“I'm now asking an idle question of my own: which is better-cheap happiness, or lofty suffering? Well, which is better?”
The protagonist establishes an inner dialogue with himself and engages the reader in an acerbic and self-mocking dialogue in which he reasserts his individual freethinking over the redemptive control imposed by totalitarian principles.īut as juicy as Pevear’s references and footnotes were, the cavernous voice that crawled from the netherworld and seeped into my conscience seemed atemporal and devoid of indoctrinating intention to me, and therefore, universal. The fact that Dostoevsky’s novella constitutes one of the founding pillars of the psychoanalysis theories and the existentialist reasoning didn’t come as a surprise. My edition of “Notes from Underground” includes a magisterial foreword by Richard Pevear that gives an extra dimension to the introspective musings of its sardonic anti-hero, bestowing them with the required intellectual authority to reproach the utopian socialism and the aesthetic utilitarianism prevalent in the Russia of the 1860s and offer responses to ideological, philosophical and moral paradoxes of a world in the threshold of progress and modernity. Thomas Mann described Dostoyevsky as "an author whose Christian sympathy is ordinarily devoted to human misery, sin, vice, the depths of lust and crime, rather than to nobility of body and soul" and Notes from Underground as "an awe- and terror- inspiring example of this sympathy." From the primitive peasant who kills without understanding that he is destroying life to the anxious antihero of Notes from Underground-who both craves and despises affection-the writer's often-tormented characters showcase his evolving outlook on our fate. The compelling works presented in this volume were written at distinct periods in Dostoyevsky's life, at decisive moments in his groping for a political philosophy and a religious answer. A collection of powerful stories by one of the masters of Russian literature, illustrating the author's thoughts on political philosophy, religion and above all, humanity: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead (150th Anniversary Edition)
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