Home › Classics › Notes from Underground
A bitter, isolated man tells his own story in an angry confession
1864Fast paceDark
What it is about
The narrator is a retired civil servant living in a corner of Saint Petersburg, bitter and full of contradictions. In the first part he rants about society and free will, and in the second he describes a humiliating episode from his past. The short novel is seen as a forerunner of existentialism.
Who will enjoy it
Readers who want a short, tough classic.
What you will get
A short book that is a good entry point to Dostoyevsky.
Notes from Underground Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Classics · Alienation · Free will · Confession
Length
136 pages · ≈ 4 h
More about this book
Characters
An unnamed narrator known as the Underground Man.
Setting
Saint Petersburg in the 1860s.
What makes it different
A short, angry monologue that sets out ideas that run through his later novels.
Feel
Bitter, sharp and unsettling.
The Brothers Karamazov
The Tragedy of Macbeth
The Jungle
The Stranger
Hamlet
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
The Scarlet Letter