The Double

[Golyadkin]

I was the first person to make the Double-Nose connection. Good to see I'm not alone.

[Mitya]

I'm through the eighth chapter now, hope to read some more later today. I didn't make a Double-Nose connection til I came here, but it makes sense. They're both absurd and Russian, and of course there are other similarities.

[Mitya]

I'm to chapter 11 now, and I've been noticing as I read the amount of communication that isn't-- that is, speech and letters that are miscommunicated, misinterpreted or otherwise don't get the message through to others. There's a whole lot of letter-writing in The Double, and it's not futile in the sense that it's prattle, but it doesn't accomplish a thing.

I also am attempting to explore Golyadkin's appeal-- he's the everyman pitted in an absurd and dangerous situation. He's a self-preserver. He's got flaws and foibles. He's like all of us and he's trapped.

Also, I find the names in The Double interesting, two in particular. I read somewhere that there's an association between the name "Golyadkin" and "poor man" or something like that. Also, Dr. Rutenspitz's first name is Krestyan (Christian.) I refuse to believe that these choices of names are completely without meaning (I, for instance, could believe, though it's a stretch, that "Godot" in Beckett's Waiting for Godot is actually a contraction of a name for a military boot.) Not knowing Russian, I don't know if there are any other names with interesting meanings in The Double. Any thoughts on the significance of the two names I've mentioned? I've got some ideas, but I'm a wimp.

[Lev]

Well, Mitya... I finished reading it a couple of days ago . The strange thing to me was that the "plot" was so much in the background (sometimes a bit vague even) while Golyadkin's thoughts were in the foreground. And what a strange ending! I have to go, but I'll be back later and I'll read the other posts I guess...

[Mitya]

I hadn't really thought about the balance of the plot and Golyadkin's thoughts, but I see what you mean. I found the Double incredibly strange, but oddly endearing.

[Lev]

Yes, that Golyadkin "type" of character is endearing somehow. They are so trapped in their social setting and their material condition is so humiliating to them! To imagine what it must have been like to be worried over holes in your boots or missing buttons! You wish that they could break out of it somehow.
The reason I mentioned the plot seeming almost secondary is because it confused me ... and it makes you doubt Golyadkin's judgement in the end. So... was there really a conspiracy? I still don't know! What do you think? "Strange" seems to be the key word!

[R45k0LNIK0V]

i started this this morning and will get back w/ a synopsis by the end of next week.

in response to what i've read here thus far, yes, this is the funniest FD i've read so far.  how crazy our hero is!  i think he needs either thorazine or a swift kick in the nuts.  

ps i'm on page 15.

[Nuki]

I just finished reading The Double and I'm completely confused...I've only read four of Dostoyevsky's other books and none of them left me so bewildered. This is going to sound weird but it gave me more of a feeling rather than leading to any sort of logical thought. Has anyone got some kind of explanation for this book? I feel like I'm missing the point...

[mjmcneill]

Didn't Nabokov say this was the best thing Dostoevsky wrote?

Re. the question is there a double?  In reality we don't see our Doubles coming out of the blue, and if they did, other people besides ourselves would notice them and be astonished.  This is not the case with Golyadkin, so obviously there is not really a double, something else is happening.  But it's also a stretch to suggest that the "double" is a hallucination.  Other people, after all, interact with the "double" and talk about him.  The narrator retains a degree of psychic distance from his subject.  What we see in the story is not what Golyadkin sees.

I'm convinced that a man arrives who looks a bit like Golyadkin, and that this man becomes the focus of Golyadkin's paranoia.  The man exploits Golyadkin.  The hallucination, then, is not that this fellow is there, but simply that this fellow is a spitting image of Golyadkin.

[underworld men]

Didn't Nabokov say this was the best thing Dostoevsky wrote?

Re. the question is there a double?  In reality we don't see our Doubles coming out of the blue, and if they did, other people besides ourselves would notice them and be astonished.  This is not the case with Golyadkin, so obviously there is not really a double, something else is happening.  But it's also a stretch to suggest that the "double" is a hallucination.  Other people, after all, interact with the "double" and talk about him.  The narrator retains a degree of psychic distance from his subject.  What we see in the story is not what Golyadkin sees.

I'm convinced that a man arrives who looks a bit like Golyadkin, and that this man becomes the focus of Golyadkin's paranoia.  The man exploits Golyadkin.  The hallucination, then, is not that this fellow is there, but simply that this fellow is a spitting image of Golyadkin.

I personally really liked the way this was handled in the machinist.

[poor knight]

Well, I just finished The Double a couple weeks ago. I have to admit I started it about three years ago and for some reason it just freaked me out after about 50 pages, so  I stopped. But I pushed through it and, honestly, I have to say I did not like it. On the positive, one cannot read Kafka without recognizing FD's influence. And I enjoyed the sketch of Golyadkin Jr. because it preshadows some of FD's greater "mice" like Lebedev, Verkhovensky Sr., etc. But I found so little to sympathize with in Golyadkin Sr. that it was hard to feel committed to him. I think it was mainly that he just talked too much. The ending was a bit flat for me, too. And as I had just come off Poor Folk and Netochka Nezvanova it was a bit hard to compete.

I'd be grateful for some more intelligent insight on its qualities than perhaps I've given to the story.

[andrew]

I read The Double a few months ago, and I have to say that it was difficult to make an accurate interpretation of the content. Yet, a search on wikipedia informed me of the possible correlation between Dostoevsky's novel and the Jungian archetype of the shadow, or the entity that houses every negative aspect of one's personality. The catch is that the individual refuses to recognize it as an inherent factor of the self. This could probably delve into the unconscious as well, but I am not exactly sure. Anyway, there are probably more articles that can explain the idea in much greater detail.

[BroKaramazov]

I just read "The Double" a few days ago, and thought it was great. The comparisons to "The Nose" are completely in order, and it felt to me sort of like Dostoyevsky meets Kafka--especially the bizarre, nightmarish, and never remotely explained finale. Anyway, I, too, would love to discuss it with anyone interested.

[underworld men]

I just read "The Double" a few days ago, and thought it was great. The comparisons to "The Nose" are completely in order, and it felt to me sort of like Dostoyevsky meets Kafka--especially the bizarre, nightmarish, and never remotely explained finale. Anyway, I, too, would love to discuss it with anyone interested.

Bumpin bumpin bumpin......

[Scoundrel]

I'm convinced that a man arrives who looks a bit like Golyadkin, and that this man becomes the focus of Golyadkin's paranoia.

I agree with you on this point.  I think that there is an actual character who looks sort of like Golyadkin, who is a new employee at the office, and around who, Golyadkin's paranoia centers.  The only flaw I can find in this reasoning is that Golyadkin saw his double the night before seeing him for the first time at the office.   The double of the night before must have been hallucination.

I do also think that most of the interaction between Golyadkin and the double was pure hallucination; that is to say that Golyadkin's paranoid mind saw this new clerk who looked like him at the office, and invented much of his interactions with the treacherous double.  I think that Golyadkin barely even interacted with the "new clerk" at the office.

 It seemed like every time Golyadkin's nerves were wearing thin, the double would make an appearance, and where-ever he would go, the double would suddenly turn up.  Also, towards the end of the story, the double was acting precisely as he had in Golyadkin's dream of the night before, amiably making friends with all the clerks, one by one.  This leads me to believe that it was merely an extension of his dream, within his own feeble mind.

I don't think there was a conspiracy, rather, I think that there were murmurs around the office that Golyadkin was insane, as he was, and he heard these murmurs and turned it into a conspiracy