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Notes from Underground

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Notes from Underground

By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
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About this listen

"I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man", a nameless voice cries out. And so, from underground, emerge the passionate confessions of a suffering man; the painful self-examination of a tormented soul; the bristling scorn of a lonely individual who has become one of the greatest anti-heroes in all literature.

In 1864, just prior to the years in which he wrote his greatest novels - Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed, and The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky penned the darkly fascinating Notes from Underground. Its nameless hero is a profoundly alienated individual in whose brooding self-analysis there is a search for the true and the good in a world of relative values and few absolutes. Moreover, the novel introduces themes - moral, religious, political, and social - that dominated Dostoevsky’s later works.

Those who are familiar with his works will immediately recognize the novel's richly complex philosophical, political, and psychological themes; those who are not will find the best introduction to Dostoevsky's grander masterpieces.

Public Domain (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing Classics Russian & Soviet World Literature Russia Emotionally Gripping

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All stars
Most relevant
this is a book about me, and i suspect you. I've never read anyone that was able to pull so completely my inner workings and articulate them so clearly in all their horrible reality.

Best book.

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Male twenty-six-year-old here. Hadn’t picked up a book since I was twenty after finding myself in a headspace not dissimilar from the central character of this book. After my six-year hiatus, which was largely overrun by mindless 9-5 workdays and a deep-rooted despondency, I picked up Crime and Punishment after being referred to Dostoyevsky by a friend. Everything from the captivating prose, to the unbiased assemblage of contemporary philosophies and proclivity for explorative thought, reeled me in to the point of no return. After Crime and Punishment, I read The Brothers Karamazov, which has locked me firmly back into the world of classic literature.

I listened to this next. Finished in one sitting, and by the final passage I was in pieces. I’m not familiar enough with Russian literature or even remotely inclined to academic thought, but it would be shocking to me if this wasn’t viewed as one of the most psychologically profound novellas ever written. The Underground Man might be grappling with ailments. He might be suffering from poor mental health and crippling alienation, but the impression I’m left with is one of lucid reflection. Every one of us can find something to relate to here, but whether we care to admit it or not is another story. Dostoyevsky holds up a mirror to the nihilistic facets of the human mind, helping us understand what perpetuates them so that we may be better. Sadness breeds sadness. Hurt people hurt more people. This book is a caution against human thought, and I’m so grateful it exists. Read it and heed it.

The Great Curse of Consciousness

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yeah, it was sound tbf. not dead long either and the chap reading it was on point 👍

my first Fyodor Dostoevsky

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This book was very good, and was performed very well. The best praise I can give it is that I never want to read/hear it again. It depicts the mind of a deeply unpleasant man in whom it was far too easy to identify with.

Wonderfully profound and depressing book

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This is undoubtedly a great book, and well read but I feel very differently to a lot of other reviewers.

The protagonist is identical to some people who are around today. A tragi-comic character in the vein of Ignatius J. Reilly from a Confederacy of Dunces. Self important and preening, he is condescending and rude as hell to people, never ceasing to bang on about how much better and clever he is than everybody else whilst simultaneously whingeing that no-one wants to be his friend. Constantly self-sabotaging yet blaming everyone else.

To use modern parlance he is cringe AF, Hating on the Chads and Stacys instead of addressing his own flaws.

Whilst I can feel sympathy for him I also feel incredibly frustrated. It;s hard not to laugh at him. This surely was written as a comedy.

What I find interesting is how this is one of those books like Fight Club/American Psycho,/Catcher In The Rye which are held up as vindications/aspirations by certain facets of society rather than cautionary tales.

Fragile Masculinity is nothing new.

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