Episode 89, Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground (Part III - Apropos of the Wet Snow)

The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane

Education, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Courses

4.8 • 612 Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2020

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Introduction

I write this in secret, hoping that these notes be passed on outside Russia. The author of the diary and the diary itself may, of course, be imaginary. Nevertheless, it is clear that such persons as the Underground Man do exist in our society.

We have tried to expose him to the public but so far there has been no luck. If only people knew of the power of the Underground. He is one of the representatives of a generation still living, a generation waiting patiently for the right moment. His notes were discovered long after his passing, written on tatty paper in cheap ink, covered in cigarette burns and dust….

Don't listen to the ants who would rather slave over the anthill than accept the truth. These notes are yours now, spread them to every corner of the globe. Long live the Underground!

Contents

Part I. The Life of Fyodor Dostoevsky

Part II. Underground

Part III. Apropos of the Wet Snow

Part IV. Body and Blood

Part V. Further Analysis and Discussion

Links

Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky (pdf).

Teaching Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature (book).

Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time (Joseph Frank).

The Case against Rational Egoism in Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, James P. Scanlan (paper).

Symbolism of Rats and Mice in Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Michael Haltresht (paper).

Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky - Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (book).

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan
0:05.3	Scicast
0:08.2	Part 3, Apropos of the wet snow.
0:23.6	So in our last section, we read the first third of notes from underground.
0:29.6	In this week, we're going to read the second third, and in next week's installment, we're going to read the third third.
0:34.6	And who said, 2 plus 2 don't't equal four at the end of section one we've got
0:42.8	our protagonist the unnamed underground man saying confession's good for the soul it's good for us one
0:50.6	can at least try and then he sees the snow falling out onto the streets of St. Petersburg.
0:56.1	And it reminds him of a time which once passed. And here we get the story of the apropos of the wet snow,
1:02.3	which is 20 years prior to what we were reading about, which was the present moment in the last
1:07.5	section, which was his confession. If you enjoyed our other story episodes, you're pretty thinking, wait a minute, so far, this novel doesn't really seem to have any kind of narrative or any kind of story to dig into. And that's because the novel is split into these different sections. And now is where we're going to get our creative juices flowing a little bit and talk about the actual narrative, which is a flashback, effectively, to 20 years previously when the underground man was much younger, and he's going to go through some important events that formed who he was. And this is going to be quite a lot of fun. We've taken quite a lot of our usual pan-scicast artistic license with this. If you want to read the novel, it exists. Go and read it. It's quite easy to
1:45.1	get hold of. This is our interpretation of the novel and we're going to, obviously, we have to take bits. We have to take bits out of it, obviously, because we're just going to read, if we're going to, you know, we've had to edit so much out because of time. So we can't fully do it justice, but we'll do our best in analyzing the key themes characters.
1:43.7	There's been a bit of reorganization. because of time. So we can't fully do it justice, but we'll do our best in analyzing the key themes, characters.
1:59.6	There's been a bit of reorganising as well. But you'll follow it. You'll be fine. It's going to be good fun. Us and the listeners are in gratitude to Ollie for putting together the script for this part and the next installment. And I think it's better than the original, if you don't mind me saying. so I don't think he's just turning in his grave when you're just saying that Jack
2:00.6	Ignore of part one when we said how how I think it's better than the original, if you don't mind me saying. So I don't think he's just turning in his grave when you're just saying that, Jack.
2:19.3	Ignore of part one when we said how much of a revolutionary writer he is.
2:24.6	We've won up him here.
2:27.1	By saying we, Ollie has.
2:28.6	Yeah, Ollie is better.
2:29.2	He really has gone and produced, well, you'll see.
2:32.8	Remind me to put that on my CV.
2:34.7	Can't quite find the words for what he's produced.
	...

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