The Double (1846)

The Double: A Petersburg Poem

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s second novel was published the same year as his first, Poor Folk, in 1846 when he was 25. The Double was taken, then as now, as being under some influence of Nikolai Gogol (whose The Nose and The Overcoat I think I read many years ago but don’t remember well). At any rate I found The Double crazy impressive and impressively crazy. Wikipedia does not include The Double among Dostoevsky’s “major works,” but Vladimir Nabokov, who was not particularly a fan, called it the best thing Dostoevsky ever wrote. At this early stage of my reading through him somewhat systematically, I’m inclined to agree. No one (not even ISFDB) seems to see much of the fantasy/horror genre in it, but it’s one of the best and most effective doppelganger stories I know. Yes, it works at other levels as well: psychological search for identity, comic lampoon of St. Petersburg society, etc. But the bold absurdity of it is just right. “Our hero,” as Constance Garnett frequently translates, is a low-level bureaucrat in St. Petersburg who is not doing well in his work and entering into a nervous breakdown (that explains it! he's insane! per many). About a quarter or third into this short novel he encounters someone who looks like him and has his same name. This fellow, often designated “Junior” to the original’s “Senior,” is even further down on his luck, and homeless. Senior invites him to stay with him until he’s on his feet again. The next morning Junior is gone when Senior wakes. By the time Senior gets to his job he finds Junior working it for him, as him—and doing very well. It’s soon quite apparent that Junior is stealing Senior’s life. All this is rendered in an early but already accomplished version of Dostoevsky’s raving, raw, canting high-strung voice. You’d be wrecked too if this were happening to you. This little gem is rollicking and entertaining all the way. Like the best horror—I guess I’m going there but Dostoevsky, of course, is much more than mere horror—The Double gives us an impossible situation and little explanation. Where does Junior come from really and what does he want? No word. He’s just there, steadily taking over Senior’s life by way of meritocracy. No one seems fazed that there are two of him, and his employer is pleased with the new guy. The Double is often funny, pitched at this hysterical level. But also unnerving, strange, and very entertaining.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.