My first Dostoiévski reading

What should I expect from pic related?

You should expect to read the book with as few preconceptions as possible and form your own fucking opinion, what the fuck is wrong with you people

Rambling annoying guy

Why would you want people putting opinions in your head before you read? What should you expect? Nothing. Just fucking read it, it's like 80 pages long.

If you havent read Stirner or thought about the issues of scienceism then you are in for an interesting read

>tfw lost count of how many times you've reread this book and still have no idea what he's rambling about in the first part of the book

Am I on Reddit?

Best translation of notes? I was gonna go with McAndrew

Just read it and tell us what you think it's about.
Always try to get into/relate to the book's characters before you try to find the books overall meaning.

>Dostoiévski

>Read Notes from Underground
>The guy doesn't live underground
>mfw

How about you just read it and find out fagtron

This thread is shit and you should feel bad for making it.

Look at the context. Dostoyevsky is explicitly critiquing Chernyshevsky's Utilitarianism in "What Is To Be Done?" This exact phrase pops up multiple times.

For Dostoyevsky, free will is the greatest good, not the overall happiness that utilitarians believe is. Dostoyevsky believes that a man, when presented with a perfect path to happiness (utilitarianism), would rebel and purposely cause themselves suffering to act of their own free will. In the first half of the book, the UM challenges the "laws of nature" (recall the brick wall, 2+2=5, and the pleasure from toothache) that Chernyshevsky builds his ideas upon. Additionally, he compares Chernyshevsky's utopian "crystal palace" to a chicken coop, claiming that both offer the same function.

For Dostoyevsky, following a pre-set path to happiness (utilitarianism), is akin to losing one's self. Similar to how Kierkegaard views despair.

Okay, so does that mean UM acting like an autist is supposed to be good because he's free or what?

Expect a good book. It's not very long, just read the damn thing.

Yeah, pretty much. UM rebels against conventional ideas of an ideal life to freely exercise his individual desires. It's kind of an exaggeration, but I think it's effective.

Seriously? He doesn't act like someone to aspire to. He's literally the past equivalent of a bitter Veeky Forums nerd.

Insight into people defined by their self loathing.

Unfortunately I spent most of my life around similar people, so it was insight I already possessed.

He's not intended to be a role model. Dostoyevsky issues the UM as a sort of warning. If such a utilitarian society were to exist, and a predefined happiness (for Dostoyevsky, this is utility) is enforced upon its citizens, man would rebel against it. The UM is purposefully pathetic to critique utilitarianism' control over the individual, a 'spook' if you will.

UN is like Merseult from L'etranger but done properly. He is there to illustrate a part of Dostoevsky's idea, not to be a model Dostoevskian hero or some nonsense like that.

As big D says in the intro, this is a character who will necessarily appear in a rational, enlightened society. He isn't good or bad, he just is.

basically