Dostoevsky's the Double, Postmodernism, and the Neo-Baroque

The Dostoevsky Journal: An Independent Review, 1 (2000), 29-42.

PETER MATHEWS

DOSTOEVSKY'S THE DOUBLE, POSTMODERNISM, AND THE NEO-BAROQUE

To talk about Dostoevsky in relation to postmodem perspectives seems naturally problematic in two senses. In the fIrst place, the postmodern seems restricted to a certain time period. In terms of theory, it emerges from the death throes of structpralism, and the earliest forms of postmodemism are generally synonymous with critiques .of that paradigm. It also contains a cri tique of modernist aesthetics, in particular the high art of the first half of the twentieth century and the restricted artistic ecoRomy that it often entailed. Postmodernism thus seems at odds with a favorable reading of Dostoevsky, firstly because he li~s outside the conventionally accepted time period, and secondly because of postmodemism's vehement attack on the literary canon as the mstitution of cultural elitism. It is important, however, to distinguish carefulJy between these overtly. political dimensions of the emergence of postmodernism from the literary and philosophical concepts and strategies that have emerged in its wake. In fact, whenever we speak of the 'postmod em' or 'postmodem perspectives' throughout the rest of this chapter, we will be referring exclusively to this conceptual foundation. Apart from the histori- · cal, cultural and social factors that underlie the rise of postmodemism, we see the collateral emergence of a renewed valorization of the heterogeneous, of multiplicity. The political arguments as to whether this constitutes a break with previous aesthetic modes, or whether it represents a continuation of the modernist and even premodernist cultural formations are important, but sec ondary, questions. It is to the idea of the multiple in postmodernism, rather than to postmodernism itself, that we are drawn. Multiplicity is the grammar of innovation and creativity, whether it proclaims itself to be postmodern or not, and so we are drawn inexorably to texts, such as Dostoevsky's, which possess this quality. \ The,most conspicuous work of Dostoevsky's oeuvre that engages with ~is key concept is his early novel The Double (1846). In approaching Dosto evsky from a post-modem standpoint, we do not wish to downplay the influ ~lice of his contemporaries. Indeed, as we -have argued elsewhere, ,a move ment such as French realism, which raises questions about the problema~ic relationship between truth and literature, is a key precursor to the debates

i. 30 The Dostoevsky Journal: An Independent Review

about postmodem perspectives in literature and art.l Thus we can confidently declare that the influences on Dostoevsky's early fiction are consonant with our project rather than as a historical aside. The nightmarish qualities of some of his early fiction - The Landlady and The Double in particular - can be traced back to the tales of the German writer E.T.A. Hoffma1!n, for example. But it is well know~ that Dostoevsky's literary interests, apart from encom passing such fellow Russians as Pushkin and Gogol', were focused on the great French writers of the early nineteenth century. We can point here to the two "'founding fathers' of French realism, Stendhal and Honore de Balzac (Dostoevsky, of ~ourse, worked on translations of Balzac's work), as well as the American· expatriate Edgar Allan Poe (Dostoevsky wrote a preface for a Russian translation of three of his tales). Poe's impact is ubiquitous in The Double. There are allusions, for example, to Poe's story ''The Purloined Let-· ter" (1844) in chapter 13:

But to his astonishment the letter was not in his pocket. ... Mr. . Golyadkin began to tremble like a leaf at the thought that his undeserv ing twin, having somehow got wind of the letter from Mr. Goldyakin's enemies, had flung his coat over his head with the express purpose of purloining it. "What's more, he's purloining it as evidence," thought our hero, 'but why evidence?,2

When facing his superior in Olsufi Ivanovich a few pages later, the narra- "" tor once again tells us that the "thought of the" purloined letter came into his mind.".3 The story of the purloined letter resurfaces famously in the work of the preeminent post-structural psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. But, more to the point, Poe himself is a pioneer of the doppelganger story: his tale "William Wilson" (1839) similarly tells of a man who is haunted by his exact double. Another obvious point of convergence between Dostoev~ky and the ~rench is the key. analogy of th~ mirror. In the most famous passage of Scar let and Black (1830), Stendhal puts forward what appears to be the realist no tion that "a'novel is a ·mirror journeying down the high road",4 and its echo is . again heard in Poor Folk (1846) when D"evushkin writes: "Literature is a pic ture, or rather in a certain sense both a picture and a mirror."s Stendhal's analogy launches a discussion about the limits of literary representation, from

1. This is a key argument from my PhD thesis, which is a study of Stendhal (forthcoming). The title ofthe thesis is The First Step. 2. F. Dostoevsky, Notes From The UndergroundlThe Double (Harmondsworth: Penguin, . 1972), p. 274. .3. Ibid., p. 282. 4. Stendhal, Scarlet AndBlack (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1953), p. 365. 5. F. Dostoyevsky, Poor Folk And Other Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988), p. 52.