Notes from Underground

Dostoevsky was a total drama queen.

Also, apparently, he wasn’t the life of the party. The afterword of my collection states, “He was spiteful, intolerant, [and] irritable. Turgenev once described him as the nastiest Christian he had ever met” (227). Great epithet idea for his tombstone.  

I recently finished a collection that includes four of his fictional works: White Nights (1848), The House of the Death (1860), Notes from Underground (1864), and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877). The dates of publication are important because Dostoevsky evolved in his views about religion and the human condition, which heavily influenced his writing.

White Nights is my favorite, probably because it’s a less dejected Fyodor Dostoevsky. He still believed that humans could overcome their suffering. IRL, his dad was murdered by their peasant workers and Fyodor/his mom continued to live with the killer peasants because their dad was such a dick that he kind of deserved it. Fyodor was affected by the plight of the poor masses, so he rooted for them in his writing.  

The House of the Death (how is it that Russian authors are so pleasant??) was written during a dark period of Fyodor’s life. He was imprisoned in a Siberian labor camp for meeting in a progressive literary group, so he wrote fiction based on the cruelty that he saw there. It is not uplifting, but it is good writing. He also makes thought-provoking philosophical claims about capital punishment.

Notes from Underground shows a full 180° from White Nights. The narrator is not a pleasant person. He rejects some of the trends of the time (nihilism and rational egoism). At this point, Dostoevsky believed that humans were not good or rational, and he was all like, “Y’all need Jesus.”

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man takes a lighter tone; it feels a little silly because it mostly describes a dream. It’s a different iteration of “Yall need Jesus.”

My collection is a great start if you want a taste of Dostoevsky without getting knee-deep in angsty Russian literature. I previously wrote about his longer works, The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment. I reviewed both in the beginning stages of my blog-- in fact, Crime and Punishment was my very first review four and a half years ago! I’ve read a lot. I’ve gabbed a lot. These beginning reviews are entirely too lengthy, but I was just really amped about reading and writing. Check out those reviews if you want: further explanation of Dostoevsky's fraught past, a deep-dive into his religious and political sentiments, a story about me stealing things in Australia.

Back to my collection, which goes by the title Notes from Underground* because that is his most successful short story of the bunch. I have to be in the mood for Dostoevsky. He is not someone I pick up when I want a casual, easy read. He is someone I pick up when I want existential exploration. Unlike other authors of his time period, he tells a pretty straightforward story. I understand the story, I understand the character’s positions, but I do not always understand the philosophical arguments. He creates a balance between accessibility and challenge, which I appreciate. Notes from Underground receives 3 out of 5 camel humps.

*Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes From Underground. Trans. Andrew H MacAndrew. New York: NAL Penguin Inc., 1961. Print.