Brain Pain discussion
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Notes from Underground
Notes From Underground - Sp 2015
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Discussion - Week Two - Notes from Underground - Part II
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ok, on the whole, I am finding this narrative section better. I'm still never going to be a Dostoevsky fan, but better.
Cphe, I think yes, exactly that. On the one hand, I will happily concede that people (probably everyone to a greater or lesser extent) act in these destructive and self-destructive ways, that they act against self-interest (enlightened or otherwise), that they are spiteful, needlessly cruel, that they would rather have their grievance, and that they further will then wallow in all of these things. I guess the problem for me is, I still don't see the point of reading the underground man. I don't find him interesting as a curiosity, I don't see any bridges to empathy with him, or any analysis that would lead me back to myself when I am in a state like this. I just, fundamentally, don't care. My main reaction to the underground man is annoyance.
Perhaps this is deliberate. Perhaps this alienation from the narrative is somehow the point. But for me, anyway, something, somewhere is lacking, so that whatever is true about this narrative, about this person, about human nature, comes out all meh. I just cannot consider that a success.
I had a similar (though much, much stronger) reaction to the BrothersK which I read earlier this year. Like, I get what he's trying to do, I think, it's just that I cannot bring myself to care. I hate both the dissolute wickedness and the cloying piety. For a while I was okay with Ivan, but then the narrative punished him for being an atheist and an intellectual in the most transparently manipulative and overblown possible terms, and I was like, you know what Mr. D? SHUT UP.
This book rises about one star above shut up for me, but that's about it.
Oh! I'm surprised that others aren't enjoying 'Notes'. It's one of my favourite books and, although I've read it a couple of times over the years, I may be tempted to read it again. The first section is the really amazing part...what a character...annoying? yes, repulsive?, yes...but interesting?, surely yes as well?
IMO the first part is about free will and determinism. Any act that we may perform may or may not be due to free will but how could we decide whether it is or isn't. Any act that benefits us in any way could just be due to selfish desires. This could include any purely selfish act such as the acquisition of money, food, prestige etc. But it could also include supposedly heroic or charitable acts; heroic acts could be interpreted as just a more idealistic selfishness; a charitable act, if it makes you feel better in some way, could just be a more refined form of selfishness - including any act that is performed out of duty, religious or secular.
So what about acts that are not in our self-interest? Many of these could be attributed to illness, either physical or psychological, or some form of biological determinism - so this could include suicide, self-harming, addictions etc.
But what about those acts that we may perform that do not have beneficial effects, that are carried out consciously and with the full knowledge that they are detrimental to ourselves? Are such acts unarguably acts of free will? Enter the Underground Man!
Ok, the Underground Man is a grotesque distortion but we all must have acted at some point in our life in a way similar to him. I can empathise with him fully - he's annoying but then I am as well :-) hopefully not all the time though.
Personally, I don't think that the Underground Man's actions can be called truly free as he seems to have a masochistic desire to punish himself. This of course doesn't mean that he doesn't have free will, just that we can't unambiguously distinguish whether his actions are free or determined in some way.
Very well put. Seriously. I think the opening to Notes from The Underground is simply genuis. I feel inspired to reread it again ha.
Chris wrote: "Very well put. Seriously. I think the opening to Notes from The Underground is simply genuis. I feel inspired to reread it again ha."I agree. For me, part one is easily 5/5. Part two is not as good.
Jonathan wrote: "I agree. For me, part one is easily 5/5. Part two is not as good..."It seems to me that the two parts are almost essential to each other, with the second part showing the boots-on-the-ground actions implied by the metaphysical discussion of the first. What's left when the "crystal palace" and any sort of law outside of the self and its will has been rejected is inflicting pain on others and seeking it out for one's self (at least in Dostoevsky's world).
Any act that benefits us in any way could just be due to selfish desires. This could include any purely selfish act such as the acquisition of money, food, prestige etc. But it could also include supposedly heroic or charitable acts…
I think this is spot on. The Underground Man's apparent compassionate behavior towards Liza is really just a form a manipulation, he's laughing at her the entire time. Although she see through him enough to perceive the self-loathing behind his loathing of others.
I read once that Dostoevsky's character was quite… explosive and bad-tempered. I think even Tolstoy mentioned something about it. However, it was hard to believe for me, after getting to know prince Myshkin and Alyosha. But after reading the fit of rage the underground man had with Apollon, I think now it's easier to believe what I read about his character.
Whitney wrote: "It seems to me that the two parts are almost essential to each other, with the second part showing the boots-on-the-ground actions implied by the metaphysical discussion of the first."Agreed. Though both parts are equally insufferable to me now. 19 or 20 was my age when I first read Notes, and I think perhaps that is the best age to read it.
I find it interesting that Dostoevsky wrote this in his 40s -- I had always thought that his "Underground Man" was a projection of his twentysomething self into the future. There is no indication of decades of experience in any of the Notes -- even the "I knew a man/woman who..." comes across as invented examples used to strengthen an otherwise unconvincing argument.
Well, it was amusing to read again, at an age now slightly older than the Underground Man claims to be. I was quite entertained by the similarity between Apollon and my aging Labrador: the stares, the sighs, the holding hostage of a doorway in exchange for wages.
Mkfs wrote: "I find it interesting that Dostoevsky wrote this in his 40s -- I had always thought that his "Underground Man" was a projection of his twentysomething self into the future...."Wasn't the Underground Man Dostoevsky's initial reaction to nihilism and the youth who were embracing it? I think the Underground Man is a predecessor to Stavrogin in The Possessed, where Dostoevsky's criticism of the implications of Nihilism become even more pointed.
I was quite entertained by the similarity between Apollon and my aging Labrador: the stares, the sighs, the holding hostage of a doorway in exchange for wages.
:-)
I liked the first part better but I still enjoyed this. I did feel some sympathy for the narrator. I didn't find him repulsive. He certainly wasn't likeable and his actions were exaggerated but I still felt, and to some extent related to, his pain. I think if I had read this when I was in my 20's it would have been a ten star read. At 49, I'm giving it 4.
and Conclusions/Book as a whole