I think the other people who had spoken of the double were already aware of his madness and were just playing along with whatever he said, the conversation with his colleague about the double is indicative of it, as well as his valet’s attitude towards his master, he had already been to the doctor -who’s probably a psychiatrist- before the beginning of the story, and the doctors advice of socializing and not being alone alludes to the probability that he was already suspected by those around him of insanity due to previous incidents, also the way he was turned out of the party and not allowed entry. All of this could be what he felt to be the conspiracy around him since he sensed that every one was treating him differently and cautiously and talking behind his back. Dostoyevsky strategically started the story after the initial incidents to make the reader share in the confusion and descent into madness with the protagonist. Great channel by the way, thank you for the enjoyable reading and insights, greatly appreciated my friend.
Very interesting reading! It's been long enough now that I'd have to go through the text again to evaluate it closely. But the next time I do, I'll have to recall this comment and have it in the back of my mind. Appreciate the interpretation (and kind words)!
Thanks for post these readings. I enjoyed listening. You did a good job with the voices. I get the impression that the reader (listener in this case) was experiencing reality, so to speak, up until the fourth chapter, when Goyodkin is expelled from the party. I felt as though I was seeing the world through Goyodkin's point of view and then he snapped. I think his expulsion from the party was the breaking point and he experienced some kind of mental breakdown. Then henceforth the double appeared, and the reader, still experiencing Goyadkins point of view, is forced to now contend with and interpret his schizophrenic view of reality. This POV came with bits and pieces of reality I feel. Some events were 'real' and others were a kind of schizophrenic and paranoid delusion, all delivered to us through the lens of Goyodkin's perception. His flawed perception. And I suppose that, by the end of the novel, he is forced into a mental institution.
Thanks much! Yes, I think I agree with everything you say here. I think you're right to focus on that party as the breaking point--or maybe the scenes immediately following his departure from it in Chapter V. (Of course, we have plenty of evidence that he is a disturbed man earlier.) And Dostoevsky gives us a nice little parallelism by bracketing both ends of that delusion with a party at the home of Olsufy Ivanovich. On that latter note, I found the last paragraph of this article to be interesting: thelectern.blogspot.com/2008/12/double-dosteoevsky.html. There appears to be a lot of doubling in the narrative structure of the book. Thanks for listening!
Thank you. Mental illness is presented in it's raw reality. And how many years since it's writing? I did not want to finish. Indeed l did.lt is so gripping. You comments are well met.
Thank you so much for this! The reason I wanted to read or listen to this book is the movie The Double directed by Richard Ayoade. The movie is a very original interpretation of the book. Despite it being fairly different from the original story, i found it to be an amazing experience so I highly recommend it to anyone here.
Thank you! I loved listening to you. I do not agree that the story should be interperted as a bunch of hallucenations. I think that a lot like in kafka's metamorphosis, the supernatural aspects are real. The reason to put them in is that they represent something else. In the metamorphosis the fact that the hero transforms into a huge cockroach represents his feelings of self loathing and alienation. And so in making the hero face these feelings, kafka used supernatural story line. I think that here dostoevsky intended to create a story about a man that faces his dishonesty and cowerdnace. Through out the story again and again we see our hero failing to face the harsh truth and reality. He is pretending to care about people and be 'polite and civilized', he keeps telling himself all the time that "maybe it is for the best", and even after the double proves to him he is a villian- our hero is to weak and pathetic to accept this truth and keeps forcing himself to believe that "it was just a misunderstanding". The story in my eyes is about being honest. Honest with the people around you. And even more- it shows how absolutely crucial it is to be honest with yourself. Thank you for your work
Another great video. I agree that this is one of the finest of Dostoevsky's pre-arrest works, although I rate White Nights and Netochka Nezvanova as being of a consistently higher quality throughout. Yet The Double has an excellent first half and some fine moments throughout. I only need to read A Little Hero and then I'll be starting the first volume of the Joseph Frank biography. My year of reading Dostoevsky rolls on!
I'm jealous that you have access to the full version of the Frank biography! I have the abbreviated version, though--Frank is very good. Netochka Nezvanova is an interesting choice. It is very impressive when it comes to his psychological explorations (the Yefimov character in particular is haunting, and he pursues some very interesting ground in that second episode), but I have a hard time buying it as a work of art. Happy reading--"A Little Hero" is fun!
Warm regards and thanks from Afghanistan. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and your amazing narration of it. I wanted to ask something though, how do you dissect and analyze stories like this? How do you get to the meaning behind them? Thanks 🙏
Very happy to be of service, and I am glad you enjoyed it! In general, I make use of two things: (1) slow and careful reading (I am a very slow reader), and (2) looking at other sources. For this novella, I had the benefit of the Barnes and Noble introduction, but I also was exposed to some other sources, where I could see the way others were addressing it. (If I recall, there were two online sources that I consulted: a nice blog called "The Lectern" and--of all things--a legal theory scholarly article. I may have also seen something by Joseph Frank.) That helps to stimulate one's own thinking on the material. My best wishes to you in Afghanistan!
