Notes from Underground
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Notes from Underground
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Literature
James Mustich
Aug 12, 2018
A tour de force of authorial concentration and psychological acuity, Dostoevsky’s groundbreaking novella invites us into the bowels of mid-nineteenth-century Saint Petersburg, even as it charts a stylistic and thematic course for a great deal of modern fiction to be written beyond Russian borders. A very unreliable narrator—he’s never named, though critics refer to him as the Underground Man—can’t wait to show us how miserable life can be. Although the narrator is always on the brink of collapse, the author is in total control, skewering the utilitarian and positivist ideals gaining currency in Russia at the time of writing. Today Notes from Underground endures less as a political text than as a bold, brilliant character study, an indelible portrait of a man at the margins. It doesn’t just pave the way for Dostoevsky’s later, grander novels of alienation: In its rambling form and philosophical complexity, Notes from Underground paves the way for the entirety of modernism.
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Chuck Munro
Mar 18, 2019
I think this was (one of) the original anti-hero stories. It was my first Dostoevsky, and one I appreciated more than enjoyed, but has motivated me to read his classics soon.
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Carl
Mar 31, 2019
Reminds me of the Beatles’ "He’s a real nowhere man..."
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