On Notes from Underground

The book is so dark, so gloomy, so full of consciousness and pain that it inevitably drives a person toward pain and loneliness. Of course, when I take Notes from Underground in my hands, it's like taking a baby in my hands; the book suits my mood very well. While reading the book, it's as if a cannonball has been placed on you and you're struggling to hold it. In this book Dostoevsky again tells of himself, because such a good portrayal could only be made by someone who had truly lived it. For this reason, Notes from Underground is a magnificent book of existence; again it inevitably drags a person into existence. This book is more than an epistemology. It is the book in which Dostoevsky succeeds in telling his mood.

Yes, the book absolutely tells of Dostoevsky's painful life. His words on consciousness are in fact everyone's bleeding wound. The more consciousness, the more pain; because a person suffers as he understands, as he becomes aware. A person has a deep heart, feels a lot. His soul, like a dog that has broken its leash, wants to leave the body and run away, to ask the world for forgiveness; because pains are like a skyscraper sewn layer upon layer. With the thought that excessive consciousness inevitably drives a person to pain, he adds even more pain to himself. Anyway, I have not read a book that portrays pain this well. Crime and Punishment, for me, is the book that best portrays conscience; and this one portrays pain very well. It is quite painful that when he meets with his friends he cannot say what is passing through his mind, because a broad consciousness does not let a person voice his thoughts even everywhere.

In this book Dostoevsky in fact tells humanity that there are two kinds of pain: one physical, the other spiritual. The spiritual one is sometimes worse. Because in this book Dostoevsky says that the measure of pain is not in the measure of physical or emotional violence, but in the depth of the heart. That is, a sensitive heart is more affected by a separation; a death hurts it more. A person who is not emotional also grieves, but if you have a deep heart, your pain will increase to that extent as well.

The measure of the pain endured is the heart, not the magnitude of the event experienced.

This line does not appear in Notes from Underground; it is an aphorism of mine from years ago. Dostoevsky too tried to express this in the book. If someone else had been in the underground man's place (and the underground man is Dostoevsky himself; that is, if Dostoevsky had written someone else in his own place), this would have been a very different book; because the hearts that endure the pains endured are very different. Alongside the painful life Dostoevsky lived, the pains he endured in fact stem from his having a sensitive heart. Notes from Underground is the narrative of a man with a broad consciousness and a sensitive heart. Indeed, people with a very broad consciousness fall silent like this even beside their friends; they take offense at everything and are unwanted. Because no one wants a person with a broad consciousness; at least, as far as I have seen in my life, it was like this. Narrow-minded people are loved more, because they are average.

Moreover, this life is designed for an average person. That is, the reason intelligent people have difficulty finding a place in society is that life was not designed for them.

The book carries existential anxiety upon existential anxiety. I like those who tell the truth; rather than believing a sweet lie, a bitter truth is preferable to me. Nor is any truth painful; the fact that a truth is true makes it important in its own right. This importance deepens the things it tells. In Notes from Underground we read truths rather than a fiction. There are certain distortions in the book, but these stem from the narrator's confused mood. There are some fictional flaws in Crime and Punishment as well.

Notes from Underground; a book whose essence is full of pain, truth, existence, consciousness and heart. It comes heavy to overly cheerful and merry people.