Notes from Underground (Scruton novel)
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 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Roger Scruton |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Political fiction |
| Publisher | Beaufort Books |
Publication date | 12 March 2014 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 244 |
| ISBN | 9780825307287 |
Notes from Underground is a 2014 novel by the English writer Roger Scruton. It is set in Prague in the 1980s and follows a young Czech writer, Jan Reichl, who becomes involved with an underground intellectual scene. Jan ends up in the United States where he later, in the early 21st century, examines his experiences. The title references Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel with the same title. The book received the bronze prize in the "Suspense / Thriller" category at the 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards.[1]
From 1979 until he was expelled from Czechoslovakia in the mid-1980s, Roger Scruton had been involved in setting up an underground university in Prague in collaboration with the dissident Jiří Müller. Scruton noted that many of the young people he encountered could not be described as dissidents of the kind that Western media were promoting, as being a dissident had become a social status in itself, unobtainable for most people.[2]
According to Scruton, he made several failed attempts to make use of these experiences. He eventually came up with the storyline which became Notes from Underground, after which "the novel wrote itself".[2] The title is taken from Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Notes from Underground, and refers to the characters' inability to escape their situation.[2]
Publication
The book was published on 12 March 2014 through Beaufort Books in New York City. On 17 April, the Hudson Institute organised a panel discussion about the book in Washington, D.C. featuring Scruton, the Czech ambassador to the United States Petr Gandalovič, and the Danube Institute's director John O'Sullivan.[3]
