Notes from Underground the Double The Double

'It is best to do nothing! The best thing is conscious inertia! So long live the underground!' Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky's groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter sarcasm, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the 'ant-hill' of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence 'underground'. The seemingly ordinary world of St Petersburg takes on a nightmarish quality in The Double when a government clerk encounters a man who exactly resembles him - his double, perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like Notes from Underground, this is a masterly study of human consciousness. Jessie Coulson's introduction discusses the stories' critical reception and the themes they share with Dostoyevsky's great novels.Dostoyevsky, Fyodor is the author of 'Notes from Underground the Double The Double', published 1972 under ISBN 9780140442526 and ISBN 0140442529.