Avrahm Yarmolinsky (1890–1975)

(This review refers to a Finnish translation of "Notes From the Underground".) Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" has interested me long, but meantime I came across "Notes From the Underground" in my aunt's give-away book box. It's a modest book of some 150 pages, and that's when printed big. I read the first page casually and was soon stuck -- feeling a strange link to Comte de Lautréamont. In "Maldoror", the story is told by a man of seemingly complete isolation of an age of 30 years. "Notes From the Underground" instead tells about a 40-year old man who has spent basically all his life in a cellar -- both men equally despondent and misanthropic. Indeed, as it turns out, the great Russian's brief work (later called the first expressionist book) is from 1864, "Maldoror" only four years afterwards! If the Russian book was
controversial, the French one was banned. -- However, back to the Russian version -- the nameless person tells about his bleak life with pathetic attempts at finding a place in the society, often ending up in tragicomical situations -- in fact it had me laughing loud on several occasions due to the plain absurdity of it all. The man's unpredictable mood-swings (and stubborn ideas) make sure you really don't know where the next page will bring you, and I devoured the book in few days. -- Needless to say, I soon afterwards traced a used copy of "The Idiot" and will look forward to see how he'll conquer the world!...… (meer)