I've not much to say about this book that hasn't been said before. Both stories are nice and deep.

'Notes from Underground' - a mind bender!

Made me feel severely depressed and in need of human connection in the way only a Dostoyevsky novel can. Immediately questioned the meaning of my life and how I interact with the world. Pretentious bullshit, but I'll almost definitely cry over it the next time I get drunk. ( )

I've not much to say about this book that hasn't been said before. Both stories are nice and deep.

'Notes from Underground' - a mind bender!

'The Double' - a mind bender in a very different way!

Though hard going at times - I think that was largely due to translations - I loved this book. I'd love to read it in Russian, but I don't speak Russian :) ( )

Hey wait, are you a misanthrope? Do you feel betrayed and disappointed with life? Are you a bitter, bitter man? Why narrator, I never would have guessed! Why don't you spend the next hundred pages telling me about it? That sounds like loads of fun. ( )

This book contains two short novels that have some thematic common ground, which helps to explain why Penguin housed them in a single volume.

Notes from Underground:

This is a very dark and surprisingly modern novella in which an unsympathetic narrator, a retired junior civil servant, describes his gradual alienation from society, initially in a description of his philosophy, but then through narrating some of the episodes that led to his downfall. This book prefigures some of the themes of Crime and Punishment.

The Double:

This is an earlier novella that is more of a comedy, though the core story is a dark vision. Once again the narrator is a St Petersburg civil servant. This one sees himself as an essentially honest person, but gradually falls from grace, then encounters his double, a lookalike answering to the same name, who gradually takes over the "hero's" life. A compelling vision of a broken man trapped in his own nightmare ( )