Frank J. Morlock

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Based on the 1864 novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground features a highly charged encounter between the nameless narrator (the "Underground Man") and a prostitute named Lisa. A classic portrayal of the underbelly of Russian (and modern) society.

A Play in Two Acts

Notes from the Underground

Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky's groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter irony, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the 'anthill' of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence 'underground'.

Notes from Underground

Santa

And secretely, in my heart, I would gnaw and nibble and probe and suck away at myself until the bitter taste turned at last into a kind of shameful, devilish sweetness and finally, downright definite pleasure. Yes, pleasure, pleasure! I stand by that. The reason I have spoken of it is that I want to know for certain whether other people feel that kind of pleasure. Let me explain: the pleasure came precisely from being too clearly aware of your own degradation; from the feeling of having gone to the uttermost limits; that it was vile, but it could not have been otherwise; that you could not escape, you could never make yourself into a different person; that even if enough faith and time remained for you to make yourself into something different, you probably wouldn't want to change yourself; and even if you did want to, you wouldn't do anything because, after all, perhaps it wasn't worth while to change. 

Written in 1864, this classic novel recounts the apology and confession of a minor nineteenth-century official, an almost comical account of the man's separation from society and his descent "underground"

mionne

a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease.

Dostoevsky's Psychological Exploration “To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground Notes from the Underground is the diary of an unnamed narrator who has completely withdrawn from society. One of Fyodor Dostoevsky's masterpiece novels, Notes from the Underground combines elements of fiction and philosophy in a psychological novel that explores the existential angst of one man in nineteenth-century Russia. This Xist Classics edition has been professionally formatted for e-readers with a linked table of contents. This eBook also contains a bonus book club leadership guide and discussion questions. We hope you’ll share this book with your friends, neighbors and colleagues and can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it. Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes

Rune

But when you are dying, all will abandon you, all will turn away from you, for then there will be nothing to get from you. What's more, they will reproach you for cumbering the place, for being so long over dying.

my takeaway is that sometimes it is good to think less and do more

brian yi-kun li

Riya

“Ведь я, например, нисколько не удивлюсь, если вдруг ни с того ни с сего среди всеобщего будущего благоразумия возникнет какой-нибудь джентльмен с неблагородной или, лучше сказать, с ретроградной и насмешливою физиономией, упрет руки в боки и скажет нам всем: а что, господа, не столкнуть ли нам все это благоразумие с одного разу, ногой, прахом, единственно с тою целью, чтоб все эти логарифмы отправились к черту и чтоб нам опять по своей глупой воле пожить! Это бы еще ничего, но обидно то, что ведь непременно последователей найдет: так человек устроен. И все это от самой пустейшей причины, об которой бы, кажется, и упоминать не стоит: именно оттого, что человек, всегда и везде, кто бы он ни был, любил действовать так, как хотел, а вовсе не так, как повелевали ему разум и выгода; хотеть же можно и против собственной выгоды, а иногда и положительно должно (это уж моя идея).”

“Помилуйте, – закричат вам, – восставать нельзя: это дважды два четыре! Природа вас не спрашивается; ей дела нет до ваших желаний и до того, нравятся ль вам ее законы или не нравятся. Вы обязаны принимать ее так, как она есть, а следственно, и все ее результаты. Стена, значит, и есть стена... и т.д., и т.д.». Господи боже, да какое мне дело до законов природы и арифметики, когда мне почему-нибудь эти законы и дважды два четыре не нравятся? Разумеется, я не пробью такой стены лбом, если и в самом деле сил не будет пробить, но я и не примирюсь с ней потому только, что у меня каменная стена и у меня сил не хватило”

“Другой раз влюбиться насильно захотел, даже два раза. Страдал ведь, господа, уверяю вас. В глубине-то души не верится, что страдаешь, насмешка шевелится, а все-таки страдаю, да еще настоящим, заправским образом; ревную, из себя выхожу... И все от скуки, господа, все от скуки; инерция задавила.”

Eylon gil

אל תחיה את חייל כאדם מבוהל 

aam 

in this instance the pleasure stemmed directly from being too clearly aware of one’s own humiliation; from the feeling that you’ve gone too far; that it’s foul but that it can’t be otherwise; that you’ve no way out, that you’ll never change yourself into another person; that even if you still had enough time and the faith to change yourself into something else, you probably wouldn’t want to change yourself; and that if you did want to you “would still do nothing because in the end there’s maybe nothing to change yourself into.”

(I’m sufficiently well educated not to be superstitious, but I am.)

..постыдно сознавал в себе, что я не только не злой, но даже и не озлобленный человек, что я только воробьев пугаю напрасно и себя этим тешу. У меня пена у рта, а принесите мне какую-нибудь куколку, дайте мне чайку с сахарцем, я, пожалуй, и успокоюсь. Даже душой умилюсь, хоть уж, наверно, потом буду вам себя на себя скрежетать зубами и от стыда несколько месяцев страдать бессонницей. Таков уж мой обычай.

whatever that means Fyodor. also, title reference 

alyssa 

“Perhaps you’ll say it’s not worth getting involved; but in that case I can answer you the same way. Our discussion is serious; if you do not deign to give me your attention, I am not going to bow and scrape before you. I have the underground”

“… and again that what had been done could in no way be undone, and I would gnaw, gnaw at myself with my teeth, inwardly, secretly, tear and suck at myself until the bitterness finally turned into some shameful, accursed sweetness, and finally--into a decided, serious pleasure! Yes, a pleasure, pleasure! I stand upon it. The reason I've begun to speak is that I keep wanting to find out for certain: do other people have such pleasures?”

“Not just wicked, no, I never even managed to become anything: neither wicked nor good, neither scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and utterly futile consolation that it is even possible for an intelligent man seriously to become anything, and only fools become something.”

jana 

Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise.

I wanted “peace,” to be left alone in my underground world. Real life oppressed me with its novelty so much that I could hardly breathe.

There is no need to stive for love when you can have everything without love.

Even sometimes there is happiness in the midst of sorrow; and indeed sorrow is everywhere.

"Oh, well, then I shall die," she answered, quite vindictively, and she made a quick movement.

As a rule, I was always alone. In the first place I spent most of my time at home, reading. I tried to stifle all that was continually seething within me by means of external impressions.

There was no one like me and I was unlike anyone else. "I am alone and they are 

At that time I was only twenty-four. My life was even then gloomy, ill-regulated, and as solitary as that of a savage. I made friends with no one and positively avoided talking, and buried myself more and more in my hole.

Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind. The more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.

I swear to you, gentlemen, there is not one thing, not one word of what I have written that I really believe.

Notes from the Underground is Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1864 masterpiece following the ranting, slightly unhinged memoir of an isolated, anonymous civil servant. A dramatic monologue in which the narrator leaves himself open to ridicule and reveals more of his weaknesses than he intends, this influential short novel lays the ground work for the political, religious, moral and political ideas that are explored in Dostoevsky's later works.

emmy 

** spoiler alert **
           Notes from underground is like that book you stumble upon and suddenly everything clicks. Dostoevsky's portrayal of the unnamed narrator, the "underground man," delves into the complexities of existential angst and societal alienation with remarkable depth and insight. 
What struck me most about the novel is Dostoevsky's ability to capture the internal turmoil of the underground man in such vivid detail. His relentless introspection and existential despair serve as a mirror reflecting the inherent contradictions and irrationalities within human nature.
I like how Dostoevsky confronts the reader with uncomfortable truths about the human condition, challenging conventional notions of morality and rationality.
Despite its philosophical depth, "Notes from Underground" maintains a sense of urgency and immediacy, as if Dostoevsky is engaging in a dialogue with the reader, probing the depths of their own psyche. 
I definitely found myself grappling with similar existential questions.

This book reminded me of why I love reading. After years of struggling to get back into reading, “notes from the underground” was a painfully relatable book, with a pathetic MC that you do not want to relate to. Incredibly funny while, at the same time, instigating questioning the deepest parts of your mind. This is for people looking for something dark, that will make you laugh and question your life choices. A perfect book if I have ever read one.

Brunella

Notes from the Underground is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It is considered by many to be the world's first existentialist novel. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is told in monologue form, or the underground man's diary, and attacks emerging Western philosophy, especially Nikolay Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?. The second part of the book is called "Apropos of the Wet Snow," and describes certain events that, it seems, are destroying, and sometimes renewing the underground man, who acts as a first person, omniscient narrator.

 is a profoundly insightful, though often overlooked, exploration of the human condition. The protagonist, the Underground Man, gives voice to the thoughts we typically suppress, driven by vanity and self-loathing. He boldly declares that he has taken his actions to extremes others would not dare to reach, exposing the cowardice often mistaken for prudence. His intense self-awareness suggests that he finds more authenticity and vitality in his extremes than in the cautious lives of those around him—and perhaps he’s not entirely wrong.

Dostoevsky masterfully crafts an anti-hero in the Underground Man, blending traits that make him almost unbearably unlikable. This deliberate characterization highlights the novel’s central theme: that we are all, in some way, estranged from the essence of life, each of us metaphorical cripples. The protagonist’s shame and doubt permeate the narrative, making it feel less like a story and more like a form of self-punishment. This raw honesty lends the work a disarming authenticity, turning it into a profound exploration of human flaws.

 forces readers to confront the uncomfortable truths about their own shortcomings and cowardice, making it an unsettling yet deeply impactful read.

🏹

Notes from Underground is a profoundly insightful, though often overlooked, exploration of the human condition. The protagonist, the Underground Man, gives voice to the thoughts we typically suppress, driven by vanity and self-loathing. He boldly declares that he has taken his actions to extremes others would not dare to reach, exposing the cowardice often mistaken for prudence. His intense self-awareness suggests that he finds more authenticity and vitality in his extremes than in the cautious lives of those around him—and perhaps he’s not entirely wrong.

Dostoevsky masterfully crafts an anti-hero in the Underground Man, blending traits that make him almost unbearably unlikable. This deliberate characterization highlights the novel’s central theme: that we are all, in some way, estranged from the essence of life, each of us metaphorical cripples. The protagonist’s shame and doubt permeate the narrative, making it feel less like a story and more like a form of self-punishment. This raw honesty lends the work a disarming authenticity, turning it into a profound exploration of human flaws.

Ultimately, Notes from Underground forces readers to confront the uncomfortable truths about their own shortcomings and cowardice, making it an unsettling yet deeply impactful read.

sani

❝to love meant to tyrannize and hold the upper hand morally. all my life i have been unable to conceive of any other love, and i have reached the stage when i sometimes think now that the whole of love consists in the right, freely given to the lover, to tyrannize over the beloved.❞

my first dostoevsky book and it certainly didn't disappoint. the underground man is bitter, intellectual and hateful. he thinks he's superior to the rest of the stupid faced men but at the same time, he is wary of them. he is so complex. at some point, you'd want to hate him, to like him, to laugh at him, to slap him as well as to sympathize with him.

thanks for getting me out of my reading slump. here are a few quotes that i loved a lot :

❝i love you very much, i torment you out of love, and i want you to feel that.❞

❝destroy my desire, blot out my ideals, show me something better, and i will follow you. perhaps you will say it is not worth while to get.❞

❝after all, perhaps prosperity isn’t the only thing that pleases mankind, perhaps he is just as attracted to suffering. perhaps suffering is just as good for him as prosperity. sometimes a man is intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering – that is a fact.❞

Molly M

oh boy oh boy that was cool :) thanks for lending me ur book, veronica! i’ve never read smth with a narrator Like That before

mila

Atlas

Kendime acıdım yeraltındaki adama acıdım hak verdim üzüldüm ve günümüzle karşılaştırdım. Kendimi fark etmeme yardımcı olduğu gibi zaten bildiklerimin kağıda dökülmesi gibiydi. Bu yüzden okumak kendime ve yeraltındaki adama üçüncü bir kişi olarak bakmamı sağladı. Dediği gibi insanlar doğaya karşı gelemeyip gelecekte de aynı geçmişte de aynı oldular ve olmaya devam edecekler. Güzeldi okumaya değer.

Însemnări din subterană

Khatliyn

maybe im just not a cynic, maybe im just not used to the writing, maybe i just dont enjoy constant pessimistic yapping

Lettuce Wrapped Cabbage Cat

Weird to read a book where the protagonist 

Doesn’t have a helpful perspective. It’s how not to behave. 

Adam Scharf

Weird to read a book where the protagonist 

Doesn’t have a helpful perspective. It’s how not to behave. 

it was an honor to read the thoughts of a professional yapper such as yourself mr. underground man

Ziggy

jack

underneath a veil of absolute moral filth, dostoevsky is able to hide truth concerning both life as we all live it and the perspective of a “””failson””” (i can’t think of a better word at the moment). the rampant sexism is disgusting to read but fits with the rest of the character and works as an attack on the type of person that the narrator is - a type of person that is ever-prevalent today. 

*****

my biggest problem with this book (apart from the shaming of sex workers) can be summed up by this quote from CS Lewis, 
“You can’t go on “seeing through” things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. To “see through” all things is the same as not to see.”
i think dostoevsky does a lot of notable “seeing through” in this book, and reading from a 2019 perspective that seeing through just doesn’t hit as hard as it probably has for most of the time this book has existed. my problem is dostoevsky (in this short story at least) fails to act or offer any insight beyond this simple vision.

2.5 stars*

the underground man is as he described himself, an “acutely conscious” man who’s extremely self-aware. he notes multiple times how the reader must be laughing at his musings throughout the chapters. he also contradicts his words and shows masochistic tendencies. his great opposition to modern society is amusing as it is thought-provoking. it actually scared me every time i came across a passage and thought, “i mean, he has a point.”

the first part of the novella shows the psychological complexity of the character with depth and awareness that was previously less tackled in the preceding literature. the second part solidifies the underground man being an unreliable narrator, with his views and opinions mostly coming from contempt. he’s a remarkably horrible character, but i believe that he’s a characterization of what humans can be when brought upon by an extent of societal problems. we are not the underground man, but the underground man can come from any of us.

this is my first russian literature and to be honest, i was only able to pick up a few things from the book itself and found the literary analyses more enthralling than the narration of the underground man. you can only accept so much from an angry man full of bs.

Alec Karlen

gut-wrenching, nausea-inducing writing aimed right where it hurts as always, thank you Dostoevsky

Francesca

Memórias do Subsolo

renni

Me desafiei a ouvir um audiobook pela primeira vez e por alguma razão achei que esse seria um livro interessante para experiência. E tava certa!!

O personagem-narrador é tão cínico que chega a ser engraçado. A interpretação das falas pelo narrador do audiobook estava no ponto. Me pegava rindo toda vez que o personagem voltava atrás do que havia falado e começava falando "Mas meus senhores...".

Assim, eu simplesmente não vou me adentrar a nenhuma vertente filosófica ou política, porque não tenho propriedade, mas, rapaz, quando Nietzsche leu esse livro ele deve ter começado a levitar.

Mas sério, muito engraçado o personagem toda hora "longe de mim falar mal da aristocracia russa patriarcal mas..." e seguia falando mal da aristocracia russa patriarcal. Toda jornada existencialista dele é bem insana. Ele precisava de uma aprovação ou de uma redenção a todo custo. E o meio era pela culpa. 

Essa história me deixou irritada, frustrada, me fez rir, com dó, intrigada, enfim, extremamente pensativa com as memórias desse homem do subsolo. Não estamos mais no século 19 mas seguimos em uma sociedade bem insegura e egomaníaca ao mesmo tempo, chegando a ser lamentável e perigosa.

Enfim, muito bom!!!

Notes from underground, White nights, The dream of a ridiculous man, and selections from The house of the dead

Joe Ross

This book is painful at times but I love every moment of it, not unlike my life. The literary embodiment of paranoid eccentricity.

Andrew John Kinney

This is not Dostoyevsky's best work, but it gains strength as it goes along; the ramblings of a socially awkward, bookworm misanthrope whose disdain for humanity prevents any real connection with anyone. Many dedicated readers will see a glimpse of at least a part of themselves in this tale if they are honest, and I suppose that was to some extent, though not entirely, the author's point: reading is an escape, but it can also replace real life for some, and that's not usually a good thing. The second half of the book is stronger than the first, by the way, so if after the first fifteen pages you are thinking of giving up, take heart.

Shape Mismatch

The most honest, sincere writeup I have ever come across.
It's no secret that Dostoevsky is one of the most powerful writers in modern history. And this books stands up straight in testifying that. Notes from the underground is about the bane of consciousness, and a vile morality in an unjust and corrupt society. The book is divided into two parts namely the Underground and Apropos of Wet Snow. The former is a philosophical description of the lives of conscious being, full with bold statements and cryptic metaphors. The latter is a narrative which reeks of blood, rust and sulphur from which the former philosophical description can be distilled out. 

After a century and a half one notices in oneself, the same dilemmas, dissatisfactions, desires and temptations which are laid bare by the author. Dostoevsky has an ability of explaining desire or a thought so complex, you are not sure of its existence within you, by such plain combination of words which assure you that these desires, these thoughts are not unique within you. It is in utter despair and utter loneliness then, where one can find a character, the only human you know, speaking your language, and consequentially understanding you like no living person has or possibly can.

Kehinde Adeleke

The underground man is such a hateful, loathsome creature! (Also, it's me  😬)

Ashlyn

Not my kind of thing, but I can see why people like it.

Carlos Becker

Elisa Benaggoune

A big stream of consciousness and existentialism all in one. I’ve never read anything like this before, and am a fan of existentialism books. Feels like I’m reading his consciousness whilst also going through the pain he endures.

"𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗹𝘆, 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘀 𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺."
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
'𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙐𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙜𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙' was my first Dostoyevsky since I abandoned '𝘾𝙧𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙋𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩' owing to its 'dense and convoluted' prose. '𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨' wasn't much better in this regard. I wouldn't exactly call Dostoyevsky's prose elegant but that isn't where he shines; where he does shine is in his analysis of human nature, although the trade-off between prosaic embellishment and his acute analysis of the human psyche is certainly not of loss to the reader. You just know what you're reading for when you get into it. I tried a couple of translations and found that the Pevear-Volokhonsky one struck a fair balance between richness of prose and readability.

The book is about a man living on the fringe of society and reads as his notes in the first person, as is evident from the title. The first part of the book consists of the astute observations of the narrator on themes such as rationality and free will.

The second part of the book details the events leading up to the narrator's seclusion from society. This latter part of the books stands in stark contrast to the former, laying bare the hypocritical, irrational and base nature of the 'underground man.'

Throughout the book, the narrator makes attempts to justify himself and at the same time trying to appear to not seek the validation of the reader - all the while failing miserably in the process.

The book makes for some great critique of rational philosophies, and talks of suffering and free will among other themes, which in my opinion, still ring true in contemporary times - in short, I think '𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨' has aged well despite being published in the latter half of the 19th century. The book has certainly grown on me since I finished it two weeks ago and immediately picked '𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙄𝙙𝙞𝙤𝙩', also from Dostoyevsky, right after.

Notes from the Underground A Play in Two Acts

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