Notes from Underground

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Standard Ebooks

About this ebook

Notes from Underground is a fictional collection of memoirs written by a civil servant living alone in St. Petersburg. The man is never named and is generally referred to as the Underground Man. The “underground” in the book refers to the narrator’s isolation, which he described in chapter 11 as “listening through a crack under the floor.”

It is considered to be one of the first existentialist novels. With this book, Dostoevsky challenged the ideologies of his time, like nihilism and utopianism. The Underground Man shows how idealized rationality in utopias is inherently flawed, because it doesn’t account for the irrational side of humanity.

This novel has had a big impact on many different works of literature and philosophy. It has influenced writers like Franz Kafka and Friedrich Nietzsche. A similar character is also found in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.

Notes from Underground was published in 1864 as the first four issues of Epoch, a Russian magazine by Fyodor and Mikhail Dostoevsky. Presented here is Constance Garnett’s translation from 1918.

This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

Ratings and reviews

What starts off as an unwanted lecture from the strange ramblings of a man cast off by society slowly turns into a deeply introspective conversation between you and this philosophical nobody. You begin to relate to and find similarities in the best and worst aspects of yourself in this character's no-longer nonsensical ramblings. The narrator slowly fades into a mirror, and all you're left with is an ugly reflection of yourself staring back at you. This describes part 1 of the book very well, and if this would have continued, I think I would've actually really liked this book. Unfortunately, part 2 is terrible. You quickly learn that our protagonist and narrator is unreliable beyond repair, and has less than zero likeable and redeeming qualities. Even unbiasedly looking into the worst of oneself would not scratch the surface of the sheer vileness of the narrator.