While ‘The Double’ is one of Dostoevsky’s earlier books, and consequently not that well known, ‘Notes from Underground’ is one of his most famous works. The reader is also unsure as to the exact role of the new Golyadkin: is he real, is he a figment of the imagination, or is he the mischievous alter-ego of a schizophrenic? As the tale progresses, we realise that all may not be as it seems Golyadkin’s spiral into the gutter is the description of a mental illness which the patient himself seems to be unaware of.
Petersburg, unable to make a decision and stick to it, denied at all points by the mysterious newcomer and suddenly shunned by his aquaintances and colleagues. He roams aimlessly through the streets of St. The new Golyadkin usurps the original’s place and causes him to lose face, status and, eventually, his job without the poor public official being able to do anything about it. Golyadkin, a civil servant who is passing pleasantly through life until the arrival of an interloper with the same name and, more importantly, the same face as him. ‘The Double’ follows a few days in the life of Mr. That, and the fact that there’s a lot of snow. Apart from the fact that they add up to a nice amount of pages (Penguin probably decided they couldn’t get people to fork out their hard-earned cash for each story separately), the two stories are linked by the theme of a man’s decline in terms of social status and sanity. My most recent book brought together two of Dostoyevsky’s shorter works, ‘The Double’ and ‘Notes from Underground’. Petersburg mud and sludge in the middle of a blizzard (without your fur coat. A few hundred pages of his tales of anguish and existential angst, and you too will feel as if you’ve been trudging through the St. If, however, you enjoy reading about people more depressed than you (or you’re depressed yourself and want to know you’re not alone), you can’t go past a bit of classical Russian literature, and who better to put a dampener on your day than good old Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky, Fyod (possibly) to his friends. If you’re looking for happy smiley people, my daughter has several teddy bear books which may be just up your street.
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