Notes from Underground (,
Zapiski iz podpol'ya), also translated as
Notes from the Underground or
Letters from the Underworld, is an 1864
novella by
Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Notes is considered by many to be the first
existentialist novel. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter,
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 told in
monologue form, or the underground man's diary, and attacks emerging Western philosophy, especially
Nikolay Chernyshevsky's
What Is to Be Done?. The second part of the book is called "Àpropos of the Wet Snow", and describes certain events that, it seems, are destroying and sometimes renewing the underground man, who acts as a first person,
unreliable narrator.