I noticed while reading
Underground Man, that the Hôtel de Paris was chosen to provide Zverkov's fare-well dinner. Ignoring the absurd amount of mathematical calculations used to decide how many rubles were necessary, I began to reminisce on my own experience in Monaco last summer. I'm not attempting to recount my own experience, but rather express my understanding of the underground man's distaste towards his former "friends." First of all, Ferfichkin, Trudolyubov, and Simonov all regard the underground man as not only beneath them, but also completely incapable of being their equal. Although they do not say this outright, their comments to the underground man confirm their sense of "superiority" towards him, as well as their distaste. This in turn spurs the underground man's desire to prove them wrong, which results in a lack of reason ("I'd go on purpose. The more tactless, the more indecent it was for me to go, the more certain I'd be able to do it") and embarrassment. No one likes condescending people, especially not those who should be your equal. It is our natural inclination to prove others wrong.
Here are a few pictures I took at the Hôtel de Paris. Now, if I've got the wrong Hôtel de Paris, the rest of my post will sound completely bonkers. I've also found out that Rubles are currently equivalent to $0.030. After visiting Monaco and the Hôtel de Paris, I honestly don't know how they afforded it (or even made the trip for that matter).
(Check out that white Maserati with the brown soft top.)
1 comment:
As always, those are some great pictures. You can tell certainly tell that a place is nice if a Bentley,a Maserati, and a Ferrari are parked right next to each other outside. I completely agree with what you said about the way the underground man was treated. I generally don't agree with much of what the underground man says, but I think his anger is justified. Perhaps he didn't act rationally because of his anger, but I can't really blame him for that. Also, I had no idea that rubles were worth so little back then. I would have thought that a ruble would be worth several times more than a US dollar, but if they were worth so little, I don't see how they could afford the party either.
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