Fyoder Dostoevsky thought that men lived in an indifferent and hostile world and that their own choices defined the meaning of their lives. His book, Notes From Underground, is told by an anonymous narrator who investigates the truths he feels are important by presenting his thoughts to us.
The narrator’s thoughts seem like an endless stream of consciousness, often leaving us wondering if he really has a point to make. He tries to assure us, saying, “Everything that can be said about him, and more particularly about him, he already knows………He has overheard, anticipated, and invented it all.” This leaves us realizing that even if he is sure of himself, he is using his own dialog to investigate or invent a variety of truths, and we are still left wondering what the point is.
The novel begins with the narrator telling us “I am a sick man……..I am a wicked man.” He adds to this his declaration that he is “sufficiently educated not to be superstitious, but I am.” We also learn that he is also a minor civil servant living in nineteenth-century St. Petersburg, Russia and he has withdrawn into what he calls the “underground” in total alienation and isolation from society.
The narrator's "underground", or mind, is full of fears and desires. He approaches many of his concerns as a psychologist, commenting on industrialism, utopianism, Western markets, and "the grip of science and technology on truth."
When this book was written, Russia was beginning to absorb the ideas and culture of Western Europe at an accelerated pace, and the Underground Man responded by rejecting the new thoughts and feeling that man’s free will needed defending. Or perhaps it was just a license to ramble on about everything.
Quotes
“How can a man of consciousness have the slightest respect for himself?”
“I've never been a coward at heart, although I've always been a coward in action;”
“An intelligent man cannot become anything serious, and only the fool who becomes anything.”
“I swear to you gentlemen, that to be overly conscious is a sickness, a real, thorough sickness.”
“To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.”
