Consider yourself as a man, or a woman, it doesn’t matter. You’re meek, weak and voiceless.
Everyday on the same road, at the same time you face that big ogre of a policeman. A brute, senseless powermonger. You go out of your way, making a path for him. You wish that you’re not the only one making paths in order to avoid confrontations. You wish that both of you will acknowledge each other and make roads. But he doesn’t take any note of you. You gnash your teeth, silently. At your insignificance, at his hubris. Perhaps you’re not even a man, perhaps if you were a big dumb beast, he’d take notice of you, even only to save himself.
So what do you do? You take out all your meager salary, buy lavish clothes and dress yourself into a nobleman. Once, just for once, you won’t get out of the way. Will he deviate from his seemingly inexorable path? If not, you will ram into him. No matter the consequences.
You are the man from underground in Dostoyevsky’s novel. No, I wouldn’t dare feeling sorry for him. He’s a realistic rendition of a man. By realistic, I don’t mean a man of flesh, blood and bone. No. A man who contradicts all preconceived, fantasized notions of what a man should be—either noble or despicable.
Our man from underground lies. He admits the lies. He burns with jealousy. And what of his own pompousness? His self-justifications? He’s diffident in his poverty and uses that as a shield. Yet he doesn’t forget to remind us how ridiculous the society's fixation on money is as a means to indicate one’s superiority. His stands are often contradictory. A well-read man, not unregretful in his actions. He is a broken piece of a mirror, he’s one of us. So, yes, he does represent humanity, however far or back we travel that ocean of our ancestral history.
The plan to collide into that policeman is quite irrational and self-destructing. He’s not unaware of that. He might get locked up, or worse, beaten savagely. But in his troubled mind, a thread of justification emerges. This is his proposition— Man doesn’t always do something for his own preservation or to ensure his well being. He will deviate, oh, he will—for the sake of the hunger that is his existence. Perhaps the process will hurt him. But what is pain but a reminder that you exist?
He reveals himself to us as the man from underground. What exactly is this ‘underground’? It is everything that's not great and supreme. It’s the fall of imaginary righteousness that we are so fond of. No, don’t shake your head, we do live in the underground, with this resident friend of ours.
I can’t help relating myself to him. All of my writings, including this one screams of my perseverance to further myself. It’s not as if I didn’t live without social media and even so, in real life, I cannot help showing off to whom I can and cower from people I cannot intimidate. May be unconsciously, but does it matter?
But the man from underground is actually honest. I’m not. Self-love can veil those rays of honesty with a thick layer of ash.
I congratulate you if you’ve made this far. I acknowledge my thoughts are as incoherent as the man in question.
And as for this book, (if you haven’t read it already that is) it is one of the finest examples of world literature. The first novel written from a first person perspective. The first existentialist one at that. The one which inspired Kafka, Sartre, Nietsche, Freud, Orwell.
And there is some presence of individualism as well.
But I will not admire or articulate a selling pitch because of these reasons. Yes, I fervently applaud some books based on their literary merit. Some compel us to engage in thoughtful discussions and pass the sleepless nights, contemplating. And then there are some books that bind us by the neck, force us in front of a mirror. This one is of that nature.
I would agree with the translator (who translated the book in English from Russian) in this regard—You should read it for the sake of it, not because it is considered great.