![]() ![]() He goes about his fairly insignificant life, unpopular with women and colleagues, cheated by his servant and ignored by the world – when this happens: It’s more or less the blueprint for later doppelganger narratives, often referenced in theory on the topic, and although the idea of the double is probably as old as humanity, Dostoevsky seems to have been one of the first modern writers to develop the idea. The Double concerns Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, a humble office-clerk who discovers himself followed and usurped by a doppelganger. Indeed, the subtitle is ‘a Petersburg poem’ – although it is certainly prose, from where I’m standing. The Double, at only 135 pages in my Dover Thrift edition, probably only counts as a short story for this author. ![]() ![]() It’s nice when these connections appear…) So, it’s by a well-known author, but perhaps he is better known for his longer titles. ![]() But The Double was translated into English by Constance Garnett: mother of David Garnett, owner of A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee. (Initially it might seem like it has nothing common with my first ‘strange little book’, A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee – and, strangeness apart, the narratives don’t really. And here is the other ‘strange little book’ I was going to tell you about, finally! The Double (1846) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. ![]()
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