Day 5.

The novel, Notes from the Underground is truly an amazing novel. Although I enjoyed it while reading it, talking about it during class today allowed me to understand it better and consequently to appreciate and like it even more. We were supposed to have finished reading the novel by class today. Three of us in the class, including the professor, were the only ones who had finished it. The others probably hadn't started reading it yet. Dr. McCarthy was talking about something in the book, I don't quite remember what exactly, but in the middle of what she was saying, curiosity struck me. Apparently the fact that I had a question or something to say was evident on my face for McCarthy called on me and told me to go ahead with whatever I was going to say even after I told her it was incredibly off topic from what she was talking about. Thanks to my wonderful memory I do not remember what I asked her, though the ideas we discussed and the than floating ideas in my head are still quite clear to me. The main character in the novel, the ever present "I", deals with an incredible amount of self contradiction and inner turmoil because of it. He is an orphan and has never truly known love or friendship, and as a result most of his knowledge on the two subjects comes from books. Romantic stories in books are not a true reflection of reality and because of this, I think, the "I", struggles with what reality really is and what he thinks it should be due to the impression of reality imparted on him by books. The poor man can't seem to separate reality from the books and cannot therefore understand his turmoil at seeing the world in two different ways and wanting to act towards it in two different ways. At the end of the novel it becomes clear the the character is just an exaggerated version of all of us, well that is what the author tells us at least. I agree with him, the author, to some extent. I have read countless books that I have at one point in time decided I wanted to live in. There have been other times that I have been tempted to frame and experience my reality through the reality of a book. I don't think I have ever fully been able to lose the distinction though. After reading the book, I understand how horrible of an idea it would be to expect what I read in books to be reflect in actual reality. It may be easy to fall into that trap though. Dostoevsky is in part advising us to make the distinction and to not expect our realities to reflect the fiction we read. Otherwise our fate will be the same as I's, the fate of the disappointed idealist that turns into a horrible cynic.