Questions About Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead, please sign up.

Answered Questions (3)

How can you spend valuable brain energy on this rubbish?

- Jared - ₪ Book Nerd ₪ Jared: Though I imagine your question was really a rhetorical commentary. Perhaps you didn't count on anyone reading it, let alone replying to it.

If …moreJared: Though I imagine your question was really a rhetorical commentary. Perhaps you didn't count on anyone reading it, let alone replying to it.

If you really don't reckon on readers, then I ask, why do you make such compacts with yourself--and on paper too--that is, that you won't attempt any system or method, that you jot things down as you remember them, and so on, and so on? Why are you explaining? Why do you apologise?

Goodreads user Reply:

Well, there it is, I answer.

There is a whole psychology in all this, though. Perhaps it is simply that I am a coward. And perhaps that I purposely imagine an audience before me in order that I may be more dignified while I write. There are perhaps thousands of reasons. Again, what is my object precisely in writing? If it is not for the benefit of the public why should I not simply recall these incidents in my own mind without putting them on paper?

Quite so; but yet it is more imposing on paper. There is something more impressive in it; I shall be better able to criticise myself and improve my style. Besides, I shall perhaps obtain actual relief from writing.

Besides, I am bored, and I never have anything to do. Writing will be a sort of work. They say work makes man kind-hearted and honest. Well, here is a chance for me, anyway.

Jared: "Isn't that shameful, isn't that humiliating?" you, Goodreads user, will say, perhaps, wagging your heads contemptuously. "You thirst for life and try to settle the problems of life by a logical tangle. And how persistent, how insolent are your sallies, and at the same time what a scare you are in! You talk nonsense and are pleased with it; you say impudent things and are in continual alarm and apologising for them. You declare that you are afraid of nothing and at the same time try to ingratiate yourself in our good opinion. You declare that you are gnashing your teeth and at the same time you try to be witty so as to amuse us. You know that your witticisms are not witty, but you are evidently well satisfied with their literary value. You may, perhaps, have really suffered, but you have no respect for your own suffering. You may have sincerity, but you have no modesty; out of the pettiest vanity you expose your sincerity to publicity and ignominy. You doubtlessly mean to say something, but hide your last word through fear, because you have not the resolution to utter it, and only have a cowardly impudence. You boast of consciousness, but you are not sure of your ground, for though your mind works, yet your heart is darkened and corrupt, and you cannot have a full, genuine consciousness without a pure heart. And how intrusive you are, how you insist and grimace! Lies, lies, lies!"

Of course I have myself made up all the things you, Goodreads user, say. That, too, is from underground. I have been for forty years listening to you through a crack under the floor. I have invented them myself, there was nothing else I could invent. It is no wonder that I have learned it by heart and it has taken a literary form....(less)

flag

How hard is this to read?

DeanJean If you don't like being pointed out by Mr Dostoevsky as an asshole (and I can identify with some of the situations that he points out) - don't read th…moreIf you don't like being pointed out by Mr Dostoevsky as an asshole (and I can identify with some of the situations that he points out) - don't read this book. You'll end up loathing him for 1) this reason, and 2) for the mind-twisting philosophies. It's like a metaphoric mirror being held up to the dark side of your character.(less)

flag

Which translation is best?

Mary Without a doubt, the best translation is by Ralph E. Matlaw in 1960. It is in paperback published by E.P. Dutton & Co. No other translation even comes…moreWithout a doubt, the best translation is by Ralph E. Matlaw in 1960. It is in paperback published by E.P. Dutton & Co. No other translation even comes close.(less)

flag