own self-interest.

Dostoevsky thinks this level of spite is an intrinsic aspect of humanity. He frames it often as a desire for the freedom to go against his best interests. It's easy to see how this fits in neatly with the concept of original sin — it was in Adam and Eve's best interest to follow God's instructions, but they did not. And this aspect of humanity is so immutable and insurmountable that attempts at systemic change like socialism is completely wrongheaded. Perhaps, even morally wrong.

Morally wrong not because feeding the poor or alleviating suffering is morally wrong; no, Dostoevsky was well-known to be sympathetic to the poor and was not exactly well-off himself. But rather because he saw changes to the political and social system in order to feed the masses as counter to directing people to follow the Orthodox Church. (It's really interesting to read Dostoevsky talk about the Catholic Church in this fashion, as in the modern day, the Catholic Church is inherently conservative and staunchly against socialism. But Dostoevsky apparently viewed the Catholic Church and socialism as natural allies.)

Remember the first question; its meaning, in other words, was this: "You would go into the world, and are going with empty hands, with some promise of freedom which men in their simplicity and their natural unruliness cannot even understand, which they fear and dread — since nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. Do You see these stones in this parched and barren wilderness? Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after You like a flock, grateful and obedient, though for ever trembling, lest You withdraw your hand and deny them Your bread." But You would not deprive man of freedom and rejected the offer, thinking, what is that freedom worth, if obedience is bought with bread? You replied that man lives not by bread alone.
—"The Grand Inquisitor"

Dostoevsky seems to believe that in ensuring that people are systematically fed, they will give up their freedom (that is, moral, cognitive freedom — the freedom to suffer!). The desire to be not be hungry and have basic needs met leads humanity by the nose; essentially, we are slaves to our bodies and our physical (materialist) desires. Dostoevsky calls for humanity to move beyond that in order to be spiritually satiated, and he angsts over the fact that people seem to be too weak to undergo the suffering to do so.

Dostoevsky, you utter nutter. He wants people to stop doing evil, but he doesn't want any systematic method to do so. He would rather the rich have the freedom to steal from the poor than to create a system where they are forbidden from doing so, because the true way to prevent wickedness is for people to turn to (the Orthodox) God. And the poor should rather encourage that the rich have the freedom to steal than to ensure that they themselves be fed, because they should understand that freedom is far more important!

I am expressly asking you why your Jesuits and Inquisitors have only united for vile material gain? Why can there not be a single martyr among them, tortured by great sorrow and loving humanity?
—"The Grand Inquisitor"

(can't help but laugh at Dostoevsky's hilarious view of Catholicism)

[Ren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes from Underground: 4/5

"I say let the world go to pot as long as I get my tea.”

Going through the thoughts of others who read this edition of 'Notes from Underground' (bound here with additional, supplementary material), my favorite was the singular one-star review: "The cover is amazing." Shout out to Agnes for succeeding in that old adage: if you've nothing nice to say, it's best to say nothing at all.

This is certainly not a rule of decorum our 'Underground man' is particularly inclined to follow.

I love an unlikeable protagonist, so I figured I was going to like 'Notes' from the first line when the protagonist introduces himself: "I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man."

Why is that?

Actually, I remember a discussion in a lit class at Uni where we mulled over why it is that unhappy stories about unhappy people are so much more readily accepted as having depth than happy stories about happy people. Considering that, for the most part, people claim to want to be happy, why are we so quick to dismiss happiness as being a symptom of shallowness?

I ask this especially in this context less so because of what 'Notes from Underground' is and more so because of what it means to certain people.

In his introduction, the translator and editor, Ralph E. Matlaw, gives an honestly pretty scathing observation about fans of 'Notes' of a certain type:

Readers of the work [...]have all too readily accepted the image of the narrator as the symbol of the modern man, as a precursor of Existentialist thought, as themselves. Like the narrator they permit themselves a loophole -- it is what the narrator represents, it is his plight, his intellectual temperament that are recognized as their own, but not, usually, his personality."(p.xx)

And I agree. People like Jordon Peterson (and fans of his I've unluckily spoken to) love how this narrator, the Underground Man, gives them permission to be miserable melts.

Peterson, in a few talks he's given on 'Notes', goes on at length about the connection between nihilism and atheism (something that was certainly swimming around the waters when Dostoevsky put this together). His fans do too; the only difference being that the atheists among them think their nihilism makes them better than you. That being miserable is a sign of their intellectual superiority. "The worst of it is, no matter how I tried, it still turned out that I was always the most to blame in everything [...] In the first place, to blame because I am cleverer than any of the people surrounding me." (p.8)

In other words, such people, just like the Underground Man, are cripplingly insecure (as we pretty much immediately determine the Underground Man to be) yet also have such an overinflated sense of ego that they suffer terribly from Main Character Syndrome and bray and bray and bray about how they deserve to be masters of the universe and 'deserve' (a key word) whatever success they think they've been robbed of. Oh, they'll keep up this little veneer of aloof irony ("I'm an unpleasant man."), but they really do think so. Their perceived mediocrity or (heaven forbid) failure must simply be the fault of someone else. Heck, in this case, it's the fault of human nature!

That's what this is all about in the end: Dostoevsky putting forth a critique of the burgeoning popularity of Determinism and the accompanying hope that by accepting a lack of free will, Utopia can be achieved and everyone can be happy. Your Jordan Petersons love dovetailing this context with their own hatred of Socialism (though they'll usually start talking about Communism since that's easier to pick on).

Now, listen, I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with Determinism, and certainly not how it's laid out so clinically in the novel Dostoevsky hated so much he wrote 'Notes' just to refute it (that novel being Chernyshevsky's 'What is to Be Done.'). And sure, there's merit in the question he raises about how, if they actually got everything they wanted, people would, by nature, still be unsatisfied.

H o w e v e r, there's a vast, vast difference between 'people getting everything they want' and 'people being guaranteed to have their basic needs met, leaving them free to pursue what brings them pleasure.'

Thus, focussing so much on the what ifs of a scenario as implausible as 'don't you think people would turn to nasty vices if they got everything they wanted because look at how badly behaved a lot of rich people are' feels detached from reality. Ironic, considering how much that certain sect of people who like 'Notes' (and by 'Notes' they really just mean the introductory ramble and maybe a few details from the third anecdote) seem to think it reveals that Socialism is bad or we need God or I don't know what.

I think Dostoevsky was just a few steps ahead of those people, to be honest, and that Ralph Matlaw was absolutely correct when he called them out. If you take the mythologized version of The Underground Man away, you have a cripplingly self-conscious guy who fakes disaffection and snobbish cynicism and a love of misery just because he figures that if he can't be the hero riding a white horse, he may as well be the hero in the mud:

"I could not conceive of a secondary role for myself, and for that reason I quite contentedly played the lowest one in reality. Either to be a hero or to grovel in the mud -- there was nothing in between. That was my ruin, for when I was in the mud I comforted myself with the thought that at other times I was a hero, and I took refuge in this hero for the mud." (p.50)

It isn't lost on me that what I've avoiding saying until this point is that the people for whom this is the true core of their bitter little hearts tend to be white guys in their 20s to 40s who poo-pah the notion that they've had any privilege in life because they are mediocre in spite of it. Unsung heroes. Undiscovered geniuses. And they'll settle for nothing less, be arrogant, standoffish, and generally not fun to be around, and salve their fragile egos by telling themselves they're alone or miserable or unsuccessful because of someone else who got the recognition, relationship, admiration -- take your pick-- they think they are owed got it undeservedly.

We see this most strikingly in the second story, but it's there in the third one too.

Next time I hear from some such poor lost soul that they identify with the Underground Man, I admit I'll enjoy a little sensible chuckle and elbow to the ribs with my pal, Fyodor. See, I can be spiteful too.

That being said, I personally liked the first story the best, about him running around nursing a grudge and trying and failing and then succeeding at getting the guy who wronged him back only for that guy not to care much less remember that they've ever met before. I'll freely admit I've been the Underground Man in this story. Egg on my face when I realized how many showers I've spent arguing with ghosts of memories of little insults from years ago. Mulling over all the things I should have said that would've really gotten them. But you know what they say about holding grudges: it's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Almost makes me wonder if there's some connection between his constant references to spite and his dying of liver disease... But I've waxed on enough.

Thank you Fedya, you rascal, for holding your mirror up to us all yet again. Even if you were suspicious of Socialism. No one's perfect.

[Angeltoowired · Rating 4 out of 5]

A professor asked the class (not Literature btw) to write a small essay of whatever topic we wanted in less than half an hour or so (so if something was careless I blame it on that), since at that time it was less than a week that I finished the Notes from Underground part of this edition I decided to give it a go to bring a certain end to my thoughts on it, so I might as well share it

Originally written in Spanish on 29th of September of this year; I'll leave it as it is. spoilers ahead



La confesión hegeliana como técnica narrativa en el existencialismo ruso del hombre moderno

Fyodor Dostoevsky, uno de los escritores más famosos del movimiento del realismo literario ruso en su obra “Notas del subsuelo”, establece fundamentos conceptuales y experienciales del existencialismo, anticipando temas principales del existencialismo como de “lo bello y lo sublime”, la sensibilidad y el valor que el hombre de subsuelo le otorga, la malicia a que esta última lo conlleva, la síntesis hegeliana y el rechazo a los sistemas racionales; argumentando que el hombre es irracional y solo hará lo que le plazca por la naturaleza del libre albedrío.

La exploración fenomenológica de estados mentales extremos, tales como la constante contradicción hegeliana, siendo “el único hombre con honestidad”, quien se desprecia a sí mismo y busca una resolución de redención con el lector y a su vez rechaza cualquier salvación que se le presenta, tal como el rechazo hacia Liza como la heroína y posterior persecución fallida a la heroína, y por ende, la salvación que ella lo conllevaría en vano.

La genialidad de Dostoevsky radica en que sus confesiones nunca son completamente confiables ni completamente deshonestos. El lector debe navegar entre la autojustificación y la autoflagelación, entre la verdad psicológica y la distorsión neurótica. Esta condición refleja la crisis más amplia de la modernidad: el colapso de las certezas tradicionales bajo el escrutinio racional, sin que emerjan nuevas verdades que las reemplacen. La enfermedad se manifiesta en la incapacidad del intelectual para aceptar soluciones simples o consuelos tradicionales.

Habiendo deconstruido mediante la razón todas las bases de la fe y la moralidad convencional, el intelectual moderno se encuentra incapaz de reconstruir significado alguno. El narrador rechaza tanto el materialismo progresista del "Palacio de Cristal" como el amor cristiano que Liza le ofrece, quedando atrapado en un limbo de negación perpetua. Su inteligencia, sus reflexiones (fervorosas pero retorcidas), en lugar de liberarlo, se convierte en su prisión.

[Chris Rohlev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two books away from finishing Dostoevsky's canon, Idiot and Demons, leaving the latter for the summation as I've heard it's his most challenging.

Dostoevsky is my favorite novelist although as a stylist, he's subpar. Where subpar, is a relative term of course depending on what academia deems the most current fad of style is.

My theory on Dostoevsky is that in the 2000 years of human existence, he is the only author who can genuinely connect the mind to literature. This is apparent in his style. Similar to Flowers for Algernon, the mental state of the author will of course change syntax, grammar, etc. Clearly, a high-minded intellectual will write better(subjective) than a retarded person.

Dostoevsky's style is a frantic, dream state of writing that transfers all the anxieties and worries of the protagonist into the reader's mind. In fact, just a Google search will give accounts of people who after reading Crime and Punishment go into a week-long bout of sickness.

So, reading this book alongside his biography, it's a very interesting account of someone who is clearly writing to portray the demons inside of his mind. What you see is the hypersensitivity of emotion. You can truly feel the author's own angst and anxiety bleeding through each page. Dosto was constantly attacked with epilepsy leaving him in bed for weeks. This epilepsy only occurred after his mock execution.

Most evident, is Dostoevsky's theme of hallucinations. In all of his major novels, a major character will undergo a regression where in his final state before suicide or death, he will begin to perceive demonic hallucinations. Ivan Karamazov, in his final monologue before death, professes his angst to the devil who he believes is sitting on a couch across the room. We know today that these symptoms are those of schizophrenic and manic depressives. Dostoevsky was ahead of the curve in psychology.

If you want a way to non-ironically access the deep recesses of your mind and memory, then Dostoevsky is the way to go.

“It is clear to me now that, owing to my unbounded vanity and to the high standard I set for myself, I often looked at myself with furious discontent, which verged on loathing, and so I inwardly attributed the same feeling to everyone.”

[Dylan Vieites Glennon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is clear from the first paragraph that 'The Underground Man' is a nihilist. At the same time, he fails to act on any of his problems because not only is the weather bad, but the city is built on bureaucracy and hypocrisy. This procures an inner hatred/bitterness towards all aspects of society, yet at the same time, he is totally aware he is inept at acting against it (or within it). What I love about it is the pure absurdity of his reasoning towards the actions to which he takes.

He vehemently discusses the acute problems which stem from being highly conscious, the struggle to accept oneself when oneself is so flawed, he cannot face society because they act as his mirrors. It appears Dostoyevsky sees these people who make themselves worse and worse (“in despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position.”) like 'The Underground Man' by causing themselves the greatest suffering as being the inevitable consequence of a liberalised society that rejects tradition and religion, promising unlimited glory to the individual only to subject him to humiliating material conditions.'

"Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I’ve never been able to start or finish anything." A man must be completely confident he is doing the right thing before partaking in an action. In essence, his intelligence is the barrier to the actions which he wishes to do - whilst a fool can imagine he has a reason, a primary cause, and can thus do what it is he wishes to do without worry.

[Anna Claire Crowley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quotes I liked and/or are representative of the book:

"The narrator scoffs and rails at"two times two makes four," "the wall," "piano key," the recurrent abstractions that stand for rationalism and scientific determinism." -RE Matlaw's Intro
"The anthill will never change unless nature itself does, for it satisfies the ant's physical needs perfectly." (as opposed to the chicken coop and Crystal Palace) -RE Matlaw's Intro

"Ordinary human consciousness would be too much for man's every day needs" Part II
"I do not respect myself. Can a man with consciousness respect himself at all?" Part IV
"the direct, legitimate, immediate fruit of consciousness is inertia, that is, conscious thumb twiddling." Part V
"for we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples...We are so far divorced from it that we immediately feel a sort of loathing for actual 'real life'" Part IX
"After all, we have reached the point of almost looking at actual 'real life' as an effort, almost as hard work" Part IX

[Noah McMillen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We are even oppressed by being men - with real individual body and blood. We are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalized man. We are still-born, and for many years we have not been begotten by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall somehow contrive to be born from an idea” (122).
Dostoevsky rails against rational egoism and points out how man is not merely rational. He cannot act only in his own self-interest, for it would lead only to chaos and self-destruction.

“The Grand Inquisitor” is also an amazing story, but it really needs to be read in the context of the larger novel, or else, the counterbalance of Alyosha’s life is lost against Ivan’s cynicism and nihilism.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Dostoevsky book. It hit me between the eyes. I have some of the underground man in myself.

I've read other translations, but to my mind, this is absolutely the best. My favorite quote comes at the end of Section III. I won't put in the entire quote, but it ends with:

"In spite of all these uncertainties, and jugglings, still there is an ache in you, and the more you do not know, the worse the ache."

And I do ache.

Then as a bonus, you get "The Grand Inquisitor" too! Plus some additional helpful writings of the time in the appendix.

An exceptional book.

[Cyrus Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read Notes from Underground. It was a slow, steady, and pondering read through a very short book. I enjoyed it as a cautionary tale of a man who is so deep in his own head that he really truly cannot see the world around him anymore and has made himself unbearably miserable. I resonate deeply with the way this guy thinks, which is useful to bookmark and navigate around. Also he's a fucking dumb piece of shit and the second half of the book where he's just Talking At People is painful to read. Love it. 4/5. Gotta make sure I don't end up Underground.

[Jack Fernandes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dostoevsky has a way of capturing the human spirit in words on paper. Look no further than “Notes,” which is possibly one of the deepest psychoanalytical reflections that I’ve ever personally read. In only a handful of pages, a civil servant is brought to life: and with him, a handful of neuroses, complexes, hopes, insecurities, fears, eccentricities and embarrassments. This could very well be the first existential novel, giving birth to movements (modernism) that shaped writers from Sartre to Camus, and, more obviously, Solzhenitsyn (Gulag Archipelago) and Chekhov (The Seagull). If you can see this book for what it is, (in my opinion, the incoherent ramblings of a lunatic, which showcase the philosophical inconsistencies that most of us display, daily, in our own lives) then you’ll emerge with a bit better of an understanding of yourself and the people around you.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some passages of the Notes from Underground were fairly compelling, but the rest of the book was apparently about literary/philosophical/academic spats among the Russian intelligentsia. A review I read a long time ago said that academic quarrels were so vicious because there was so little at stake, and I suspect the same could be said of this.