Notes from Underground by Feodor Dostoyevsky

I’m reading some of the selections in a book I’ve had on my shelf for some time called, Short Novels of the Masters edited by Charles Neider (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967). I recently posted my thoughts about Death in Venice and The Death of Ivan Ilych. The book includes a few other works I’ve read but haven’t written about, Benito Cereno by Herman Melville; The Dead by James Joyce; The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka; all great stories. The other stories in the collection are A Simple Heart by Flaubert; The Aspern Papers by Henry James; Ward No. 6 by Checkov; and The Fox by D. H. Lawrence. I may move on to something else before I get to any of those.

I read The Brothers Karamazov last year and loved it. That was the first Dostoyevsky I had read. I’m glad I read that first because I’m not sure I would have been interested in tackling a long work if Notes from Underground had been my first Dostoyevsky experience. This is a strange work, the main character bizarre, the subject dark.

The novella begins with an “Author’s Note” from Dostoyevsky presenting what is to come. The Brother’s Karamazov began the same way although the Author’s Note there is from a character who also appears as an authorial voice from time to time within the novel. The note here tells us that we are about to read two “fragments” written by a fictional character imagined by Dostoyevsky who nonetheless is supposed (by Dostoyevsky) to represent a really existing type of person. The first fragment is a series of diary entries revealing the character and philosophy of the un-named writer. The second fragment recounts two stories the writer remembers from his earlier life that illustrate the abstract ideas of the first section. The book ends with a second brief note from the author (Dostoyevsky) explaining that the “notes” continue but we’ve probably had enough.

By that point I had certainly had enough. The character is un-likeable, self-obsessed, pathetic. He would tell you the same himself and often does, actually, during the book. On the first half-page alone he describes himself as sick, spiteful, unattractive, superstitious and rude. This is not the kind of person you want to have in your house for half an hour, let alone the two hours or so it takes to read a 95 page novella.

The writer is 40 years old. He worked, formerly, as a low-level civil servant. Then “a distant relative” died and left him money so he immediately quit. He lives a shabby life in a shabby apartment. He employs a manservant. He has no friends or family. He suffers and hates. But also envies. He imagines himself intelligent. Apparently at one point he read a lot. But he’s contrarian and confused.

His philosophy stands against the enlightenment idea that human beings are rational agents who choose, or can be persuaded to choose, their self-advantage. Instead he sees that the rational is only a small percentage of the human character and that we are also, even mostly, led by irrational passions. Chief among those passions is the need to claim ourselves as free individuals. Freedom of the will is the real self-advantage we crave above all others, so much so that we will even choose lives of suffering just so we can prove that we’re capable of making free choices.

The genius of the book is that I can’t argue with the writer’s insight. Think of the people today claiming the freedom not to wear a face mask in the midst of a global pandemic. It’s not a defining analysis of all human persons, but there are certainly many of us who do precisely seem to choose freedom over happiness. Perverse people who prefer suffering, carry petty grudges. People who assign more value to thwarting the social system than in doing what’s actually beneficial for themselves. Republicans who would rather “own the libs” than pass productive legislation. People who could work productively but choose not to. People who crave friends but constantly turn them away for some temporary thrill. People of good intelligence who waste it on conspiracy theories and internet chat-rooms. “Incels” and loners, like the writer of these notes, or folks who are so desperate for community and meaning that they join dangerous cults like QAnon. The writer doesn’t argue that we choose against our advantage, instead that sometimes we choose the psychological advantage that makes us feel powerful over our own lives, even if it’s the power to make ourselves miserable. Human beings are not rational, first. We are led by feelings primarily, and sadly, very often those feelings are unhealthy reactions to previous pains that our current choices perpetuate rather than overcome. But, like those types of people when we encounter them in real life, presented with the writer of these notes I just wanted to shake him, or get away from him, or send him to therapy. So it’s not a fun read.

The first part of the book is an explication of the writer’s philosophy: a “rant” divided into eleven short chapters addressed to “gentlemen” who represent the philosophy of rationalism, optimism, and determinism.

The second part shifts to narrated story, two stories, in ten short chapters. The writer jumps back 16 years to relate a memory from when he was 24. He’s working but loathes his colleagues and they him, again a mixture of hate and envy. Desperate to be noticed and taken seriously, even if negatively, he goes to a bar with the hope of picking a fight. But when the opportunity presents itself (he’s blocking the billiard table and an officer physically moves him out of the way) the writer simply goes home. Then, for the next two years (!), he carries a silent grudge against the officer who he continues to see walking around town. Finally, he makes complicated arrangements to be walking in the park the same time as the officer and deliberately runs into the officer instead of stepping aside. Of course the incident means nothing to the officer who simply walks on, but for the writer, like a troll who thinks they’ve posted the perfect come-back in a facebook comment, “I returned home feeling that I was fully avenged for everything. I was delighted. I was triumphant and sang Italian arias.” (I read the original translation by Constance Garnett, revised by Bernard Gilbert Guerney.) The happy feeling is short-lived, of course.

The second story is more involved; I’ll tell it briefly. The writer, desperate again for some sort of human contact, even if negative, visits the home of an old school-mate, Simonov. Simonov happens to be home with two other school-mates and the three of them are planning a farewell dinner for yet another old school-mate, Zvercov, who is about to leave town. The writer, although he is not friends with any of them, invites himself to the dinner. He goes to the dinner. He’s unhappy. He embarrasses himself. The friends visit a brothel after dinner and again the writer invites himself along. But he arrives after the others and they are already gone (presumably with the prostitutes but they don’t appear again in the story). The writer hires a prostitute himself. After sex, he wakes, in the dark, and begins a conversation with the woman. Her name is Liza. He spins a sad story of doom for the woman and her life as a prostitute. He gets caught up in the romance of story-telling with no thought to its effect on the girl. When he finishes, as an act of making amends for the offense he’s caused, he gives Liza his address. A few days later, she appears at his apartment. He has nothing to say to her. He finally breaks down explaining why he had been cruel to her before and then, feeling sorry for himself, has a crying fit. Now Liza’s sympathy is aroused and the writer takes advantage of her. Sex is implied, occurring in the pause between chapters 9 and 10. But the intimacy was a lie. He wishes she would leave. She finally does. He gives her money, which she doesn’t take. The writer is miserable but satisfied in his misery. And there, thankfully, Dostoyevsky ends the book.

Notes from Underground is often described as the first modern novel, published in 1864. An unreliable narrator. An inventive structure. A existentialist philosophy of alienation and irrationality emphasizing free choice in the midst of an indifferent world. I continue to appreciate Dostoyevsky’s insight into and honesty about human psychology. But I missed in this book the redeeming moments of hope and kindness, that enlighten The Brothers Karamozov. The only moments of lightness in Notes from Underground is when I caught myself laughing at the character’s self-destructive behavior, and then, stopping myself, realized that laughing at someone’s misery, even a fictional character, is not the person I choose to be.