The Gambler - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Advantages: Irresistable Russian classic
Disadvantages: It's late when you put down the book

...gambler, this book according to the lore was conceived in only seven weeks after a frenzy of writing; supposedly to cover gambling debts from the German roulette tables. THE PLOT: Set in the ficticious Roulettenberg, our hero finds himself irresistably drawn to the ever-green tables of roulette. A newcomer to the all-too dangerous game of roulette, he almost against his will starts gambling with money not even his. Soon trapped in a fantasy world ...
...and gives us some of the world's most irresistable portraits of gambler's love/hate relationship with gambling and the lessons it tells us about life. DON"T MISS: The carefully crafted portraits of the Russian glitterati of its time, the Grandmother featuring in some of the high (and low) points of this fine and light novel, its insights into the phyche of the human mind THE MORAL: Obsession is a real human trait, present among everyone. "Homo ludens", ... Read review

Advantages: Dostoevky
Disadvantages: none

The greatness of Dostojevskij is by now indisputable not only for the literary quality of the works but also for the ability that the artist shows to know how to go over his ideas and to integrally marry "psychology" of his own characters. This means that Fiodor becomes never moralist, it doesn't look for, over the action and the thought of his heroes, a because, so much less of it ago metaphors. And' this that countersigns "The Gambler", big novel ...
...a way of thinking the life, from the novels coevi of other European writers (and I think about Manzoni). The Russian doesn't take to show it nothing and we can finally give "our" glance in the heart of the characters without the intrusion of the author. Light this novel means therefore to live close to the "croupier" of the Country house, to eat to the table of the "grandmother." To look for the last florin in the pockets, indeed, with the whole ... Read review