Notes From Underground -

Dostoevsky wrote the book as a rebuttal to Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done? , which argued that humans could be guided by rational self-interest.

The "Underground Man" introduces himself as a bitter, isolated former civil servant. Notes From Underground

Set sixteen years earlier, it follows his disastrous social interactions, including a humiliating dinner with former schoolmates and a complex encounter with a prostitute named Liza. Dostoevsky wrote the book as a rebuttal to

Reading an edition with historical notes can help clarify the specific 19th-century Russian ideologies Dostoevsky was mocking. it follows his disastrous social interactions