An embittered, isolated former civil servant delivers a caustic monologue attacking rationalism and human perfectibility, then recounts the humiliations that drove him into spiteful seclusion.
Books mentioned in Notes from the Underground (4)
Masquerade by Mikhail Lermontov: “I was actually on the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at that moment that all this was out of Pushkin's SILVIO and Lermontov's MASQUERADE.”
The Shot by Alexander Pushkin: “all this was out of Pushkin’s SILVIO and Lermontov’s MASQUERADE.”
Manfred by Byron: “…all the people my shameful deeds, which, of course, were not merely shameful, but had in them much that was "sublime and beautiful" something in the Manfred style.”
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Heine says that a true autobiography is almost an impossibility... He considers that Rousseau certainly told lies about himself in his confessions, and even intentionally lied, out of vanity.”