#20 – The Underground Spirit

“I think the best way to describe Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment, would be that he is what you get when the underground man, the protagonist from Notes of the Underground, reads Nietzsche.”

“Nietzsche brought an early transcript of the book that he was working on, which would become his first book, The Birth of Tragedy. In the book, he describes Greek tragedy as developing out of a musical base.”

“In The Joyous Science, the same book where his madman announces the death of God, he says that all select spirits and explorers of truth above all, must learn to take a veritable delight in madness.”

“More than any other of Dostoevsky's books, it was crime and punishment that affected Nietzsche. He called it Dostoevsky's main work, and fair enough, maybe it is.”

“That first book of Dostoevsky's, that Nietzsche found, was called The Underground Spirit. The Underground Spirit was actually two short Dostoevsky stories packaged as one book.”

“In the closing words of his autobiography, Eke Homo, which he wrote in his last 10 weeks or so of sanity, he wrote that the formula for human greatness was to learn to love one's fate.”

“The famous line from Paradise Lost, that the mind is its own place, and can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven, comes to mind when I think of this parallel period in the lives of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche.”

“Nietzsche finds a book called 'The Landlady' and reads a story about a young reclusive scholar named Ordenov, which resonates with his own experiences.”

“Nietzsche's most important book, as far as he was concerned, a book he considered a text of almost sacred knowledge, was called Thus Spake Zarathustra.”

“He pulled his strength together and wrote The Brothers Karamazov, which is a world historical masterpiece of literature.”

“This is a section from Nietzsche's book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, again written long before he ever discovered Dostoevsky.”

“Nietzsche publishes his book, The Joy of Science, sometimes The Joyful Science or The Gay Science, and in it, he raises a question that would become central to his philosophical outlook.”

“In his book, The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lash writes of the narcissistic need for adulation.”

“Dostoevsky authored a scene in one of his great books, The Idiot, which drew on his experience of being sentenced to execution.”

“Nietzsche himself, in his book Dawn, written the year of Dostoevsky's death, wrote, in outbursts of passion and in the fantasizing of dreams and insanity.”

“The same year he quit the university, he published Human, All Too Human, the first book of his great period.”

“Dostoevsky's first book, 'Poor Folk', made him the next big thing at a young age, similar to Nietzsche's early achievements.”

“Dostoevsky's book 'Demons' is mentioned, which Nietzsche read and copied passages from into his notebooks.”

“In 1881 he published Dawn, or Daybreak. In it he writes, Medical kit for the soul.”

“He asked that the parable of the prodigal son be read to them in his dying presence. Most of us know that it's from the Bible.”

“He wrote The Gambler and The Eternal Husband, two novellas that are pretty good.”

“He wrote The Gambler and The Eternal Husband, two novellas that are pretty good.”