Notes from Underground

Dostoevsky portrays a character (the Underground Man) who was dealt an awful hand in his childhood and is racked with insecurities, developing his own system of unhealthy coping mechanisms and antisocial beliefs that turn him into a monster. As despicable as his actions and as insufferably condescending as his thoughts are, he is merely an exaggeration of several personality traits that are fairly common and that definitely held up an uncomfortable mirror to my own life while I was reading. To me, this book was a glance into an awful parallel future where I refuse (or fail) to learn how to love and respect myself, using intelligence to justify my own sickness and alienating myself from humanity and reality itself. Deeply horrifying, yet deeply motivating.