The Gambler (Modern Library Classics) [Paperback]

Fyodor Dostoevsky (Author), Constance Garnett (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Modern Library Classics | Publication Date: April 8, 2003

In this dark and compelling short novel, Fyodor Dostoevsky tells the story of Alexey Ivanovitch, a young tutor working in the household of an imperious Russian general. Alexey tries to break through the wall of the established order in Russia, but instead becomes mired in the endless downward spiral of betting and loss. His intense and inescapable addiction is accentuated by his affair with the General’s cruel yet seductive niece, Polina. In The Gambler, Dostoevsky reaches the heights of drama with this stunning psychological portrait.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Gambler brilliantly captures the strangely powerful compulsion to bet that Dostoyevsky, himself a compulsive gambler, knew so well. The hero rides an emotional roller coaster between exhilaration and despair, and secondary characters such as the Grandmother, who throws much of her fortune away at the gaming tables, are unforgettable. The book's publishing history is equally so: Under the pressure of a deadline from an unscrupulous publisher, and with rights to his entire oeuvre at stake, Dostoyevsky dictated the book in less than a month to the star pupil of Russia's first shorthand school. Then he married her. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.” —Albert Einstein

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library (April 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812966937
• ISBN-13: 978-0812966930
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,261,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beauty Amid Ashes., September 11, 2004

By 

Bernard Chapin "Ora Et Labora!" (CHICAGO! USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gambler (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)

I loved this book. I'm not sure that any book entitled "Gambling Psychology" would include a better profile of the psychopathology that is gambling addiction. The main character's massochism is also a wonderful case study of how such personalities operate and function. The plot is excellent and "granny" is so perfectly described that it's as if the author included a photograph of her. Much of the Russian psyche is on display and the reader will get a glimpse into people and lifestyles that are quite in keeping with what one might find today in our own Roulettenberg, Las Vegas. This was a concise but pleasant ride through human nature.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God as Lady Luck, August 29, 2001

By 

Cort McMeel - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gambler (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

The Gambler is primarily a book about obssession and mania, a topic that Dostoyevsky would go on to further explore using criminal, political and religious themes as a backdrop. The God in the gambler is not Christ, but Lady Luck and her spinning ways at the roullette wheel. This book written while FD was majorly in debt due to gambling losses explores his need to gamble. Moreover, it is a book that contains some of Dostovesky most memorable tertiary characters. Alexi the narrator is a young tutor and part of a Russian general's entourage in a Riviera. He falls in love with the General's neice, who is constantly tormenting, taunting and pathologically luring him. She makes Alexi, who is not only a compulsive gambler, but an impulsive cretin commit "unspeakable" acts to bourgeoise and lesser royalty in public.... Alexi's desperate failure to win the niece's attention's is marked by his increasing need to gamble his pitous funds. But Lady Luck does smile on Alexi for a while (although he is so agitated he doesn't know it), before taking everything away from him: money, love and his meager Russian pride. The novel sees the disintegration and paradoxic increased euphoria of Alexi's character, until he is at the end so depraved that one wonders what keeps him from going mad. It is, of course, the brilliance of the book. Gambling, which is his undoing, is also his ultimate salvation, his wheel spinning, silver ball bouncing hope. The more depraved Aleci becomes the more manic and inspired the prose becomes with Dostoyevsky's frenetic brilliance making the best of us get itchy palms. At the end you yourself will want to hit the roullette wheel with an inspiration that can only come from the poisoned and infectious mind of a religious man and great writer who once viewed God not as the Arbiter of Good and Evil and Creator of Worlds, but God as a roll of dice, a deal of the cards and a most terrible and remorseless spin of the wheel.
Although most people consider this book a minor work, it is Dostoyevsky at his inspired best. While it doesn't have the profound (and morbid) philosophy of Notes from the Underground, it has incredible characterization and a humorous, dramatic narrative

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An engrossing, fun short work, May 7, 2000

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"mikeu3" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gambler (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

The story behind the creation of The Gambler is well-known--due to heavy debt, Dostoevsky had less than four weeks to write a novel to avoid losing the rights to all his works, both past and future. To make his task a bit easier, he hired the star pupil of a stenography school (whom he later married) to take dictation, and for the material of the novel he borrowed heavily from his own life--he had experience as a compulsive gambler, and he used his mistress Apollinariya Suslova as a model for the character Polina.

The result was an inspired, though by necessity short, work of art. The passages set in the casino do an excellent job of capturing the tortured fascination that gamblers have with the roulette wheel even for readers, such as myself, who have avoided casinos all their lives. However, The Gambler is not just about gambling--it features an intriguing array of characters which are developed quite well in the mere 117 pages of the novel. "Granny," for instance, is probably just about the most amusing character I've seen in Dostoevsky, and the entangled aims of all the characters make for a very lively narrative. It seems as though, if he had the opportunity, Dostoevsky could have written a whole novel about any one of them.

Obviously, The Gambler lacks the depth and brilliance of Dostoevsky's more famous long works, but if you're after a quick, entertaining read, it's really an excellent choice.