Fyodor Dostoevsky

Notes From Underground

Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Here are some impressions and thoughts I had while reading,

The underground man comes across as comically pathetic but also a little bit unnerving. Commical because he is laughably awkward and maladapted to life, but unnerving because his reasoning and commentary makes, at least to me, an appealing case for nihilism. Throughout the text but especially in Underground, the way he engages with his imagined audience of "sirs" and "gentlement" brings this tension into focus. I don't have an answer to ease this tension. I think underground man embodies the misery of unsatisfied longings for life with love and purpose. It's a tragic story, but it is not more real than Raskolnikov's.