First published 2015
The Underground Man sits alone in his St. Petersburg apartment, scratching out his confessions on paper. This unnamed former civil servant has retreated from the world, nursing his spite and contradictions. He fills his diary with attacks on the rational philosophy sweeping through Russia, particularly targeting Chernyshevsky's optimistic vision in What Is to Be Done. His pen moves from abstract rants to concrete memories. In the section he calls "Apropos of the Wet Snow," he recalls specific incidents that have shaped his isolation. These events reveal a man caught between his desire for human connection and his compulsion to destroy it. The Underground Man emerges as an unreliable guide through his own psyche, simultaneously seeking redemption and sabotaging his chances for it. His memoirs capture the paradox of a consciousness that understands its own sickness but cannot cure itself.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, 20th-century, 19th-century
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, unreliable-narrator
Setting: St. Petersburg
Period: 19th-century
58 pages · Paperback · Editorial International
Content warnings: mental-illness