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Notes from Underground & A Confession
In these two short works, Russia's greatest novelists ruthlessly tackle the subject of their mid-life crisis. In his novella Dostoyevsky creates a nameless rebel, the man from underground for whom the power of reason reduces everything to meaninglessness, and whose warped insight costs him his friends and the woman who might have loved him.
- GenresFiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published June 7, 1994
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November 24, 2022
Notes from an Underground: 3.5 stars (fiction)
An account of a man living in the "underground", this feels more like a philosophical argument on the folly of men and their beliefs rather than a short story. It's interesting enough for a light read, but it doesn't quite plumb the depths of its chosen subjects.
A Confession: 4 stars (non-fiction)
Tolstoy's examination of the meaning of life in this collection of interconnected essays was illuminating; he sets off on two tangents while searching for an answer to the question -- first on the basis of science, and second on the basis of faith. There were a lot of illuminating & timeless insights and quotes from this soliloquy on the beliefs of science and theology, and though I might not agree with everything, they gave me a lot of things to ponder afterward, especially since the topics in this book are the very same subjects I've been contemplating on for the past few months...
Some great food for thought here, so I'm giving this collection an overall rating of 3.75 on the strength of "A Confession".
An account of a man living in the "underground", this feels more like a philosophical argument on the folly of men and their beliefs rather than a short story. It's interesting enough for a light read, but it doesn't quite plumb the depths of its chosen subjects.
A Confession: 4 stars (non-fiction)
Tolstoy's examination of the meaning of life in this collection of interconnected essays was illuminating; he sets off on two tangents while searching for an answer to the question -- first on the basis of science, and second on the basis of faith. There were a lot of illuminating & timeless insights and quotes from this soliloquy on the beliefs of science and theology, and though I might not agree with everything, they gave me a lot of things to ponder afterward, especially since the topics in this book are the very same subjects I've been contemplating on for the past few months...
Some great food for thought here, so I'm giving this collection an overall rating of 3.75 on the strength of "A Confession".
July 25, 2012
Originally published on my blog here and here in July 2000.
Notes From Underground
Notes From Underground is a strange book, probably more at home in the late twentieth century than in the mid nineteenth, which immediately precedes Dostoyevsky's great novels and which is, indeed, something of an experiment on which the psychology of those novels builds.
In structure, it appears to be some autobiographical notes written by a recluse who lives underground. The first part explains something of his philosophical outlook on life, the second recounts a discreditable incident. Like some of the central characters of the later novels, the narrator of Notes From Underground verges on the edge of madness, though he is certainly a less subtle creation than Dostoyevsky's greatest. There are autobiographical elements too, particularly in the narrator's relationship with the church.
Notes From Underground is closely related to the genre of books of personal revelation, of which the most famous example is Rousseau's Confessions. It also contains elements of parody, with a pseudo-academic footnote on the first page, and a motto of bad poetry at the head of the second part. It ridicules the ideas of the now mercifully forgotten History Of Civilization In England by Thomas Buckle and contains lengthy attacks on rationalism, especially the idea that all human ills can be cured by a mathematical understanding of the intellect.
The first person description of insanity and self loathing, the psychological introspection and the apparent disconnectedness of the two parts are distinctly modern in feel, along with the throwaway ending ("This is as good a place as any to stop."). Even so, the analysis of human nature is neither as deep nor as immediate as in Dostoyevsky's great novels.
A Confession
In contrast to Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground, with which it is packaged in this Everyman edition, A Confession is a work of non-fictional autobiography. It followed Tolstoy's greatest work, rather than preceding it as Notes From Underground did that of the older writer. There are similarities, in that both authors use these short pieces of writing to set out something of their views on life, and as these philosophical ideas are vitally part of their great novels, the works bear similar roles in the authors' output as a whole.
The subject of A Confession - not a title Tolstoy liked, but imposed by publishers because of similarities to Rousseau's Confessions - is the move of the writer away from the religious certainties of his Orthodox childhood. This started with an excited discussion between Lev and his brothers after one of them had been told that there was no God. The line of thought taken by Tolstoy from that date parallels that of the writer of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, which is quoted at length. Basically, Ecclesiastes looks at the world from a purely materialistic point of view, and comes to the conclusion that it is meaningless; only God, the writer feels, can make sense of life. Tolstoy does not take the same final step, being put off by the vast differences between the professed values and the actions of those who called themselves believers in the nineteenth century Russia upper classes. He tried to copy the simple faith of the peasantry, by just glossing over the parts of Orthodox ritual he didn't 'understand' - the word he uses, though he really means 'identify with' in today's terms. When he realised that this amounted to most of the ritual, he left the church and effectively formulated his own personal religion, trying to follow the moral teachings of the New Testament while jettisoning every other part of Christianity.
Tolstoy's religious writings, of which this is the best known and (I think) the first, were fairly influential in the last years of the nineteenth century. He considered these works his most important and retired from novel writing to concentrate on them, before returning to fiction with Resurrection years later - and even then, the novel was written as a way to publicise his ideas.
Today, the religious work of Tolstoy is relatively obscure, and there are both historical and literary reasons for this. The Russian Revolution brought suspicion in the West on ideas from that country, even if they were not Communist in origin. Thus, Tolstoy ceased to be cited as an influence on atheistic humanism, even as this became one of the dominant philosophies of the twentieth century. From a literary point of view, Tolstoy tends to play to the gallery; in A Confession, the autobiography is smoothed out for public consumption, every action rationalised and justified (in a rhetorical way, the philosophical argument being of a poor standard). In the end, the reader is left wondering whether Tolstoy really believes what he says, and certainly is in doubt as to the way he actually reached these beliefs.
Notes From Underground
Notes From Underground is a strange book, probably more at home in the late twentieth century than in the mid nineteenth, which immediately precedes Dostoyevsky's great novels and which is, indeed, something of an experiment on which the psychology of those novels builds.
In structure, it appears to be some autobiographical notes written by a recluse who lives underground. The first part explains something of his philosophical outlook on life, the second recounts a discreditable incident. Like some of the central characters of the later novels, the narrator of Notes From Underground verges on the edge of madness, though he is certainly a less subtle creation than Dostoyevsky's greatest. There are autobiographical elements too, particularly in the narrator's relationship with the church.
Notes From Underground is closely related to the genre of books of personal revelation, of which the most famous example is Rousseau's Confessions. It also contains elements of parody, with a pseudo-academic footnote on the first page, and a motto of bad poetry at the head of the second part. It ridicules the ideas of the now mercifully forgotten History Of Civilization In England by Thomas Buckle and contains lengthy attacks on rationalism, especially the idea that all human ills can be cured by a mathematical understanding of the intellect.
The first person description of insanity and self loathing, the psychological introspection and the apparent disconnectedness of the two parts are distinctly modern in feel, along with the throwaway ending ("This is as good a place as any to stop."). Even so, the analysis of human nature is neither as deep nor as immediate as in Dostoyevsky's great novels.
A Confession
In contrast to Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground, with which it is packaged in this Everyman edition, A Confession is a work of non-fictional autobiography. It followed Tolstoy's greatest work, rather than preceding it as Notes From Underground did that of the older writer. There are similarities, in that both authors use these short pieces of writing to set out something of their views on life, and as these philosophical ideas are vitally part of their great novels, the works bear similar roles in the authors' output as a whole.
The subject of A Confession - not a title Tolstoy liked, but imposed by publishers because of similarities to Rousseau's Confessions - is the move of the writer away from the religious certainties of his Orthodox childhood. This started with an excited discussion between Lev and his brothers after one of them had been told that there was no God. The line of thought taken by Tolstoy from that date parallels that of the writer of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, which is quoted at length. Basically, Ecclesiastes looks at the world from a purely materialistic point of view, and comes to the conclusion that it is meaningless; only God, the writer feels, can make sense of life. Tolstoy does not take the same final step, being put off by the vast differences between the professed values and the actions of those who called themselves believers in the nineteenth century Russia upper classes. He tried to copy the simple faith of the peasantry, by just glossing over the parts of Orthodox ritual he didn't 'understand' - the word he uses, though he really means 'identify with' in today's terms. When he realised that this amounted to most of the ritual, he left the church and effectively formulated his own personal religion, trying to follow the moral teachings of the New Testament while jettisoning every other part of Christianity.
Tolstoy's religious writings, of which this is the best known and (I think) the first, were fairly influential in the last years of the nineteenth century. He considered these works his most important and retired from novel writing to concentrate on them, before returning to fiction with Resurrection years later - and even then, the novel was written as a way to publicise his ideas.
Today, the religious work of Tolstoy is relatively obscure, and there are both historical and literary reasons for this. The Russian Revolution brought suspicion in the West on ideas from that country, even if they were not Communist in origin. Thus, Tolstoy ceased to be cited as an influence on atheistic humanism, even as this became one of the dominant philosophies of the twentieth century. From a literary point of view, Tolstoy tends to play to the gallery; in A Confession, the autobiography is smoothed out for public consumption, every action rationalised and justified (in a rhetorical way, the philosophical argument being of a poor standard). In the end, the reader is left wondering whether Tolstoy really believes what he says, and certainly is in doubt as to the way he actually reached these beliefs.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews