The Double and The Gambler (Vintage Classics)

A work like this has three aspects:1. The quality of the story2. The quality of the translation3. The quality of the book itselfThis book, as is the case with all of the Everyman books translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky, gets a 5/5 on all three counts.The story: The Double's initial reception was not altogether favorable. It has since gained appreciation, and rightfully so. It's a brilliant, hilarious, sometimes confusing story that is simultaneously humorous and melancholy. I haven't finished The Gambler, but it too is a tremendous work of literature; certainly it is one of Dostoevsky's greatest works with his signature embedded psychological study. I needn't sell you on the story, though--if you're looking at this page you no doubt appreciate Dostoevsky's genius and are looking for more to read. As for why you should buy this particular edition...The translation: Pevear and Volokhonsky are simply brilliant. They've done Dostoevsky, Tolstoy's two big novels, and most if not all of Chekhov and Gogol (among other works). Their translations are superlative. I read their translation of Crime and Punishment back-to-back with Garnett's and there was no comparison. Their translations have become standard in the academic world, and for good reason. They are faithful to the text and have a wonderful feel for each individual work. Garnett, on the other hand, reduces everything to the monotony of Victorian-style prose. Don't even consider getting another translation. And if you're going to get the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, then you must get this version...The book: Every time I buy a classic work of literature I check first to see if there's an Everyman edition, specifically the cloth-bound hardcover versions. They are absurdly cheap--especially if you buy them on Amazon--and they are beautiful and extremely high-quality. The binding is excellent, the pages are acid-free, smooth, and a slightly off-white cream color that is very pleasing to the eye. The font is a nice, standard serif. The books also look really snappy on your bookshelf, which brings me to my word of warning:If you buy any one of the Everyman books, you will be filled with the irrational desire to stock your library with them. The aesthetic effect is increased with each book you add, and you'll want nothing more than to have an entire bookshelf filled with nothing but the uniform spines of the Everyman's Library. Buyer beware!

Dostoevsky is my favorite author, and I've read all his post-Siberia books numerous times. Until recently The Double was the only book of his I'd read from his pre-prison days. So I've decided to make a project of reading/rereading all his books, novellas, and short stories in order. First up was Poor Folk, which was structurally ridiculous and overall mediocre at best. Next was a reread of The Double (I'll get to a reread oof The Gambler in a while), which was a massive step up in quality,confirming why it seems to be the only pre-Siberia work that is held up with the great later novels. It's crazy that Poor Folk and The Double were actually released in the same month in 1846, so great is the gap in quality between the two. It's even crazier that the fashionable literary critics of the time loved the former and hated the latter. They were incompetent idiots.Goliadkin, the hero of The Double, is an amazing character. Dostoevsky puts us inside his head for the entirety of the book, and he is completely insane. He is apparently a paranoid schizophrenic (although I don't think such a diagnosis actually existed yet in Dostoevsky's time). He has a constant, hyper-active interior monologue about all his various "enemies" who are wearing masks to try to hide their true characters, while the pure-hearted Goliadkin never wears masks and is always true. These phony enemies are all around Goliadkin and out to destroy him. Several times he gets so worked up about this thinking about this while talking to other characters that he suddenly bursts into tears. He keeps trying to break into his boss' house and having to be thrown out of the place by force.The actual Double is the apotheosis of the various enemies he perceives. Goliadkin is apparently seeing hallucinations at times and having trouble distinguishing betweens dreams and reality, but is the Double of him real or an hallucination? Both somehow seem to be true at the same time -- other characters at times have no idea what Goliadkin is talking about when he complains about the Double's treachery, but at other times the Double plainly does actually interact in real ways with other characters and is referenced in letters written by others -- which adds to the book's generally disorienting tone.The book is also very funny at times in a dark way. We the readers hear Goliadkin's crazy interior monologue repeatedly, so we get the idea of how he perceives this conspiracy against him, even though we can see it's insanity. But sometimes he switches from going on about this in his head to saying it out loud in bits and pieces to other characters, and they of course have no idea what he's talking about and sometimes think he's accusing them of being these dishonest schemers and get insulted. So I think maybe five times in the books he has a conversation with another character that leaves them "in extreme astonishment." A line like that comes up repeatedly after his various bizarre encounters with his co-workers and other people and always made me laugh out loud. Goliadkin also has a bizarre style of talking to other people (besides the insane contents of his paranoid ramblings) that I found really funny, specifically he feels the need to repeat the other person's name in every sentence or more than once in the same sentence during these incoherent rants.

This novella (The Double) is a provocative exploration of sanity, sense of self, and perception. Dostoyevsky cleverly employs mirrors to focus one's contemplation on self-reflection, and when the dust all settles, nothing is truly certain. Who is the doppelganger? Who is crazy? The beauty of this book is that the answers to these questions and more can be lengthily discussed, debated, considered and, ultimately, reserved for another read and another discussion.I read this book as a part of Another Look Book Club, put on by Stanford University. The focus is on oft-overlooked, not-as-well-known classics which are short (<200pp). The discussion panel for this book included a Russian ex-pat, a Russian Literature professor and a Stanford Literature Professor. The discussion was lively and thought provoking, especially because each discussant had his/her own perspective and often it disagreed sharply with the others' perspectives. If you have a chance to look at the video of the discussion, you may enjoy it.