The Double (Golden Deer Classics)

By Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Golden Deer Classics

The Double centers on a government clerk who goes mad. It deals with the internal psychological struggle of its main character, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, who repeatedly encounters someone who is his exact double in appearance but confident, aggressive, and extroverted, characteristics that are the polar opposites to those of the toadying "pushover" protagonist. The motif of the novella is a doppelgänger (Russian "dvoynik"), known throughout the world in various guises such as the fetch.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oregan Publishing
• Release date: Jul 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9782377875382

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821. Between 1838 and 1843 he studied at the St Petersburg Engineering Academy. His first work of fiction was the epistolary novel Poor Folk (1846), which met with a generally favourable response. However, his immediately subsequent works were less enthusiastically received. In 1849 Dostoevsky was arrested as a member of the socialist Petrashevsky circle, and subjected to a mock execution. He suffered four years in a Siberian penal settlement and then another four years of enforced military service. He returned to writing in the late 1850s and travelled abroad in the 1860s. It was during the last twenty years of his life that he wrote the iconic works, such as Notes from the Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), which were to form the basis of his formidable reputation. He died in 1881.

Reviews for The Double (Golden Deer Classics)

[wktarin · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Exhausting and bathotic.

[danielstj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An amazing story about obsession and paranoia. It is a psychological miasma that also reflects heavily upon Russia during the time that Dostoevsky lived in. There is so much great literary value in this. It can be interpreted many different ways, and the subtext of many of the themes that keep reiterating themselves, as if cast down by snow, are innumerable.

A thrilling read. Recommended for those interested in classics.

[missizicks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Poor Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin. I, too, long had a presentiment of his fate. What a cracking read. Dostoevsky was a master at getting across the feverish hell of madness. I couldn't not read, even though the events that befall Mr Golyadkin at the hands of his double made me uncomfortable in a similar way to Curb Your Enthusiasm. Horrific, exasperating and sad, all at the same time.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Dit was het eerste werk van Dostojevski dat ik las, op 16 jaar. Was er meteen weg van! Heb daarna bijna zijn hele oeuvre verslonden.

[tronella_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was compelling, but I'm not sure I understand what actually happened at the end...