Notes from the Underground

Just a quick blog post.

I have about 11 blog entries that I am in the middle of editing and need to post up. They mention my success at achieving my first WeightWatchers goal, the journey from being a fat, overworked, mad man to a slimmer, jobless madman, my forays into the worlds of CBT, Career Coaching, personality testing, Botanical Gardens and Iranian History. However, I feel the need to post something, so I will publish my current troubled state of mind.

Last night I decided to read. I love reading and were it up to me, and nothing is ever up to me, all I would do is sleep, eat, read and watch TV documentaries and films. I would also go bowling. I felt particularly depressed yesterday when I woke up and realised i had only 6 hours and a slew of household chores and soul destroying tasks to complete in that time. Do I mow the thick, overgrown carpet of lawn that resembles the jungles of a Vietnam war movie and trim the hedges that look as if they are auditioning for a par tint he next Honey I Shrunk the souls of my audience Rick Moranis movie? Should I let the forces of nature win today and instead dust and polish then vacuum the upstairs rooms in our house because I can see balls of black hair like strands coagulating together and fusing to form a new virulent life-force that seems destined to multiply in degrees of millions and take over the house if I do not nip it in the bud? Do I actually try and present myself as a normal decent human being who may get a job one day and shave off this 4 day old stubble. It is definitely thicker now that I have started using a cheap Tesco 3 blade copy of the Gillette Mach 3 Turbo razor, whose blades I can no longer afford? Quality does, it seem, come at a price after all. Do I try and sort out the mess that are the notes and unfinished chapter summaries for my ever growing first novel in the making, and feel guilty that I should be doing household chores not writing? Do I blog? Do I pay the newspaper bill before the bailiffs come round? Do I go and help my ageing parents with something, even though they rarely appreciate any help I try to give them? Do I even attempt to take part my daughter’s baby toys and put them in the loft? I try this to begin with but fail at the first hurdle. There are some oval shaped sockets that I thing I am suppose dot pull out yet i end up pushing them in so make the task of dismantling her baby walker even harder, some may say impossible. I give up and consign myself to the fate that I better hoover the house before I actually develop eh dust allergy I seem to have avoided so far and because we have a 14 month old child who lives in this house and any decent person would try and keep it clean.

So I hoover the house and feel depressed that I should be reading and at least attempting to finish the book I started 4 weeks ago and is so short any half capable reader would have finished it 4 weeks ago. There is nothing worse than having an unread book hovering around your literary conscious.
When I finish that household chore, I remember there are many more to attend to. By the time I make my weight watchers friendly breakfast and lunch (not at the same time of course) and note down every little detail of what I am about to eat, add up the points and bore even myself to a zombie like state, the hours have passed and I no longer have the will to live. So at 10.00pm after sorting out dinner and fighting my way through even more mind numbing household chores that finally make me realise I hate being a househusband. All I want to do is read and write. I even started jotting down the notes for a new novel. That is the last thing I need. Another novel idea. I just need to focus on the first one. I have trouble staying focused. Which brings us neatly to the point fo this blog post.

I picked up my half read copy of “Notes from the Underground” by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I don’t have the time to explain why Dostoevsky is the one of the best Novelists of all time, in my humble and unnoticed opinion, as I have to pick up my daughter form my parents in less than half an hour, and I also have to shower or else I will be mistaken for a tramp (because I am smelly, jobless and slightly dishevelled.) Suffice to say Notes From the Underground has so far been a great read and the only problem with it is that I relate to the main protagonist far too much. In fact the first half of the book is just the thoughts and ideas of a man who even begins the story by saying, “I am a sick man, I’m a spiteful man, I’m an unattractive man.” Nice. I may not be spiteful and now that my face is no longer a bulbous perfect ball shape I no longer feel unattractive, but I am losing the plot and I am suffering from a range of physical and psychological ailments.

The psychologically and philosophically fascinating rants of this alienated, lonely man who has disconnected himself purposefully from society continue throughout the book. The second half of the novel, which is where I picked up last night, begins to explain how this ordinary man became so disengaged from the rest of society. He charts the events that made him realise how he relates to no one around him, and never did, and for all his supposed intellectual talents he ends up becoming an underpaid, lowly, insignificant little blot of the face of humanity. He contradicts himself within his thoughts and by his actions and we come to see that he is driven by the anger and bitterness swelling deep within him and his conception of himself as being a superfluous man, relating to no one around him. He feels this gives him a unique perspective on things, and that is the point at which I start to scare myself. I relate to this man on too many levels. I think I am becoming more like him day by day.

I don’t want to spoil the story, but the problem I have is that I am already in a fragile state of mind and this may not be the best book for me to read late into the early hours of the morning. The protagonist does indeed become more spiteful and wretched as the story develops, but I can only sympathise with him and relate to him on a level that is not healthy. All the dark conflicting demons swirling around the gassy vortex in my gut began to wake up and take notice of this new force of confusion entering into the turbid depths of my psyche. The monster within has been awoken and I am not ready to face him just yet. He, however, has other ideas.
Wikipedia entry on Notes From the Underground:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_from_Underground