A bit of a Twat
A quick re-read as I wanted to directly compare to Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych" goodreads.com/review/show/4842731989?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1, Direct comparisons are not fair, I will try to talk about it in-itself first.
This is a strange book, a fairly decent philosophical essay followed by a weird story, both from the perspective of the 'underground man' who is clearly, a bit of a twat. "I'm glad that I feel repulsive to her, I like that ".
While clearly educated, he is not well adjusted to society. That may be the first point, mass education and even widespread wealth wont create utopia. Point well taken, we will always have twats.
He is petty, vindictive and self obsessed. Hard to argue that this is not a widespread phenomenon in wider society today, with young men in particular. It can be a serious issue. Though I do need to add, he does not seem to go far beyond that, he's a bit of a twat, to his 'friends', a prostitute and his servant, but this is not a monster. He is not an incel with an AR15. Maybe that's a good thing.
The essay has some striking points "it's the civilised gentlemen that are the most subtle destructive slaughterers, more devastating than your Atilla's... just more bland, ordinary and familiar". So true, the most dangerous people alive wear smartly tailored suits and carry briefcases, not axe's, a point also made in "Sapiens" by Youval Harari. Civilisation, according to the underground man just sanitises the more bloodthirsty aspects of humanity, frowning upon acts that were once purging and cleansing. Reason (and science) are not saving us from our more base, imperfect nature. Not fully no, even 150 years later, but its hard to argue its not getting better in the aggregate.
He goes on to argue that man wants independence and freedom, that he needs to feel it or become just an organ, yet if freed will run right back to being told what to do, very Nietzsche. You can see why this is added to philosophy classes. The lines on free will may be in direct dialog with Tolstoy's essay at the end of War and Peace, but I can't remember it right now. The tension between what we feel, need to feel, and what science says have not moved on much since this was written. Comfort in self deception.
Consciousness for the underground man is 'infinitely superior" to 2+2 = 4 (complete knowledge) as once you have maths it's just done, a fact. But with awareness and ambiguity you can "flog yourself to wake you up, corporal punishment is better than nothing!" haha so Russian.
We have a deliberate "Anti-hero" i am unsure if Dostoevsky coined that term, but it is meant in the truest sense here. He says it can't be a novel as he is the opposite of what a novel needs. I feel the team is watered down today, 'slightly darker hero' would be better- we feel for and love the typical anti-hero, think Tony Soprano or Walter White. They have aspects to like, Underground man does not.
On "The Death of Iva Ilych" we have some parallels - both men drift through life inauthentically scrambling through the everyday human 'noise' not thinking on what really matters. Underground man slips much further into self pity and neurotic behaviour, he's worse and has no redemption in the story. But I am unsure if it affects anyone else in any serious way as he has no family and has retreated from society. As mentioned he is rude and mean, yet contradictory. He may inspire the prostitute to leave the profession, cruelly spelling out a dark path and admitting "I came to you as I was treated badly, to do do the same to you to show my power" yet it may have a positive overall result, we don't know.
Underground man says towards the end "we all all divorced from real life, we are all cripples, more or less" so divorced from real life as we are almost loathing to look at it, seeing it better in books, or online today. This is the same issue Ivan feels, seen through a grimier lens. It rings true.
Overall this work has some great philosophical points, mostly early on or right at the end. The story is quite aimless, and underground man is, while quite modern and prescient, not as bad as he is often portrayed. He's just a twat. I did not enjoy my time with him, less so than my first read, but I suspect that's intended. Maybe we all have a little of him in us, and there are for sure many of them about, but life can go on and progress spiritually and practically if we work at it.