Notes from the Underground (Aziloth Books)

'Notes From The Underground' is Doystoyevsky's allegory of the Russian State in the middle of the tumultuous 19th century. Just as its anonymous hero's life consists of appalling contradictions, so too, Russia at that time existed in a state of irreconcilable tension between Western intellectualism, and the 'practical' traditions of Old Russia. Dostoyevsky was a prominent promoter of 'westernisation' un'til his Siberian exile 1854, following which he became an ardent Slavophile. Notes From The Underground' repudiates many ideas of western rationalism, arguing that irrational desires are just as potent a spur to human behaviour, and leading Nietzsche to declare that Dostoyevsky was "the only writer that has ever taught me anything worth a damn about psychology"