A review by oskhen
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

5.0

This book hit me hard. I don't think it's worth intellectualizing as that does nothing but hinder its effect, but I can't help it. It documents the struggle of a very self-conscious man struggling with, well, real life. He cannot free himself from his concepts and ideas of life and hides, terrified, in a dark basement from everything that would even hint at something "other", something existing outside of his knowledge. He sees through life as nothing but a play staged by actors who've lost themselves in the act, viewing this as the ultimate dishonest betrayal and is driven to madness from this chasm between his inner world and the events of "the real".


"We are oppressed at being men - men with a real individual body and blood, We are ashamed of it, We think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man."

Terrifyingly haunting and beatifully honest.