“I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man.” So begins the confession of a former minor civil servant, bitter and solitary, shut away in a corner of St Petersburg. First he explains, provocatively, why he rejects reason and progress. Then he tells of a humiliating evening with old schoolfellows, and of his meeting with a young woman, Liza.
This narrator mocks everything, himself as much as the reader, and yet he fascinates. This book is often seen as the way into Dostoevsky's great novels.
With the translation always in front of you, you can read this feverish text in the language you are learning.
