The Gambler

Synopsis

A compulsive gambler himself at a certain period of his life, Dostoyevsky wrote this novel with real authority. Set in the appropriately named Roulettenburg, a German spa with a casino and an international clientele, it concerns the gambling episodes, tangled love affairs and complicated lives of Alexey Ivanovitch, a young gambler; Polina Alexandrovna, the woman he loves; a pair of French adventurers and other characters. Although not as dark as some of Dostoyevsky's other works, The Gambler nevertheless offers a grim and psychologically probing picture of the fatal attractions of gambling.