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Reading Russia: Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground
As you may already know, this summer I’ll be traveling to Russia for a week. Because of that trip, I decided to read as much Russian literature as I could. I even blogged about my plans over at Conversational Reading. But so far, I haven’t read much; it’s taken me longer than I expected just to get through Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. What follows are some brief thoughts (perhaps too personal?) about Notes; look out for more posts on the next few books. Read on if you’re interested.
Okay, this was the second time I read Notes from the Underground. The first time I read it, I was a sophomore in college and I existed in a little, selfish world, and I lacked any sort of awareness of how I fit into a greater world populated by other emotionally active young adults. This lack caused me to act upon many poor decisions that directly affected the others around me. As a result of this lack, I honestly have no memories of reading Notes from the Underground. I know I read it, and I know it was on the course syllabus, but I do not remember reading it. It did not affect me at all.
But I decided to read it after Christmas last year, because we were in the early stages of planning this trip to Russia, and I had a copy, and I thought I ought to read it, and oh boy, here we go. I read the entire book during the two hour van ride from my parents’ house in Chattanooga to the airport in Nashville. Despite the driver’s tuning the radio to some awful country music station, I managed to get through the book. I recall having tears in my eyes at one point during the van ride.
Listen, this book is very important to me – “I am a sick man…” – and I can’t help but feel as though many of the narrator’s thoughts reflect some of my own. Reading this book was frightening to me not because I was so disturbed by the narrator’s ideas, but because I recognized much of what he said as things I had witnessed in my own head; I doubt this is a very unique experience, and I’m very interested to hear what others have felt in response to this book.
Here are some excerpts below that are particularly important to me and why:
Now tell me this: why has it happened, as if deliberately, that at those very – yes, at precisely those very – moments when I was most capable of comprehending the whole subtlety of ‘all that is beautiful and sublime,’ as we once used to say, I would not only fail to comprehend it but I would do such unseemly things, the sort of things that … well yes, in short, that perhaps everyone does, but which came to me, as if deliberately, precisely when I was most aware that I absolutely ought not to be doing them?
I chose this passage because of two things: 1) I am destroyed by the phrase “I fail to comprehend it”; when I read that phrase, I can’t help but reflect on how often I fail to comprehend things that I know in my head I should comprehend. I don’t mean that I am bothered that I cannot comprehend why something is beautiful to me, but that I often can’t even comprehend that something is beautiful to me, if that makes sense. It makes me terrified a little that I am missing out on so many things. And 2) The passage helps a little bit my understanding of the Karamazovian nature: my ability to hold simultaneously two directly opposed values and not immediately die of self-cancellation.
Read this also (emphasis mine):
Let me explain: in this instance the pleasure stemmed directly from being too clearly aware of one’s own humiliations; from feeling that you’ve gone too far; that it’s foul but that it can’t be otherwise; that you’ve no way out, that you’ll never change yourself into another person; that even if you still had enough time and the faith to change yourself into something else, you probably wouldn’t want to change yourself; and that if you did want to you would still do nothing because in the end there’s maybe nothing to change yourself into.
I am occasionally pleasantly undone by the worry that I have somehow ruined my life, merely because I made a decision, and that decision forever shut off the possibility of doing something differently with my life. I can never be not-me. I feel stupid for writing this.
And:
But just try letting yourself be carried along blindly by your feelings, without reason, without first principles, banishing consciousness at least for the time being; hate or love, anything rather than sit with folded arms. The day after tomrrow, at the very latest, you will begin to despise yourself because you have knowingly fooled yourself.
There are moments when the purest, most irrational parts of me sneak out into the world and do things with my body against my will. Holding inane, but pleasant conversations with complete strangers in the post office is one example. Writing this silly post is another. And feeling unabashed terror while resting in my bed late at night, my wife sleeping beside me, is yet another. I regret all. Please forgive me.
And finally:
Suffering is indeed the sole cause of consciousness. Even if I declared at the beginning that in my opinion consciousness is man’s greatest misfortune, I know that man loves it and will not exchange it for any other form of satisfaction. Consciousness is, for instance, endlessly superior to twice two.
I have never enjoyed mathematics.
Thank you for reading my thoughts on a book that is important to me. The next few posts will (hopefully) consist of my thoughts on The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, and We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. That is all I’ve read so far in this project.
Goodnight.
Tags: Russia
there is a dostoevsky flat in st petersburg and the house he grew up in in moscow. you can visit both. they are actually kind of nice. in st petersburg they put his old top hat in a case and hung at the top of his old coat rack. for some reason that was important to me. i stared at it for maybe 50 seconds. also it was nice to look out his windows.
there is a dostoevsky flat in st petersburg and the house he grew up in in moscow. you can visit both. they are actually kind of nice. in st petersburg they put his old top hat in a case and hung at the top of his old coat rack. for some reason that was important to me. i stared at it for maybe 50 seconds. also it was nice to look out his windows.
I keep meaning to crack this Andrei Bely book, but can’t seem to get out of this cold war mentality.
I keep meaning to crack this Andrei Bely book, but can’t seem to get out of this cold war mentality.
Have you tried Chekhov’s short stories? They are almost impossible NOT to love. Particularly, as he once said, the ones that are written without intention. There is one in particular (out of the many hundred he wrote) called “The Apothecary’s Wife” that is a wonderful place to start. Or even Ed Sanders’ biography in verse, CHEKOV, which is a delight.
Have you tried Chekhov’s short stories? They are almost impossible NOT to love. Particularly, as he once said, the ones that are written without intention. There is one in particular (out of the many hundred he wrote) called “The Apothecary’s Wife” that is a wonderful place to start. Or even Ed Sanders’ biography in verse, CHEKOV, which is a delight.
Good post. I think sharing personal responses to literature is almost as important as having them in the first place.
Good post. I think sharing personal responses to literature is almost as important as having them in the first place.
Lovely Ryan- thanks so much for sharing. I read that book in college and thought “this is me”. I also love how it in no way “shows but does not tell”. It’s pure telling. It’s fantastic.
Lovely Ryan- thanks so much for sharing. I read that book in college and thought “this is me”. I also love how it in no way “shows but does not tell”. It’s pure telling. It’s fantastic.
from the very first sentences of that book i was hooked craniosacrally:
“i am a sick man. i am a spiteful man. i am an unattractive man. i believe my liver is diseased. however, i know nothing at all about my disease and do not know for certain what ails me. i don’t consult a doctor for it, and never have, though i have a respect for medicine and doctors. besides, i am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, at any rate (i am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, even though i am). no, i refuse to consult a doctor out of spite. that is something you probably will not understand. well, i do. of course, i can’t explain whom precisely i am mortifying in this case by my spite: i am perfectly well aware that i cannot ‘get even’ with the doctors by not consulting them; i know better than anyone that by all this i am only injuring myself and no one else. but still, if i don’t consult a doctor it is out of spite. my liver is bad, well–let it get worse!”
oh man oh man, kills me everytime. yeah, i too thought i was reading myself, but probably for other reasons. at that time in my life, i was a couple years sick and still a couple years away before my body would completely give out on me. undiagnosed then, undiagnosed now. and spiteful of doctors and wasting vital organs. and content to waste away in spite of others and myself. and the contradictory impulses of reason, i.e. rational thoughts, and destructive or irrational tendencies. the janusian effect.
i can’t remember all of the story, it’s been years since i’ve read it, but it occupied me like a virus. and the philosophical ruminations, the alienation not even from others but from himself, i could go on and on. that book was like looking into a mirror and knowing that it was me who was the reflection.
also, i second the chekhov–have only read one of his stories, “ward no. 6”, but that was the perfect convergence of eastern detachment and the mind devolving into an almost serence philosophical insanity. that book also has personal significance, due to the themes, but i did not identify as wholly as with “notes from underground”.
it’s so wonderful to see it written about here. i don’t think i’ve met anyone else who’s read it. thanks ryan.
from the very first sentences of that book i was hooked craniosacrally:
“i am a sick man. i am a spiteful man. i am an unattractive man. i believe my liver is diseased. however, i know nothing at all about my disease and do not know for certain what ails me. i don’t consult a doctor for it, and never have, though i have a respect for medicine and doctors. besides, i am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, at any rate (i am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, even though i am). no, i refuse to consult a doctor out of spite. that is something you probably will not understand. well, i do. of course, i can’t explain whom precisely i am mortifying in this case by my spite: i am perfectly well aware that i cannot ‘get even’ with the doctors by not consulting them; i know better than anyone that by all this i am only injuring myself and no one else. but still, if i don’t consult a doctor it is out of spite. my liver is bad, well–let it get worse!”
oh man oh man, kills me everytime. yeah, i too thought i was reading myself, but probably for other reasons. at that time in my life, i was a couple years sick and still a couple years away before my body would completely give out on me. undiagnosed then, undiagnosed now. and spiteful of doctors and wasting vital organs. and content to waste away in spite of others and myself. and the contradictory impulses of reason, i.e. rational thoughts, and destructive or irrational tendencies. the janusian effect.
i can’t remember all of the story, it’s been years since i’ve read it, but it occupied me like a virus. and the philosophical ruminations, the alienation not even from others but from himself, i could go on and on. that book was like looking into a mirror and knowing that it was me who was the reflection.
also, i second the chekhov–have only read one of his stories, “ward no. 6”, but that was the perfect convergence of eastern detachment and the mind devolving into an almost serence philosophical insanity. that book also has personal significance, due to the themes, but i did not identify as wholly as with “notes from underground”.
it’s so wonderful to see it written about here. i don’t think i’ve met anyone else who’s read it. thanks ryan.
Thank you for this post. I read Notes during my first year of university and it completely tore the rug out from under me like nothing I had read before or have read since. Yeah, the form is all over the place, but the intention is there and it cuts thru the art of it and hits you full on with its raw, black, unflinching insights, etc. The latest translation is the most fantastic, btw.
Thank you for this post. I read Notes during my first year of university and it completely tore the rug out from under me like nothing I had read before or have read since. Yeah, the form is all over the place, but the intention is there and it cuts thru the art of it and hits you full on with its raw, black, unflinching insights, etc. The latest translation is the most fantastic, btw.
I love you Keith.
I love you Keith.
dostoyevsky all time greats.
dostoyevsky all time greats.
thanks everyone for commenting/reading
when i was lost and blind, i called out your name, and a bag of nails was dropped on my head. i called and you came. hard.
thanks everyone for commenting/reading
when i was lost and blind, i called out your name, and a bag of nails was dropped on my head. i called and you came. hard.