08. notes from underground
notes from underground is kind of torturous. yr reading about the most miserable, irrational, masochistic, vain person you could probably ever dream of. gosh he's so vain it's as if he were skinless. he's nameless in the book but i like to refer to him as pet scoundrel. it's truly psychotic how skewed this man's values are, how righteous he is about the trivial surface of things. he is poor & impoverished all his life, yet he projects an image unto everyone around him of pride, power, & superiority, with one motive supporting his livelihood : to humilate all of them, to bring them to their knees. ive never read bret easton ellis, but i imagine pet scoundrel rivals patrick bateman as the most horrifying embodiment of human despair.
it's not easy to read this book, just as it is not easy to really discuss it without writing something like a thesis. the book is broken into two parts; the first is about a rambly old man (he's 40 but the book was written in 19th century russia so 40 is feeble). he has imprisoned himself in some remote dwelling. he likes it there. he has yr attention & thinks he circumstantially deserves yr respect, so he rants. he rants about his isolation, is explicit about his intense skepticism, rationalizes everything irrational about him. he schools you on life according to pet scoundrel. he says being a lazy man is the best man you can be, because at least you are positive about one thing. you are lazy ! he goes on a tirade about active people & how they really lack intelligence because if they weren't active they wouldnt be able to stand their immobility & their solitude with their stupidity. he, thus, is an extremely intelligent creature. this goes on for about 50 pages, & he scolds you if you laugh.
the actual story begins after that. i read it outloud. otherwise, i kept losing myself & letting my head roll away. it was the middle of the night & i just spoke the words audibly enough that i heard their weight. i was then able to finish the book in that one sitting. ive never actually read a book outloud to myself; it was excellent, i will do it again. pet scoundrel is a young man in this second part of the book. he is a civil servant, living in squalor & is proud ! (he actually hates himself.) he is absolutely disgusted by society & consumed by skepticism. it cripples him; he cant function as a normal person. he is so incapable of acceptable human interaction because of his skepticism, he creates conflicts in an effort to stir something resembling human emotion inside of him. he is the awkward acquaintance that comes to dinner & says inappropriate things. he is the man at the brothel the whore has nightmares about receiving. he is the passenger that hits the cabbie on the back of the head inciting him to go faster.
& somehow pet scoundrel is one of the most passionate characters ive ever encountered. is that seedy ? he is so passionate about living that he frightens himself into destitution, fearing he'd never be able to live properly given his surroundings, given the people near him. he bathes in books & compares his own world to the ones of literature. this is the only scale on which he weighs his own worth. so of course, internally, he finds himself inferior. (externally, he is the most intelligent, worthy man in all of petersburg !) he is an absolute paradox, filled with passion & energy about a world that is incapable of meeting his lofty expectations. there are a few moments of sheer beauty towards the end of the book, the kind that are enhanced by the sorrow of the pages surrounding. he lays next to a prostitute named liza who is young & blushes easy unaware of evil yet, unaware of decay. (remember when yr parents used to buy you picture books with yr name in the title to make you eager & the stuff inside more applicable to you ? whether it be about porcupines collecting grapes or a goblin in finland.) he tells her about love & dying in one breath, about the world he wishes were his own.
people like to count only their troubles, not the good things in their lives. if they looked properly, theyd see that everybody has his share of happiness allotted to him. but imagine a family where everything goes well, with god's blessing; your husband is good & loves & cherishes you, wont take a step away from you! how good life is in such a family. even, sometimes, with troubles & with sorrow, but good all the same. besides, who has no troubles? perhaps you will get married & find out for yourself. but think, let's say of the early years of marriage to a man you love : the happiness, the happiness of it sometimes! why, you see it all around. in the beginning, even quarrels with the husband end well. some women, the more theyre in love, the more quarrels theyll pick with their husbands. really, i knew a woman like that. 'i love you so much,' shed say, 'it's out of love that i torment you, so youll feel it.' do you know that it is possible to torment another out of love? it's mostly women that do it, thinking to themselves, 'i'll make it up to him afterwards with all my love, with the tenderest caresses -- it doesn't matter if i make him suffer a bit first.' & everybody admires you in the house, everything is sweet & gay & peaceful & honest...
he tells her about a father's love for his daughter & how rich it is. how love is god's mystery & should be hidden from outsiders' eyes, whatever happens. this makes it holier. of course he quickly realizes that over the course of his oration his vanity suffered, & he describes wanting to shake her. he simply humiliates her later on instead.
i know i have to read this book again. it's only a slight 130 pages, but it achieves a magnitude that is galactic. by the way, fyodor dostoevseky wrote this, like dove.
it's not easy to read this book, just as it is not easy to really discuss it without writing something like a thesis. the book is broken into two parts; the first is about a rambly old man (he's 40 but the book was written in 19th century russia so 40 is feeble). he has imprisoned himself in some remote dwelling. he likes it there. he has yr attention & thinks he circumstantially deserves yr respect, so he rants. he rants about his isolation, is explicit about his intense skepticism, rationalizes everything irrational about him. he schools you on life according to pet scoundrel. he says being a lazy man is the best man you can be, because at least you are positive about one thing. you are lazy ! he goes on a tirade about active people & how they really lack intelligence because if they weren't active they wouldnt be able to stand their immobility & their solitude with their stupidity. he, thus, is an extremely intelligent creature. this goes on for about 50 pages, & he scolds you if you laugh.
the actual story begins after that. i read it outloud. otherwise, i kept losing myself & letting my head roll away. it was the middle of the night & i just spoke the words audibly enough that i heard their weight. i was then able to finish the book in that one sitting. ive never actually read a book outloud to myself; it was excellent, i will do it again. pet scoundrel is a young man in this second part of the book. he is a civil servant, living in squalor & is proud ! (he actually hates himself.) he is absolutely disgusted by society & consumed by skepticism. it cripples him; he cant function as a normal person. he is so incapable of acceptable human interaction because of his skepticism, he creates conflicts in an effort to stir something resembling human emotion inside of him. he is the awkward acquaintance that comes to dinner & says inappropriate things. he is the man at the brothel the whore has nightmares about receiving. he is the passenger that hits the cabbie on the back of the head inciting him to go faster.
& somehow pet scoundrel is one of the most passionate characters ive ever encountered. is that seedy ? he is so passionate about living that he frightens himself into destitution, fearing he'd never be able to live properly given his surroundings, given the people near him. he bathes in books & compares his own world to the ones of literature. this is the only scale on which he weighs his own worth. so of course, internally, he finds himself inferior. (externally, he is the most intelligent, worthy man in all of petersburg !) he is an absolute paradox, filled with passion & energy about a world that is incapable of meeting his lofty expectations. there are a few moments of sheer beauty towards the end of the book, the kind that are enhanced by the sorrow of the pages surrounding. he lays next to a prostitute named liza who is young & blushes easy unaware of evil yet, unaware of decay. (remember when yr parents used to buy you picture books with yr name in the title to make you eager & the stuff inside more applicable to you ? whether it be about porcupines collecting grapes or a goblin in finland.) he tells her about love & dying in one breath, about the world he wishes were his own.
people like to count only their troubles, not the good things in their lives. if they looked properly, theyd see that everybody has his share of happiness allotted to him. but imagine a family where everything goes well, with god's blessing; your husband is good & loves & cherishes you, wont take a step away from you! how good life is in such a family. even, sometimes, with troubles & with sorrow, but good all the same. besides, who has no troubles? perhaps you will get married & find out for yourself. but think, let's say of the early years of marriage to a man you love : the happiness, the happiness of it sometimes! why, you see it all around. in the beginning, even quarrels with the husband end well. some women, the more theyre in love, the more quarrels theyll pick with their husbands. really, i knew a woman like that. 'i love you so much,' shed say, 'it's out of love that i torment you, so youll feel it.' do you know that it is possible to torment another out of love? it's mostly women that do it, thinking to themselves, 'i'll make it up to him afterwards with all my love, with the tenderest caresses -- it doesn't matter if i make him suffer a bit first.' & everybody admires you in the house, everything is sweet & gay & peaceful & honest...
he tells her about a father's love for his daughter & how rich it is. how love is god's mystery & should be hidden from outsiders' eyes, whatever happens. this makes it holier. of course he quickly realizes that over the course of his oration his vanity suffered, & he describes wanting to shake her. he simply humiliates her later on instead.
i know i have to read this book again. it's only a slight 130 pages, but it achieves a magnitude that is galactic. by the way, fyodor dostoevseky wrote this, like dove.