'Notes From Underground'

Important because its considered one first literary examples of existentialism, which is oh-so cheery.

Existentialism is kind of a bankrupt term for me because it means so much to so many people. People tend to equate the sole meaning of life depending solely on the individual. Somehow, that equation was at some point deemed pointless.

Why is that pointless? If it is so pointless, why write books or make films about how pointless it all is. That art makes the individual's life meaningful. It's all so very strange to me.

What separates Dostoyevsky from the general meaning of existentialism is that his "Man" is a miserable little asshole. If he were living in 2010, he'd be unkempt, covering high school football games for the local newspaper, blogging and playing World of Warcraft online. Still, he'd bitch about the etiquette of being a magical troll.

It doesn't make Notes From Underground bad, just misinterpreted on some level. If Dovstoyevsky put this on a blog, it'd be largely ignored. He writes Crime and Punishment and it somehow carries weight.