The Double

Are we witnessing a psychotic break? Or, has someone with physical features strikingly similar to his own spotted an opportunity, and seized it? In Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Double the question lingers to the end. As with all of Dostoevsky's writings, however, we are also left wondering if social commentary is being made, although in reality he is driving us all to maddening introspection. Are we so different from Golyadkin Sr. and Golyadkin Jr.? Are we at war with ourselves? Or, are others at war with us? Are these mutually exclusive propositions? In this edition, translated faithfully by Constance Garnett and published in 1923, readers can wrestle with these questions themselves.