>re-read Notes a decade later>experience a much deeper and more critical understanding of Dostoyevsky's masterful satire of faggots like Chernyshevsky>realize he was not only mocking the younger me that related with it but was also depicting something of a horror story at the same timeIf you thought the narrator was 'based' or 'literally you' you completely missed the point of this book. It's only funny until you realize how tragic it is.
I was shitposting when I said the narrator was literally me. Not all of us are losers like you are.
>>23812434Yeah legit aye, the real horror story is every single person down to the last man can relate in some capacity with the underground man, what is important is what you do with that information, my recommendation personally is to read the brothers Karamazov.
>>experience a much deeper and more critical understanding of Dostoyevsky's masterful satire of faggots like ChernyshevskyHave you read Chernyshevsky?>If you thought the narrator was [...] 'literally you' you completely missed the pointIdentifying with a character doesn't mean you think the character is a good person or worthy of emulation. It really says nothing about one's actual interpretation of the text.And I don't even see how viewing the text as wholly 'mocking' the underground man is a more meaningful or interesting reaction than relating to him.
>>23812408If you are alluding to Dostoevsky’s worst novels, then, indeed, I dislike intensely The Brothers Karamazov and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigamarole. No, I do not object to soul-searching and self-revelation, but in those books the soul, and the sins, and the sentimentality, and the journalese, hardly warrant the tedious and muddled search. Dostoyevsky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity – all this is difficult to admire. I do not like this trick his characters have of ”sinning their way to Jesus” or, as a Russian author, Ivan Bunin, put it more bluntly, ”spilling Jesus all over the place." Crime and Punishment’s plot did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be received a little cynically by experienced readers. Dostoyevsky never really got over the influence which the European mystery novel and the sentimental novel made upon him. The sentimental influence implied that kind of conflict he liked—placing virtuous people in pathetic situations and then extracting from these situations the last ounce of pathos. Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoevsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist. He was a prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. I admit that some of his scenes, some of his tremendous farcical rows are extraordinarily amusing. But his sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes are not to be endured for one moment—by this reader anyway. Dostoyevsky seems to have been chosen by the destiny of Russian letters to become Russia’s greatest playwright, but he took the wrong turning and wrote novels.
>>23812713Nabokov got diddled as a kid and became a pedo lol.
>>23812600>Have you read Chernyshevsky?Only 'What is to Be Done', Notes is very clearly a parody of it. >>23812755Nabokov liked Dosto he was just a tsundere.
>>23812818>Nabokov liked Dosto he was just a tsundere.Classic diddled-as-a-kid behavior.
>>23812408I guess I should consider revisiting it since at 20 when I read it I did think he was literally me and then growing older I wince at the thought of ever feeling any affinity for such a cringelord character and ever having been moved by such an hack author
You post as if the people who think or behave like the underground man don't realise they are pathetic and broken and their self-satirising isn't a coping mechanism for them and as if that isn't what Dosteovsky is also doing.
>>23813285>the people who think or behave like the underground man don't realise they are pathetic and brokenLook around anon, they do tend to romanticize it quite a bit
>>23813230>I guess I should consider revisiting it since at 20 when I read it I did think he was literally me and then growing older I wince at the thought of ever feeling any affinity for such a cringelord character and ever having been moved by such an hack authorTry it in 10 more years, maybe then the irony won't be lost on you of how you're trying to hard to seem disaffected just like the thing you describe.>>23813285>think or behaveThe problem here is all they do is think. The underground man never changes or actualizes into anything because he's convinced himself of a completely moribund philosophy which rejects all others. The recognition here is 1 or 2 steps only, it goes no further so it can snuff out the energies involved in being wrong by claiming 'it has recognized said wrongness' and then relieves itself of any need to act and so correct itself, it's more schizoid than sincere, a practiced self-defeating tautology which one performs precisely to exhaust oneself so that one can never exhaust one's self. It's the intellectual equivalent of edging for 20 years, a man gone insane with masturbation but living in a lifetime of climax denial.
>>23812818>Nabokov liked Dosto he was just a tsundere.>nooo it's not possible that my baby's first russian author isn't actually good the whole educated world is just being ironic!
>>23812408Wait, so you guys liked it because he was a relatable character, not a funny pathetic retard?lmao
>>23812408I don't care much for this sort of interpretation, this pro- or anti-thing perspective. The greatest portrayals of things exaggerate and illuminate and reason about the essence of the thing, which, sure, invites love and hatred for the portrayal depending on the disposition of the audience, but cannot be fully characterized as either exaltation and apologetics or bitter attacks and mocking satire. Just as Romeo and Juliet is not anti- or pro-love, Notes is not anti- or pro-underground man.It is apologetic, and it is mocking. He is relatable, and he is pathetic. He is great and he is low. It is praise and insult all at once. That's how great art always is, it can be seen as either (or preferably, both) because it captures the essence of the thing.
>>23814238>the whole educated worldand other thoughts dreamed by the deranged
>>23812408>If you thought the narrator was 'literally you' you completely missed the point of this book.Boy you are retarded.
>>23812408Very few (if any) people think he's "based". The people that relate to him hate themselves for it. On some level they might be addicted to living that way though.>>23812480I tried internalizing the hell out of the Zossima/Alyosha stuff, but it eventually petered out. I don't think their worldview is coherent if you aren't religious. It's not as if I don't want to live that way, I just can't feel it.
I just read it. What the hell was his problem?
You’re wrong and you clearly haven’t read The Double or Shatov’s defense of Slavophilism in Demons. Notes From the Underground is about irrationality motivating people, people’s motivations and actions not having intellectual substance but working according to the chaos of natural hierarchy and that’s how people revenge and dominate others or suck up to each other in healthy, comfortable, and ‘natural’ ways. The narrator doesn’t have a name or a family, he’s a disembodied intellect that doesn’t fundamentally understand what’s motivating the people around him like why his friends suck up to the rich kid and why they seem to actually like him because he finds it humiliating. He has nothing ‘natural’ but he’s still a ‘living organism’ so he constantly tries to assert and revenge himself in increasingly ridiculous ways that become more convoluted and estranged from everything. That’s the whole critique, that’s why he’s an anti-hero. The Double is about a man that actually tries to live according to his heart, see what happens to him. Shatov argues against communism and internationalism because he says that a country must believe in their own god fully and uncritically in order to become a dominating force and light in the world that leads everyone else, they have to have a natural and ‘irrational’ strength and full belief in themselves in order to become an assertive power that can actually lead people and people can look up to. People relate to him because they fundamentally don’t have anything or any connection to any country or people. And yeah if you mess around with drugs in that state it actually does start getting pretty scary because you start thinking even immediate physical space doesn’t mean anything to you and you start getting scared that the sky is about to collapse into you and the sun is just going to randomly crash into the earth. If you actually become that weakened the only thing left to is basically go into church and start crying and physically clinging to people.
