Tag Archives: Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Alexei Ivanovich is a young man who is tutor to the children of a Russian general. He has sworn an oath of undying love for Polina, a young relative of the general and they are all on holiday in a German town which has a casino. The general is deeply in debt and in danger of losing his estate.

The whole family is waiting for the general’s mother to die and leave them her money and when they hear that she is seriously ill they send lots of telegrams to ask how she is. Hoping to get news of her death. So when the elderly Madame de Cominge recovers her health and sees all the telegrams she isn’t exactly pleased and she takes herself off to the same hotel to tell her son the general that he won’t be getting any of her money.

The old lady takes to Alexei and asks him to take her to the casino. She has to be pushed everywhere in a chair and people are fascinated by the spectacle. At first she’s disgusted by the stupidity of the roulette players but it isn’t long before she’s hooked on it herself.

This is a quick read and another of the books on my 2011 reading list which I’ve had in the house waiting to be read for years. It’s quite enjoyable and it’s comical at times but mostly it shows you how easily people can become addicted to gambling which apparently is something which Dostoevsky had first hand experience of.

Going by this book – Dostoevsky had a very low opinion of Poles! Maybe all Russians were like that. This book was first published in 1867.

Poor Folk by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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This is one of the books which was inherited by us many moons ago and I added it to my 2011 Reading List to make sure that I got around to reading it this year, at last.

It’s a series of letters between a tchinovnik (a minor civil servant) called Makar Dievushkin and a distant relative of his, Barbara Dobroselova. Despite the fact that they both live in rooms in tenements which are just across the road from each other and they can actually see each other’s windows, they rarely meet for fear that people will talk about them.

As the story progresses the letters become more and more loving and really I could have rattled the two of them and clunked their heads together. For some reason Makar feels that he is responsible for Barbara and he spends money on her which he doesn’t have. Civil servants seem to have received their salary quarterly or even bi-annually and Makar’s money has run out so he ends up in debt. Poor Makar turns to drink which of course just makes things worse.

He still buys shawls, dresses and sweets for Barbara at a time when his shoes are so worn through that he is almost walking on the pavement. Barbara puts up a small half-hearted protest about him spending money on her but she wants the finer things in life and it seems that she is waiting for a man with money to come along and solve her problems.

Makar is a bit of a ‘Mr Bean’ type of character so there is quite a bit of humour in the book but it is all a bit sad and depressing. (Well it is Russian.) A man whom Barbara despises proposes to her and she accepts as she believes she has no other choice and she is enticed by the thought of the clothes and the status which Bwikow says she will have as his wife. It’s obviously going to be disastrous for Barbara as Bwikow has already taken control of her movements before they even get married.

It’s worth reading even although it has a couple of characters that you feel like screaming at!