Chemaclass - fiction

Notes from Underground

2026-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

The Underground Man is not someone you’d want to have a beer with. He’s bitter, contradictory, and painfully self-aware. He knows his flaws and still refuses to change. That’s the whole point.

The book is split into two parts. The first is a philosophical rant against reason, progress, and the idea that humans will always act in their own best interest. The second tells a story from the narrator’s past that shows just how far his self-sabotage goes.

On Free Will and Spite #

The narrator argues that people don’t just want what’s good for them. Sometimes they want chaos. Sometimes they want to suffer. Not because it makes sense, but because it proves they’re free.

“What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.”

He rejects the utopian idea that a perfect society could be built on rational self-interest. Humans aren’t machines. They’ll destroy their own happiness just to prove they can.

The Wall and Inaction #

The Underground Man is paralyzed by over-thinking. He sees every angle, every consequence, every possible interpretation. So he does nothing. He calls himself more conscious than the “men of action” who simply act without questioning everything.

“I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness: a real thorough-going illness.”

There’s something uncomfortably relatable here. The trap of analysis paralysis. Knowing too much can become an excuse to do nothing at all.

The Liza Episode #

The second part shows the narrator meeting a young prostitute named Liza. He delivers a passionate speech about her future, about dignity and redemption. For a moment, he seems almost noble. Then she shows up at his door, and he crumbles. His cruelty returns. He can’t accept genuine human connection because it threatens his carefully constructed self-image.

This is Dostoevsky at his most uncomfortable. The gap between what we say and what we do. The way wounded pride can poison everything.

Key Takeaways #

Rationality doesn’t fully explain human behavior. People act against their own interests out of spite, boredom, or the need to feel free.
Excessive self-awareness can become a prison. At some point, you have to act despite uncertainty.
The desire for control and the fear of vulnerability can destroy meaningful relationships.
Suffering isn’t always something to be eliminated. Sometimes people cling to it as proof of their existence.

This book is not easy or pleasant. But it gets under your skin. It anticipates exstentialism by decades and challenges the comfortable belief that progress and reason will save us.

The Alchemist

2023-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

The Alchemist is a classic novel in which a boy named Santiago embarks on a journey seeking treasure in the Egyptian pyramids after having a recurring dream about it. On the way meets mentors, falls in love, and most importantly, learns the true importance of who he is and how to improve himself and focus on what really matters in life.

Video Summary #

The Day of the Triffids

2023-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

This book is fantastic and frightening but entirely plausible. It doesn’t seem scientifically possible, but its characters are living people shaken out of the civilization they know into the horror of a world dominated by “triffids”.

The triffids are grotesque and dangerous plants, over seven feet tall, originally cultivated for their yield of high-grade oil. So long as conditions give mastery to their human directors, they are a valuable asset to mankind. But when a sudden universal disaster turns those conditions upside down, the triffids, seizing their opportunity, become an active and dreadful menace.

Summary #

Summary based on the movie “The Day of the Triffids (2009)”

Fahrenheit 451

2023-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the books, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her “television family.”

But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

Summary #

Another great summary: https://youtu.be/_agaWPlVG8Q

Momo

2022-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

Momo is a fairytale that shows the fight between good and evil in our contemporary society, focusing on the lack of time to care for other people.

This book is about the concept of time and how it is used in modern societies.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

2022-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

A fable in novella form about a seagull who is trying to learn about life and flight, and a homily about self-perfection.

Plot #

The book tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself and learns everything he can about flying. His increasing unwillingness to conform finally results in his expulsion from the flock. Now an outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his abilities while leading a peaceful and happy life.

One day Jonathan meets two gulls who take him to a “higher plane of existence” in which there is no heaven, but a better world found through perfection of knowledge. There he meets another seagull who loves to fly. He discovers that his sheer tenacity and desire to learn make him “pretty well a one-in-a-million bird.” In this new place, Jonathan befriends the wisest gull, Chiang, who takes him beyond his previous self-education, and teaches him how to move instantaneously to anywhere else in the universe. The secret, Chiang says, is to “begin by knowing that you have already arrived.”

But, unsatisfied with his new life, Jonathan returns to Earth to find others like himself to tell them what he’d learned and to spread his love for flight. His mission is successful, and Jonathan gathers around himself a flock of other gulls who have been outlawed for not conforming. The first of his students, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, ultimately becomes a teacher in his own right, and Jonathan leaves to teach other flocks.

This novella has been translated into over thirty languages.

Audiobook #

The Catcher in the Rye

2021-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

It was originally intended for adults but is often read by adolescents for its themes of angst, alienation, and as a critique on superficiality in society.

The novel is a deeper reflection of Salinger’s own youth, his complicated relationship with growing up and the generational trauma affected by World War II.

Undeniably autobiographical, Salinger drew on his personal experiences fighting in the war and his New York creating the character of Holden Caulfield.

The novel’s protagonist has become an icon for teenage rebellion. The novel also deals with complex issues of innocence, identity, belonging, loss, connection, sex, and depression.

From chapter 22:

“You don’t like anything that’s happening.” It made me even more depressed when she said that.

“Yes I do. Yes I do. Sure I do. Don’t say that. Why the hell do you say that?”

“Because you don’t. You don’t like any schools. You don’t like a million things. You don’t.”

“I do! That’s where you’re wrong, that’s exactly where you’re wrong! Why the hell do you have to say that?” I said. Boy, was she depressing me.

“Because you don’t,” she said. “Name one thing.”

“One thing? One thing I like?” I said. “Okay.”

The trouble was, I couldn’t concentrate too hot. Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate.

Summary #

Lord of the Flies

2021-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse. It has established itself as a true classic.

The book focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island, and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves.

Themes include the tension between groupthink and individuality, between rational and emotional reactions, and between morality and immorality.

The first chapters start slowly, but they are necessary to build up the context of the story, which scales pretty quickly later on.

Animal Farm

2020-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organised to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted, then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges.

The call of Cthulhu

2020-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

The Call of Cthulu, the tale of a horrifying underwater monster coming to life and threatening mankind, spawning an entire mythology, with the power to strike terror into the hearts of even the Great Old Ones.

The metamorphosis

2020-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung, also sometimes translated as The Transformation) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It has been cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is studied in colleges and universities across the Western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed (metamorphosed) into a large, monstrous insect-like creature. The cause of Samsa’s transformation is never revealed, and Kafka never did give an explanation. The rest of Kafka’s novella deals with Gregor’s attempts to adjust to his new condition as he deals with being burdensome to his parents and sister, who are repulsed by the horrible, verminous creature Gregor has become.

1984

2020-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

One of Britain’s most popular novels, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in a society terrorised by a totalitarian ideology propagated by The Party.

Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth in London, chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every poster, the Thought Police uncover every act of betrayal. When Winston finds love with Julia, he discovers that life does not have to be dull and deadening, and awakens to new possibilities. Despite the police helicopters that hover and circle overhead, Winston and Julia begin to question the Party; they are drawn towards conspiracy. Yet Big Brother will not tolerate dissent - even in the mind. For those with original thoughts they invented Room 101. . .

Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell’s terrifying vision of a totalitarian future in which everything and everyone is slave to a tyrannical regime. The novel also coined many new words and phrases which regular appear in popular culture, such as ‘Big Brother’, ‘thoughtcrime’, ‘doublethink’ and ‘Newspeak’.