NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND / THE DOUBLE

Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoievski’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.