Below I’ve listed out some of the random-ass thoughts I had while reading, just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. New thoughts must be earned, but the opportunities are plenty. It doesn't offer any easy answers or an obvious paradigm. He is a contrarian against everything, even himself.Īs previously mentioned, the beauty of this novel comes from the many various thoughts it can give birth to. You want to hate him, because he is hateful and a burden on humanity. You want to feel sorry for him, because he's pitiful and full of pain. He lives in great poverty he has manic spurts, dreams, and visions of megalomania. He is an individual, unaffected by people, choosing to live by himself - He is hypersensitive to what others think, to the point of being paranoid. At the next moment, wavering doubt and uncertainty. At one moment he has what seems to be great conviction and inner strength. He stands for great unequivocal moral virtue, then cowers further in his morally rotten state. He is emotionally tough, then emotionally sensitive and fragile. He is an educated and intelligent man.īoth his thoughts and actions are paradoxical. A paranoid, ridiculous, introspective, analytical, abrasive, laughable, vengeful, antisocial, extreme, hypersensitive, pathological, delicate, hilarious, bottom-dwelling, pathetic, indecisive, crazy, loner of a man. The second half, humiliating stories from when he was 24 (he is now 40). The first half, his ramblings, thoughts and philosophies of life, via monologue. It's narrated by a guy living underground, in poverty. I have 'should' italicized in that first sentence for a reason: If you don't give yourself time to think - if just skim through the book quickly - then you won't get anything out of it. And not about trivial shit either, but about big, important conditions of life and how best to view and react to them. More than anything, this book should make you think.

Tales from the underground dostoevsky