Another Look Book Club: Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Double"

Our spring "Another Look" event will discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Double: A Petersburg Poem. The 1846 novella portrays the disintegration of a neurotic government clerk into two distinct entities – one toadying and nervous; the other self-assured, exploitative, and aggressive. Vladimir Nabokov, not usually a fan of Dostoevsky, called The Double “the best thing he ever wrote” and “a perfect work of art.” And so Another Look champions The Double as an overlooked masterpiece from a familiar author.

Acclaimed author Robert Pogue Harrison will moderate the discussion. The Stanford professor who is Another Look’s director writes regularly for The New York Review of Books and hosts the popular talk show, Entitled Opinions. He will be joined by the international photographer Lena Herzog and also Monika Greenleaf, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures. 

We recommend the Vintage Classic edition, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. (Please note that this event has been moved from the date listed in the Continuing Studies catalog.)