An Interesting Reading: Notes from the Underground by Dostoyevsky

This is the first article I post to this blog. I decided to write about this masterpiece, one of my favorite short stories, "Notes from the Underground" by the literary giant Fyodor Dostoyevsky. No this is not a normal short story! This is a manifestation of the human creativity in its best forms!

Dostoyevsky has faced a very interesting experience in his life. He was arrested among others with the accusation of conspiring against the Tsar around 1829 (as far as I remember!). The group received a death sentence and were to be executed on a specific day. On that day, Dostoyevsky, then a young man, was prepared to die, had his eyes covered, and was just waiting to be shot by the guards when (as in Arabic movies!) a messenger from the Tsar arrived on his horse announcing that the Tsar has forgiven the "sinners?" and that they were to be freed. This is a true story, and of course it remains subject to speculation the purpose of the Tsar in doing so!

Anyways, I wanted to tell this introductory story for two reasons: First, I am an academic weirdo and in academic papers introductions are a must! Second, it gives a nice context to understand the absurdity of human life and how this understanding affected Dostoyevsky (henceforth; "D" because his name is really too long and confusing). Such an experience is reflected in the themes D chooses for his stories: the themes of absurdity, human humiliation, and ridiculousness! To put it briefly, D was an existentialist long before the famous Sartre and Camus.

The story is interesting. It is divided into two parts: The first part is basically a monologue: random thoughts or notes as the title of the story suggests written by an unnamed man in his forties suffering from a pain in his liver. This part is not really a story. The protagonist describes his views of the world and life. He was a past civil clerk who had pleasure in humiliating the public and was extremely hostile to others. He was a man of philosophy and not a man of action! He masterfully explained his point of view that the "unsophisticated" people were the ones more likely to make actions in life. This point of view, I have to say, found a lot of agreement inside myself. I always view myself as overly sophisticated to the extent that I can make no judgements and hence no actions! It is hard to describe such feeling. It is the feeling that you think too much, analyze too carefully, and so when faced with a situation I will waste all my time analyzing and thinking and philosophizing, such that, at the end of the day, no action whatsoever is taken! Men of action, on the other hand, have to act quickly, think quickly, and make judgements on things quickly. This requires being "simple" if you know what I mean!

The second part of the story, which is the story proper tells three separate events that took place in his life. The first event is his "ridiculous" attempt to take revenge of an army officer. He noticed that whenever he passes through this officer in the street it is "him" who has to step aside to avoid collision while the officer never changes his path. The revenge was simple: Do not step aside! He took a leave from his work, took a loan to buy a suit (to appear socially equal to the officer), and then after so many failed attempts he finally did it!!!!

The second event was his gathering with old friends who now became much more successful and richer than he was (although they were "simpler"!!). He imposed himself on this dinner, did all sort of ridiculous speeches that left him ignored by all his friends. Being humiliated, and perhaps masochist, he decided not to leave but to remain in the dinner room going back and forth for four hours (!!!) while they were talking. In the end, before they left, he literally begged one of them for a loan (to humiliate himself more).

The third event was the situation in which he played the role of the humiliator of a prostitute who got attracted to him and visited him at home only to receive humiliation and insults from him.

The story as a whole explores very intimate areas of the human nature, as far as I look into my inner self. It explores our dark sides: our stupidity, arrogance, ignorance, masochism, and sadism. The story is simple "human"!

Los Angeles: April 22, 2010