Author(s): Fyodor Dostoevsky; Michael R. Katz (Translator)

Fiction and NZ Fiction

Notes from Underground constitutes a central stage in the artistic and spiritual life of Fyodor Dostoevsky. In the form of a monologue-confession, it is the story of the failed redemption of a prostitute and, at the same time, the tormented investigation into the unconscious, the "underground", and the impossibility of understanding oneself and others. The narrator is one of the "underground men", a person who limits himself to contemplate his own immense inner spiritual depth, while at the same time taking note of his own failure and suffering from it. The story is a metaphor for his alienation from society while existing on the fringes of that society.