{"product_id":"notes-from-underground-isbn-9780553211443","title":"Notes From Underground","description":"\u003cb\u003e“The political cataclysms and cultural revolutions of our century . . . confirm the status of \u003ci\u003eNotes from Underground\u003c\/i\u003e as one of the most sheerly astonishing and subversive creations of European fiction.”—from the Introduction by Donald Fanger\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I am a sick man . . .  I am a spiteful man,” the irascible voice of a nameless narrator  cries out.  And so, from underground, emerge the passionate confessions of a suffering  man; the brutal self-examination of a tormented soul; the bristling scorn and iconoclasm  of alienated individual who has become one of the greatest antiheroes in all literature.  \u003ci\u003eNotes From Underground\u003c\/i\u003e, published in 1864, marks a tuming point in Dostoevsky's writing:   it announces the moral political, and social ideas he will treat on a monumental  scale in \u003ci\u003eCrime And Punishment\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Idiot\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Brothers Karamazov\u003c\/i\u003e. And it remains  to this day one of the most searingly honest and universal testaments to human despair  ever penned.His life was as dark and dramatic as the great novels he wrote. He was born in Moscow in 1821, the son of a former army surgeon whose drunken brutality led his own serfs to murder him by pouring vodka down his throat until he strangled.  A short first novel, \u003ci\u003ePoor Folk\u003c\/i\u003e (1846), brought him instant success, but his writing career was cut short by his arrest for alleged subversion against the Tsar in 1849.  In prison he was given the \"silent treatment\" for eight months, before he was led in front of a firing squad.  Dressed in a death shroud, he faced an open grave and awaited execution when an order arrived commuting his sentence.  He then spent four years at hard labor in a Siberian prison, where he began to suffer from epilepsy, and he only returned to St. Petersburg a full ten years after he left in chains. His prison experiences coupled with his conversion to a conservative and profoundly religious philosophy formes the basis for his great novels.  But it was his fortuitous marriage to Anna Snitkina, following a period of utter destitution brought about by his compulsive gambling, that gave Dostoyevsky the emotional stability to complete \u003ci\u003eCrime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Brothers Karamazov\u003c\/i\u003e.  When he died in 1881, he left a legacy of masterworks that influenced the great thinkers and writers of the Western world.PART ONE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUNDERGROUND*\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI AM a sick man. . . . I am a spiteful man. An unattractive man. I \u003cbr\u003ethink that my liver hurts. But actually, I don't know a damn thing \u003cbr\u003eabout my illness. I am not even sure what it is that hurts. I am not \u003cbr\u003ein treatment and never have been, although I respect both medicine \u003cbr\u003eand doctors. Besides, I am superstitious in the extreme; well, at \u003cbr\u003eleast to the extent of respecting medicine. (I am sufficiently \u003cbr\u003eeducated not to be superstitious, but I am.) No, sir, I refuse to see \u003cbr\u003ea doctor simply out of spite. Now, that is something that you \u003cbr\u003eprobably will fail to understand. Well, I understand it. Naturally, I \u003cbr\u003ewill not be able to explain to you precisely whom I will injure in \u003cbr\u003ethis instance by my spite. I know perfectly well that I am certainly \u003cbr\u003enot giving the doctors a \"dirty deal\" by not seeking treatment. I \u003cbr\u003eknow better than anyone that I will only harm myself by this, and no \u003cbr\u003eone else. And yet, if I don't seek a cure, it is out of spite. My \u003cbr\u003eliver hurts? Good, let it hurt still more!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have been living like this for a long time-about twenty years. Now \u003cbr\u003eI am forty. I used to be in the civil service; today I am not. I was \u003cbr\u003ea mean official. I was rude, and found pleasure in it. After all, I \u003cbr\u003etook no bribes, and so I had to recompense myself at least by this. \u003cbr\u003e(A poor joke, but I will not cross it out. I wrote it, thinking it \u003cbr\u003ewould be extremely witty; but now I see that it was only a vile \u003cbr\u003elittle attempt at showing off, and just for that I'll let it stand!)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen petitioners came to my desk seeking information, I gnashed my \u003cbr\u003eteeth at them, and gloated insatiably whenever I succeeded in \u003cbr\u003edistressing them. I almost always succeeded. Most of them were timid \u003cbr\u003efolk: naturally-petitioners. But there were also some fops, and among \u003cbr\u003ethese I particularly detested a certain officer. He absolutely \u003cbr\u003erefused to submit and clattered revoltingly with his sword. I battled \u003cbr\u003ehim over that sword for a year and a half. And finally I got the best \u003cbr\u003eof him. He stopped clattering. This, however, happened long ago, when \u003cbr\u003eI was still a young man. But do you know, gentlemen, what was the \u003cbr\u003emain thing about my spite? Why, the whole point, the vilest part of \u003cbr\u003eit, was that I was constantly and shamefully aware, even at moments \u003cbr\u003eof the most violent spleen, that I was not at all a spiteful, no, not \u003cbr\u003eeven an embittered, man. That I was merely frightening sparrows to no \u003cbr\u003epurpose, diverting myself. I might be foaming at the mouth, but bring \u003cbr\u003eme a doll, give me some tea, with a bit of sugar, and I'd most likely \u003cbr\u003ecalm down. Indeed, I would be deeply touched, my very heart would \u003cbr\u003emelt, though later I'd surely gnash my teeth at myself and suffer \u003cbr\u003efrom insomnia for months. That's how it is with me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI lied just now when I said that I had been a mean official. I lied \u003cbr\u003eout of sheer spite. I was merely fooling around, both with the \u003cbr\u003epetitioners and with the officer, but in reality I could never have \u003cbr\u003ebecome malicious. I was aware at every moment of many, many \u003cbr\u003ealtogether contrary elements. I felt them swarming inside me, those \u003cbr\u003econtrary elements. I knew that they had swarmed inside me all my \u003cbr\u003elife, begging to be let out, but I never, never allowed them to come \u003cbr\u003eout, just for spite. They tormented me to the point of shame, they \u003cbr\u003edrove me to convulsions-I was so sick and tired of them in the end. \u003cbr\u003eSick and tired! But perhaps you think, dear sirs, that I am now \u003cbr\u003erepenting of something before you, asking your forgiveness for \u003cbr\u003esomething? . . . Indeed, I am quite certain that you think so. But \u003cbr\u003ethen, I assure you it doesn't make the slightest difference to me if \u003cbr\u003eyou do. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI could not become malicious. In fact, I could not become anything: \u003cbr\u003eneither bad nor good, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither \u003cbr\u003ea hero nor an insect. And now I am eking out my days in my corner, \u003cbr\u003etaunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolation that \u003cbr\u003ean intelligent man cannot seriously become anything; that only a fool \u003cbr\u003ecan become something. Yes, sir, an intelligent nineteenth-century man \u003cbr\u003emust be, is morally bound to be, an essentially characterless \u003cbr\u003ecreature; and a man of character, a man of action-an essentially \u003cbr\u003elimited creature. This is my conviction at the age of forty. I am \u003cbr\u003eforty now, and forty years-why, it is all of a lifetime, it is the \u003cbr\u003edeepest old age. Living past forty is indecent, vulgar, immoral! Now \u003cbr\u003eanswer me, sincerely, honestly, who lives past forty? I'll tell you \u003cbr\u003ewho does: fools and scoundrels. I will say this right to the face of \u003cbr\u003eall those venerable old men, all those silver-haired, sweet-smelling \u003cbr\u003eold men! I have a right to say it, because I will live to sixty \u003cbr\u003emyself. To seventy! To eighty! . . . Wait, let me catch my breath. . \u003cbr\u003e. .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou might be imagining, gentlemen, that I am trying to amuse you, to \u003cbr\u003emake you laugh? Wrong again. I am not at all the jolly character you \u003cbr\u003ethink I am, or may perhaps think I am. But then, if, irritated by all \u003cbr\u003ethis prattle (and I feel it already, I feel you are irritated), \u003cbr\u003eyou'll take it into your heads to ask me what I am, I'll answer you: \u003cbr\u003eI am a certain collegiate assessor. I worked in order to eat (but \u003cbr\u003esolely for that reason), and when a distant relation left me six \u003cbr\u003ethousand rubles in his will last year, I immediately retired and \u003cbr\u003esettled down in my corner. I had lived here previously as well, but \u003cbr\u003enow I've settled down in this corner. My room is dismal, squalid, at \u003cbr\u003ethe very edge of town. My servant is a peasant woman, old, stupid, \u003cbr\u003evicious out of stupidity, and she always has a foul smell about her \u003cbr\u003ebesides.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am told that the Petersburg climate is becoming bad for me, that \u003cbr\u003ewith my niggling means it's too expensive to live in Petersburg. I \u003cbr\u003eknow all that, I know it better than all those wise, experienced \u003cbr\u003ecounselors and head-shakers. But I stay on in Petersburg; I shall not \u003cbr\u003eleave Petersburg! I shall not leave because. . . . Ah, but what \u003cbr\u003edifference does it make whether I leave or don't leave.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo go on, however-what can a decent man talk about with the greatest pleasure?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnswer: about himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, then, I too shall talk about myself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--","brand":"Bantam Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44886375301349,"sku":"NP9780553211443","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780553211443.jpg?v=1767733914","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/notes-from-underground-isbn-9780553211443","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}