Notes from Underground / Poor People / The Friend of the Family

Short as it is, and brilliant in parts, it would have been better as a short story, as the author drives his point home a little too often (but Dostoyevsky was often paid by word count). First section lays out all points. The protagonist is so cringeworthy that it’s almost impossible during the middle section to keep reading: the author spares his Underground Man nothing. Ending moves better and solidifies the author’s theme. Written to repudiate two movements popular in 19th century Russia: rational egoism (calls out Chernyshevsky’s ‘What Is To Be Done” in sly reference) and the romanticism that preceded it. Author was a nationalist and disliked the idea of Western influences on the ‘pure’ Russian soul; and of course, show more both movements deserved to be lacerated. Very famous opening lines.

Main ideas: extraordinarily rational = frightfully dull. Man has always preferred to act according to individual quirks not to his best rational advantage (re Graham Greene’s ‘The Human Factor”). A direct swipe at the city of St. Petersburg (where Dostoyevsky was living) comes in the final paragraph of Part One —

Snow is falling today, yellow and dingy. It fell yesterday, too, and a few days ago [ . . . ] And so let is be a story à propos for f the falling snow. p28

The city was sometimes then referred to as the city of wet snow; yellow = urine, dingy = poor in intellectual rigor (in his opinion). The fashion for Romanticism had already fallen on the city and more recently Rational Egoism. show less