Notes from the Underground

Notes from Underground is an 1864 novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky and is considered to be one of the first existentialist novels. It presents memoirs of an isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man), who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is a monologue that attacks contemporary Russian philosophy. The second part of the book is called «Apropos of the Wet Snow» and describes certain events that appear to be destroying and sometimes renewing the underground man.