Lisa's Reviews > Notes from Underground

Bravo, Dostoyevsky! This is the perfect, absolutely accurate and universal portrait of the insecure, self-conscious egomaniac - pitiful and dangerous, on a negative quixotic rampage against himself, society and the laws of nature he despises but cannot change.

There are so many of these angry men (and women), and they don’t speak from the underground anymore. With modern technology, they have conquered the virtual world, spewing out their self-pity and hatred in long, inconsistent, frustrated tirades, contradicting themselves at each moment, without thinking.

“I am this or that … or no, wait, I was lying, … I am that or the other… I am going to show them all, slap them in the face …“

Dostoyevsky’s misfit is far more eloquent than his modern alter egos, quite similar to authors like August Strindberg, darkly misanthropic and full of self-loathing, but with a sharp intellect and deep understanding of the world of the 19th century, which is undergoing deep and irreversible change.

The man from the underground is seriously shaken by the new scientific era, which he intellectually recognises, but hates because it leaves it to his own responsibility to define meaning in life. The new individual initiative which is required for success in the modern world is scary and diametrically opposed to the old structure, which gave him an unshakable place and aim:

“What stone wall? Why of course, the laws of nature, the deductions of natural science, mathematics. As soon as they prove to you, for instance, that you are descended from a monkey, then it is no use scowling, accept it for a fact … [...] … for twice two is a law of mathematics. Just try refuting it.”

It would take Orwellian dictatorship to put 2+2=4 in doubt again, but the man in the underground doesn’t, as a rule, stick to his own advice, and he curses and rants against the laws he cannot change, claiming that will give him a distinctive identity:

“He will launch a curse upon the world, and as only man can curse (it is his privilege, the primary distinction between him and other animals), maybe by his curse alone he will attain his object - that is, convince himself that he is a man and not a piano-key!”

He might of course just have proven that he is a piano-key that is capable of cursing, and he knows about the inconsistencies of his arguments. They follow him like a thread through all his interactions with other human beings.

He craves a distinguished position in society, but only manages to show superiority by humiliating and despising the company he seeks, and by subsequently falling into passionate remorse and emotional crisis. He can’t be part of a group on equal terms because he wants to rise above it intellectually while feeling inferior to it on a psychological level.

His relationship to women builds on the same oxymoron of romantic idealisation and disgust for reality. He despises women for giving the pleasure he craves. With the prostitute Liza, he has his final breakdown, losing all inhibitions and all sense of shame, pride and dignity. While seeing her helpless situation, her position as a victim of the patriarchal, sexually repressed and morally bigoted society, he still abhors the fact that she has been “used” like an object by other men, and he can’t consider her a subject, an individual, a human with a future anymore, once she has been sexually active with other men.

This is so common, so universal, so deeply felt in most sexually repressive, patriarchal societies: men force women to be sexually dependent, either within marriage or outside it, and then they blame them for not being pure anymore. As if purity and chastity have to be virtues. Once that ancient oxymoron is erased from sexual and religious education, we might see some real change. Consent between grown-ups would be a good commandment for sexual behaviour, but it would seriously shake the foundation of many marriages. It would force many men to be considering ways beyond physical and societal power to attract and keep the devotion of a woman. That sounds like work, and like having to leave the egomaniac bubble. Our man from the underground wouldn’t be up to it. So he will fail, and continue to ensnare himself in a frustrating grey zone between desire and shame.

Just like natural laws stay natural laws, whether you like them or not, sexuality will be there, whether you can deal with it or not.

Our protagonist can’t obviously, like so many other young men brought up in a confused state of mind, with pride and honour as a guideline, and sexual repression and misogyny taught from early childhood, caught in a modern world that offers too many different lifestyles for them to be able to choose, and too few dogmatic guidelines to stick to. Being instinctively egomaniac, their antisocial behaviour falls flat in a group and in a democratic environment, and they compensate the vacuum in their mind with illogical, yet powerful rants!

Don’t underestimate the danger of the voices from the underground. Dostoyevsky masterfully depicts the scary profile of a lost person, overlooked and ridiculed for his deficiencies, yet with enough anger in his heart to lash out, seemingly randomly and spontaneously. We need to have pity, and show respect, and care for those young people caught between modernity and patriarchy, to open our arms and integrate them as best we can. We can’t afford to let them rant in shame and frustration. There must be a place for them to fill “over the ground”, but they won’t take the first step to integrate - being emotionally too unstable.

Give those misfits a place at the table, and they won’t have to shout from the underground, they won’t have to insult women, they won’t have to engage in meaningless, yet deadly duels to save their face.

Give them a face. Like Dostoyevsky gave them a voice -from the underground.