The Gambler by Dostoyevsky

The Gambler, a short novella, by Dostoyevsky surrounds many of the psychological and 'moral' themes common to Dostoyevsky's work. There is obsession, love, and vice. There is of course the usual generalizations:focusing on his own Russians but attacking the Germans, Poles, and especially the French.

The characters are hard to empathize with, but they are given just enough humanity to not make them entirely hateful. It would serve well to have at least one character with noble motives, so as to not give the work the dark tone, at times insufferable tone, it develops.

The first two-thirds start off slow, with Dostoyevsky straying a bit from his usual style. IT ultimately serves as simply a set up for the climax and denouement of the story which are the true beauty of it.

As many of Dostoyevksy's works, the work improves steadily as it progresses both in style and in content. There does seem to be a jolt, as the time gaps between the journal entries become longer but it really is worth suffering through. The climax of the story is almost absent, as it it is told in retrospect but it does not make the emotional debris it leaves behind any less poignant.