The Double

[Golyadkin]

I have been dying to discuss The Double with someone. Anyone out there read it?

[Golyadkin]

Come on, anyone?

[Golyadkin]

Anyone at all?

[Golyadkin]

*crickets chriping*

[Mogwai]

I gotta pick this one up soon....then we can discuss.  

[Golyadkin]

*waiting pateintly*

[Yakov Petrovitch]

I am doing a paper on The Double. Could you give me some insights regarding the psychological, thematic and technical profile of this short novel? I am in the middle of reading it and it will help me in analyzing the intricacies I will encounter along the way.

Thanks a lot.  

[Golyadkin]

First off, nice name (only people who have read or are reading The Double would get this bad joke).
Secondly, a few things that might help me better understand your posistion:
1. What is the paper for (class assignment, etc.)?
2. If it is for school, what grade level?
3. What part of it are you on (general page number or chapter)?
(this next one is to satisfy my curiosity more than anything else):
4. How old are you? I don't know anyone younger that about 18 (other than myself, of course) that would know to ask about the "psychological, thematic, and technical profile" of anything. Either you have already graduated college, or you are smarter than most. In both cases, congratulations.
Now back to your question:
What I can tell you now is that the book is supposed to confuse you. Even when you finish it, you'll probably end up sitting there just holding the book with a dazed look on your face saying "damn..."(excuse my language). It is not entirely possible to determine if there is truly another person that looks like Golyadkin (note to all who haven't read The Double, that is where my name comes from) or if he is schizophrenic (*showing off annoying knowledge* schizophrenic does not mean he has multiple personalities, that is a common misconception. Schizophrenic means that a person hallucinates by seeing and hearing things that aren't really there. Fun trick: next time you say something that you didn't mean to, say: "I didn't say that, you're schizophrenic; you hallucinated that I said it.") and is hallucinating the entire thing. There are very convincing arguments to both sides: you can say that because he actually comes in phyical contact that the double exists, but you can also say that he is very instable and this could all be his imagination, seeing as he is the narrator of the story (Dostoevsky was one of the authors who tried out the 'unreliable narrator' style of writing, examples of other such authors are people like E.T.A. Hoffmann, Nikolai Gogol, and Edgar Allan Poe). This book is kind of reminisant of 100 Years of Solitude, in the sense that you can read it a thousand times and it will be a different story each time. I'm sorry to tell you that it is, at least to me, impossible to fully understand The Double.
I hope that helps you out.
If it doesn't, then I'm sorry.
Hope to see more of you around the forum, we need active intelligent members, as we have (as of right now) less than 40, and I need someone here who has read The Double to discuss it with (as you can see by how much I've written about it in this single post, I'm really into this book).

P.S. I just realized that I pretty much wrote a report on The Double in less than 10 minutes without even thinking about it. I should use this in my Language Arts class.

[Golyadkin]

Note: I just realized that my previous message had a statement that may have seemed mean:
"we need active intelligent members"
I meant that we need more people in general, everyone here (as far as I can see) is all ready intelligent.
I apologize if I offended anyone with that statement.

[Mitya]

Have no fear, Golyadkin... I'm starting on the Double after I finish my first reading of The Gambler. Should be fun.

[Golyadkin]

Can't wait.

[Mitya]

Well, I haven't exactly finished The Gambler, but I couldn't wait to start on The Double, and I'm glad I did. My reflections on the first several chapters:

It's the funniest Dostoevsky work I've read thus far, in kind of a grotesque, slightly cynical way. Let me explain what I mean by grotesque. The book and it's situations are odd, but only because it is more normal than normal (note: this is before the meeting of the double. That is a weird situation). Have you ever seen the movie Babe? I hate it, but it's a good example of grotesque... the people are bizarre, simply because they laugh slightly louder than normal, have slightly redder noses than normal, and all the rest of the slightly "more than normal" things make them look and sound pretty weird. It's the same with some characters in some Dickens adaptations. They're not exactly caricatures, because there's nobody else like them, but they're strange. I noticed this in the description of Petrushka's costume which was "odd in the extreme." There is nothing strange about footman's livery. His is too long for a person of his size, slightly too worn, and slightly gaudy. All these "slightlys" make his outfit look odd in the extreme.

Another thing that caught my attention was the humanizing of inanimate objects. Dostoevsky's descriptions in The Double are fascinating, very vivid, and one of the characteristics that make them so is the attachment of human qualities to objects. D's writing style in The Double is incredible, and I look forward to reading more.

What were/are your reactions to the book/characters/writing, etc, Golyadkin (and anybody else familiar with the book, but Golyadkin seems to be pretty enthusiastic about it)?  

[Golyadkin]

Have you noticed how Golyadkin (my namesake ) has a tendency to say a person's name dozens of times while talking to them (ex. Christian Invaovich)?
My reactions to the characters were that they all seemed rather ignorant. I'm not sure if you've gotten to this part yet, but the people, when they see Golyadkin Sr. and Golyadkin Jr. together, they don't even flinch. It's like they knew about it all along.
The writing in the story is some of the best and funniest I've ever read. Your comparison to Babe, and the characters being more normal than normal were perfect. You articulated what I've been trying to. How far are you now?

[paul]

haven't read The Double for quite a few years, but I loved it; when FD released it, he had very high hopes for it's acceptance and success, but was disappointed by the criticism it received-  if you enjoy this short story, you should really read The Nose by Gogol- it's the original.

[Mogwai]

Hey Paul,

Good to have you on this forum.  So The Double was received badly when it was published?  That's too bad...I definitely will get this one read as well as The Nose (which has been talked about extensively in the Russian Authors section).