<DIV>'It is best to do nothing! The best thing is conscious inertia! So long live the underground!' Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky's groundbreaking <i>Notes from Underground</i> 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 <i>The Double</i> when a government clerk encounters a man who exactly resembles him – his double perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like <i>Notes from Underground,</i> this is a masterly study of human consciousness. Jessie Coulson's introduction discusses the stories' critical reception and the themes they share with Dostoyevksy's great novels. <p><br> <b>@TweetsFromUndegrnd </b> An officer pushed me at a bar. I will find this pizda son of a bitch and maybe murder him slowly. I'm a bit of a sociopath, aren't I? <br><br> <b>From </b></DIV>