Notes from the Underground
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A philosophical debate about human nature and life in a technological civilization in the form of the diary of a fictional civil servant, this 1864 novel is considered the foundational work of existentialist literature. Punishing himself through his refusal to seek medical treatment for his pain, the embittered, nameless narrator engages in what appears to be an attempt to prove to himself that human happiness can never be possible because people are too stubbornly individualistic not to assert themselves, even in wicked ways. One of the must-reads from Russian novelist FYODOR MIKHAILOVICH DOSTOEVSKY (1821-1881), this trailblazing work of modern literature offers a vital basis for understanding much of contemporary philosophy and pop culture, from Jean-Paul Sartre and Friedrich Nietzsche to Taxi Driver and American Psycho, all of which have taken inspiration from this extraordinary work.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821. Between 1838 and 1843 he studied at the St Petersburg Engineering Academy. His first work of fiction was the epistolary novel Poor Folk (1846), which met with a generally favourable response. However, his immediately subsequent works were less enthusiastically received. In 1849 Dostoevsky was arrested as a member of the socialist Petrashevsky circle, and subjected to a mock execution. He suffered four years in a Siberian penal settlement and then another four years of enforced military service. He returned to writing in the late 1850s and travelled abroad in the 1860s. It was during the last twenty years of his life that he wrote the iconic works, such as Notes from the Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), which were to form the basis of his formidable reputation. He died in 1881.
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