Mind Over Midnight: A Book Club - Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky

Not your average book club. We dive into books that don’t flinch at existential crises, societal breakdowns, the spectacle of modern life, addiction, and the mess of being human. Drinks and hard questions are welcome. This is a book club for those who want to wrestle with heavy texts, challenging ideas, and the uncomfortable truths of existence. We read works that demand deep thought, including philosophical discussions, cultural critique, raw memoirs, and literature that refuse easy answers.

This first March session, we will delve into the fractured psyche of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, a work that dismantles the idea of rational progress and exposes the contradictions at the heart of human freedom. The Underground Man is hyper-conscious, resentful, self-sabotaging, and disturbingly modern. His refusal to be “fixed” challenges Enlightenment ideals of reason, utility, and happiness. As we meet, we will ask whether his misery is a protest against a dehumanizing society or the result of a mind trapped in endless self-awareness. Is suffering a form of freedom, or simply another prison?