Notes from Underground

A retired civil servant, nameless and sick with spite, sits in a Petersburg basement and argues with the reader for a hundred pages about why he is the way he is. Then, in the second half, he tells a story that demonstrates it — a humiliating dinner with old schoolfriends, and a much worse encounter with a young woman who makes the mistake of being kind to him.

The first part is the philosophical demolition. It is aimed at the confident rationalism of its day, the belief that once people understand their own best interests they will act on them. The Underground Man's answer is that human beings will choose their own harm purely to prove they are not a piano key being played by someone else's logic.

It is frequently called the first existentialist novel, and it is short — but it is genuinely unpleasant company, which is the point. Dostoevsky is not asking you to like the narrator. He is betting you will recognise him.