Notes From Underground

ÔIt is best to do nothing! The best thing is conscious inertia! So long live the underground!ÕAlienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of DostoyevskyÕs groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter sarcasm, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the Ôant-hillÕ of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence ÔundergroundÕ. 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 Ð 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 CoulsonÕs introduction discusses the storiesÕ critical reception and the themes they share with DostoyevksyÕs great novels.