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Title: Notes from Underground
Series:
(The Russians)
Author: Fyodor
Dostoyevsky
Translator: Garnett
Rating:
1 of 5 Stars / DNF@10%
Genre: Fiction
Pages:
186/19
Words: 50K/5K
I cannot stand when authors write nonsense and expect the readers to
parse sense out of it. Dostoyevsky was writing this novel in response
to some other popular philosophy book/idea at the time but he couched
it in a way that I hated.
So I’m not going to waste my time wading through deliberate
nonsense when he could have just stated “Reason X because of
reasons 1, 2 and 3”. I dnf’d this at the 10% mark when it became
evident what a sham this was. If you would like to waste your time
deciphering this, be my guest.
★☆☆☆☆
From Wikipedia.org
The novella is divided into two parts.
The title of the first part—"Underground"—is itself
given a footnoted introduction by Dostoevsky in which the character
of the 'author' of the Notes and the nature of the 'excerpts' are
discussed.
Part 1: "Underground"
The first part of Notes from
Underground has eleven sections:
Section I propounds a number
of riddles whose meanings are further developed as the narration
continues.
Sections 2, 3, & 4 deal
with suffering and the irrational pleasure of suffering.
Sections 5 & 6 discuss
the moral and intellectual fluctuation that the narrator feels along
with his conscious insecurities regarding "inertia"—inaction.
Sections 7, 8, & 9 cover
theories of reason and logic, closing with the last two sections as
a summary and transition into Part 2.
The narrator observes that utopian
society removes suffering and pain, but man desires both things and
needs them in order to be happy. He argues that removing pain and
suffering in society takes away a man's freedom. He says that the
cruelty of society makes human beings moan about pain only to spread
their suffering to others.
Unlike most people, who typically act out of revenge because they
believe justice is the end, the Underground Man is conscious of his
problems and feels the desire for revenge, but he does not find it
virtuous; the incongruity leads to spite towards the act itself with
its concomitant circumstances. He feels that others like him exist,
but he continuously concentrates on his spitefulness instead of on
actions that would help him avoid the problems that torment him. The
main issue for the Underground Man is that he has reached a point
of ennui[7] (boredom) and inactivity.[8] He even
admits that he would rather be inactive out of laziness.
The
first part also gives a harsh criticism of determinism, as well
as of intellectual attempts at dictating human action and behavior by
logic, which the Underground Man discusses in terms of the simple
math problem: two times two makes four (cf. necessitarianism).
He argues that despite humanity's attempt to create a utopia where
everyone lives in harmony (symbolized by The Crystal
Palace in Nikolai Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be
Done?), one cannot avoid the simple fact that anyone, at any time,
can decide to act in a way that might not be considered to be in
their own self-interest; some will do so simply to validate their
existence and to protest and confirm that they exist as individuals.
The Underground Man ridicules the type of enlightened
self-interest that Chernyshevsky proposes as the foundation of
Utopian society. The idea of cultural and legislative systems relying
on this rational egoism is what the protagonist despises.
The Underground Man embraces this ideal in praxis, and seems to
blame it for his current state of unhappiness.[9]
Part 2: "Apropos of the Wet Snow"[edit]
The title of Part 2 is an allusion to the critic Pavel
Annenkov's observation that "damp showers and wet snow"
were indispensable to writers of the Natural School in
Petersburg.[10] Following the title there is an epigraph
containing the opening lines from Nekrasov's poem "When
from the darkness of delusion..." about a woman driven to
prostitution by poverty. The quotation is interrupted by an ellipsis
and the words "Etc., etc., etc."[10]
Part 2 consists of ten sections
covering some events from the narrator's life. While he continues in
his self-conscious, polemical style, the themes of his confession are
now developed anecdotally.
The first section tells of the
Underground Man's obsession with an officer who once insulted him in
a pub. This officer frequently passes him by on the street, seemingly
without noticing his existence. He sees the officer on the street and
thinks of ways to take revenge, eventually borrowing money to buy an
expensive overcoat and intentionally bumping into the officer to
assert his equality. To the Underground Man's surprise, however, the
officer does not seem to notice that it even happened.
Sections II to V focus on a going-away
dinner party with some old school friends to bid farewell to one of
these friends—Zverkov—who is being transferred out of the city.
The Underground Man hated them when he was younger, but after a
random visit to Simonov's, he decides to meet them at the appointed
location. They fail to tell him that the time has been changed to six
instead of five, so he arrives early. He gets into an argument with
the four of them after a short time, declaring to all his hatred of
society and using them as the symbol of it. At the end, they go off
without him to a secret brothel, and, in his rage, the underground
man follows them there to confront Zverkov once and for all,
regardless if he is beaten or not. He arrives at the brothel to find
Zverkov and the others already retired with prostitutes to other
rooms. He then encounters Liza, a young prostitute.
The remaining sections deal with his
encounter with Liza and its repercussions. The story cuts to Liza and
the Underground Man lying silently in the dark together. The
Underground Man confronts Liza with an image of her future, by which
she is unmoved at first, but after challenging her individual utopian
dreams (similar to his ridicule of the Crystal Palace in Part 1), she
eventually realizes the plight of her position and how she will
slowly become useless and will descend more and more, until she is no
longer wanted by anyone. The thought of dying such a terribly
disgraceful death brings her to realize her position, and she then
finds herself enthralled by the Underground Man's seemingly poignant
grasp of the destructive nature of society. He gives her his address
and leaves.
He is subsequently overcome by the fear
of her actually arriving at his dilapidated apartment after appearing
such a "hero" to her and, in the middle of an argument with
his servant, she arrives. He then curses her and takes back
everything he said to her, saying he was, in fact, laughing at her
and reiterates the truth of her miserable position. Near the end of
his painful rage he wells up in tears after saying that he was only
seeking to have power over her and a desire to humiliate her. He
begins to criticize himself and states that he is in fact horrified
by his own poverty and embarrassed by his situation. Liza realizes
how pitiful he is and tenderly embraces him. The Underground Man
cries out "They—they won't let me—I—I can't be good!"
After all this, he still acts terribly
toward her, and, before she leaves, he stuffs a five ruble note into
her hand, which she throws onto the table (it is implied that the
Underground Man had sex with Liza and that the note is payment). He
tries to catch her as she goes out to the street, but he cannot find
her and never hears from her again. He tries to stop the pain in his
heart by "fantasizing."
And isn't it better, won't it be
better?… Insult—after all, it's a purification; it's the most
caustic, painful consciousness! Only tomorrow I would have defiled
her soul and wearied her heart. But now the insult will never ever
die within her, and however repulsive the filth that awaits her, the
insult will elevate her, it will cleanse her…
He recalls this moment as making him
unhappy whenever he thinks of it, yet again proving the fact from the
first section that his spite for society and his inability to act
makes him no better than those he supposedly despises.
The concluding sentences recall some of
the themes explored in the first part, and he tells the reader
directly, "I have merely carried to an extreme in my life what
you have not dared to carry even halfway.”
At the end of Part 2, a further
editorial note is added by Dostoevsky, indicating that the 'author'
couldn't help himself and kept writing, but that "it seems to us
that we might as well stop here".
