The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Book Review)

hi everyone Helen London here I hope you're happy healthy and well it is time for a new book review and this time around it is another book by Dostoyevsky I've been madly getting into his books because I borrowed a few books from the library and although they weren't the big ones of his like brothers karamazov Crime and Punishment and demons they are the three books that I really really want to read but I'm psyching myself up to read them so in the meantime I'm reading his smaller books with the hope that I can get the gist of his writing and somehow the breeding brothers karamazov or reading crime and punishment is not going to be such a big thing as I've done it and put it into my mind I mean after all I did read War and Peace So if I read that then I should be right with dostoevsky's other books but you know the mind is a funny thing isn't it anyway so this is the third book that I have read of Justice it's called The Gambler obviously you could see that it's a it's a library book and when I saw this in the library and the picture of the roulette wheel in the front of it I just went you know I don't know much about gambling in fact I I don't know much at all I'm not a gambler it's not uh it's not a topic that is of interest to me but given that it is Dostoevsky I thought why not and I before I read this book I explored why he wrote this book and it was really interesting that he had written this book in 1867 and there was a story behind why he wrote this book he was a gambler himself and he was so much in debt and a publisher very cunning publisher had said to him that he would pay off his entire debt if he wrote a book in a year's time otherwise if he didn't provide the book within a year he would hand over that dostoyesky would hand over all the rights to his work to this publisher and what had happened was just AFC they left it to the last minute well you only had 30 days to go before the contract expired so he needed to write something very quickly and he wrote this book themes around this book were really relevant to Dostoyevsky simply because he understood the theme of gambling that in mind I started to read this book in the hope that it didn't have too many gambling terms or he didn't delve too much about the roulette will because I really had no interest but what he did actually delve into luckily was the relationships between the group of people who had gone into roulette Burke which was a town that had a casino and so this entire premise is about a story of a group of people all there with their different personalities who all have this facade and who all have I guess they're in debt to each other so we're introduced to to the general who is someone in his 50s and he's got in his Entourage he has Paulina who is his step-daughter he's got his couple of children who Paulina is looking after there is also a Lexi who is The Gambler himself and who is the tutor for the kids now Lexi is a gambler he knows his way around the roulette well he also is in love with Paulina but Alexi likes to observe the people in in the group he stands back and he watches the relationship he watches what they do he watches where their eyes go so he can glean just like a gambler does to understand the picture around him now in that same group is Blanche who is a young French woman who is obviously someone who is looking out for a sugar daddy and that's who she wants to latch onto the general so that she could use his money in the group as as well is her mother as well as an obnoxious french guy by the name of degree and also an English person by the name of Mr astray who also is a confidant to Paulina so what happens is Alexi The Gambler Connor and the tutor he looks at the relationships and he doesn't understand there's something afoot with all of them all of them are in somehow in debt to each other and he's trying to glean the story we find out later that the general has obviously asked for money from De Gru and also Paulina happens to be the mistress to digre and degru obviously has given money to the general everyone's in debt to each other and the general wants to be at ruletberg to win a bit of money on the roulette table so he'd pay off his debt at the same time Paulina hands over some money to Alexi and pleads with him for him to win that money so that she can pay off the debts to do group but Alexis doesn't know that yet so we're seeing I guess from Alex's point of view that there is something a play something afoot in the group but he can't piece it together at the same time this entire group is waiting for the mother of the general the grandmother who has a fortune and they're waiting for her to die in the hope that the general gets the inheritance and that Blanche he can then marry Blanche and that everything will be all right but lo and behold the grandmother rocks up to roulette Berg and you can imagine the grandmother as being a feisty woman in the wheelchair with her cane and she's bashing everyone around and she's asking a lot of questions and she sees through people I love the character of the grandmother in this book the moment she came into the book I just laughed out loud she was someone who you could picture in your mind's eye she was really a really tough character and I liked how she just saw through everyone she saw through the a general and what he was trying to do she saw through it definitely saw through Blanche she knew exactly what was going on but she pulls Alexia's side and says you know what's all this fuss about gambling take me to the casino I want to see the roulette will and I want to see why this attraction with the casino and sure enough she goes there and the whole Entourage follows and she starts to ask question of Alexi who also supports her and AIDS her for her to understand the roulette wheel and she gets fixated on the number zero because the zero uh where the the odds are stacked up against her but if she wins on zero she gets a lot more money so she puts her money on zero and initially as is always the case initially she wins a bit of money she gets this confidence about her and she keeps putting her stuff on zero despite Alexi telling her not to keep you know don't put your eggs in the one basket don't always is put it on zero but she sticks to her guns and she wants to stick with it but as you can understand what happens is she starts to lose money but she gets down into this addiction the compulsive Behavior wanting to bet more and more and more on zero and in the end she ends up losing her Fortune now the Entourage or the general and everyone else starts to panic because she's spending their inheritance but at this part of the book I started to think well it's the old lady's money she can do whatever she wants with it and good or not if she wants to spend it on gambling and on the casino just so her family doesn't get it then so be it but it was really interesting to see how quickly she got into the compulsive Behavior and the addiction that came along with gambling the story unfolds and over time what happens is Alexi wins a lot a lot of money and sure enough that's when Blanche starts to get off the general and starts to pay a lot more interest to Alexi and because Alexi wins a lot more money he wants to help Paulina but Paulina then says well she doesn't want to be paid off by Alexi she's skedaddles on out of the country and what happens is he marries Blanche who then spends all his money in Paris for no reason whatsoever he's depressed destitute he returns to roulette bird to try and get back a little bit of more of his money to get back his life but since then obviously he's in debt he's he's been in jail as well so his life has taken a turn for the worse as is usually the case for someone who is displaying addictive behaviors and who can't get rid of that compulsion to gamble for me the life lessons of this I think were kind of obvious initially with Dr these other books I went deeper into them this one I think at times was a bit too obvious the first lesson I got was trying not to get into a behavior where you become addicted to it and it's quite easy to get into that behavior reading how the grandmother was simply sucked into the casino I thought to myself for any uh compulsive Behavior maybe this is what it's like or you cannot stop the other I guess obvious one that seemed well pretty in your face was the fact that everyone was in debt to each other everyone owed something to someone how they kept it all secret and so it made me think that we really don't know each other's business and usually there are things that we might not understand around the typical relationships with people and you just don't know who's paying off each other and who's helping each other pay off their debts and if you are in debt to someone you are in fact a kind of like a slave to them or you're really you're really not a free person you're not free mentally because all you're thinking is you need to pay them off so that you can be free of this debt a debt is something that is on your shoulders is on your mind you are not a mentally free person but these are two obvious lessons these are two obvious life lessons and I thought to myself there's got to be something more what is something more with a gambler so I started to think about how the grandmother would pull Alexia's side and ask his advice so here was someone who was into that compulsive Behavior or getting in to it asking the advice of someone who is already addicted so I guess it's the addicted person give it giving advice to someone who is completely new to it and going down that path and so I thought the addicted person really was the only person who can offer advice but he was offering advice to her as in don't put your money on zero be safe you know put it on something else and I thought to myself why is someone who is already down the path of addiction giving advice to someone who is not so is there a lesson for that is there something that can happen in real life is that what really happens why doesn't the addicted person follow their own advice if they're seeing what is happening to the other person why can't they themselves do that behavior so they'd go don't go down that track but I guess that is the that is addiction that is the compulsive Behavior so I started to think I don't understand about gambling that is not something that has been in my life thankfully and I guess I'm not driven to Compulsive behaviors of gambling I simply don't understand it I'm someone who opens a wallet and moths come flying out I just I'm completely risk averse but then I started to think okay if it's not gambling what other compulsion could it be and so I started to think about in my life about how we just continue continually use these little things these phones I guess I've got a love-hate relationship with my phone and certainly in the last year or so I've been off social media simply because I start to understand the compulsive Behavior especially when it comes to social media so I started to think about okay what about people who give us advice about the use of our phones or the use of technology or the use of social media where they themselves are giving us advice without them realizing that they are addicted to their phones as well so in some way I put the gambling addiction and put it into context of the way I understand it and for me the way I see things is I actually think that we are all demonstrating some form of addictive behaviors through the use of our phones we may not seem as if we are or we may not think that we are we often give advice to others about the use of our phones and justify our own actions and behaviors in the use of social media or the use of our phones simply because hopefully we understand our own behaviors for example one of the things I try to do and I completely miss out here because I fall into the same trap is when I go out with friends to a cafe or to a restaurant I try and keep my phone in my bag I do not refer to my phone at all I try not to I try not to look at it if there is a notification that comes in and I put it on silent but I could hear it vibrate and I feel compelled to keep looking at it and just check my phone but there are other the times where I stopped myself and I said no I don't really need to look at it I do not need to use my phone but at the same time I fall into the Trap into you know there are times where I do take out my phone I have to and if I am completely honest with myself I would say that that is a form of compulsive Behavior it is a form of addiction even when I am with around other people and I try not to take my phone out of my bag and there have been times where I simply either forget my phone or do not take it out of my bag what usually happens and what I have noticed by watching people in my uh I guess the company that we're in is that someone might ask a question and all of a sudden the phone comes out to check something to check whether what the weather will be like tomorrow to check some a fact that someone has mentioned maybe someone wants to research something the phone will always come out and guaranteed in 99 of the cases what I have seen is the moment the phone comes out everyone else's phone comes out so it seems to be some kind of compulsive behavior that the moment a phone comes out in the group everyone else will also have that same compulsion to check their phone so in some way that is a way I thought of how I could link those compulsive behaviors and how I too am also addicted that I too would give advice on other people on not to get on social media or not to use their phone as much and yet at the same time time I too am doing it myself so like the elixi character I am also giving advice to other people without realizing that I too am also in and displaying those same compulsive Behavior the question is then recognizing that and being self-reflective and understanding that I am also demonstrating these does that make it a good thing or does it make it a bad thing I don't know I think I think for me the fact that I am recognizing it and the fact that I accept it and the fact that I'm actually sharing my thoughts here on camera uh out there and saying it openly that I too am addicted to my phone I'm always honest and I hate it that in some way that is a good thing maybe if you don't feel compelled to say that or if you believe that you are not and yet on the one hand you're saying that you're not and on the other hand you are also demonstrating it that you are addicted to the technology then you know what what would you prefer to do for me I would prefer to just call it out as it is get rid of that facade that everyone else in the book was you know being in debt to each other and actually putting it out there that saying that I'm human that I am addicted to the phone and so be it but I you know we try to not stop the behavior but we we're still compelled to it and in some way Alexi in the book in some ways Behavior drives him and he keeps driving him right to the end so maybe in some way you know I think we're all addicted we are all like Alexi in some way and you know someone might come to us and say look you can have a life without your phone hand in your phone right now you are never to use it ever again what would we do that question came to me would I accept it or not I don't know I guess you have to read the book to find out what Alexi does in the end and decide for yourself anyway that is my life lesson for The Gambler by Dostoyevsky thank you for listening and thank you for watching bye for now

Channel: Life Lessons From Books

Views: 1,295

Keywords: activatemylearning, Activate Learning Solutions, Books, Book Reviews, Russian Literature, The Gambler, Dostoyevsky

Id: H_0yQtlYE7w

Length: 17min 51sec (1071 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 26 2023