Fyodor Dostoevsky
April 2024
Introduction
I'm going into this one completely blind. I've never read any of Dostoevsky's work before, but the summary sounds interesting. From the amazon listing:
“One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator of Dostoevsky's most revolutionary novel is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In full retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature.”
I've been thinking a lot about human nature lately, so it'll be interesting to see this author's perspective.
My Thoughts
I tried, but I couldn’t make it past 20 pages. I just could not follow what the heck the unnamed protagonist was even talking about.
I think part of the problem is that my perspective as an American woman in 2024 is just too different from a Russian man in 1864. My own thoughts on human nature are ultimately optimistic, whereas the protagonist’s thoughts are very pessimistic and insufferable. I understand the protagonist is meant to be unlikable, but I just found myself wondering: what point is he trying to make? I even tried skimming ahead and it just seemed like the whole book was senseless rambling, so I gave up on trying to understand him.
This book just wasn’t for me, I much prefer adventurous stories.