About this title: The award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have given us the definitive version of Fyodor Dostoevsky's strikingly original short novels, "The Double "and "The Gambler." "The Double "is a surprisingly modern hallucinatory nightmare-foreshadowing Kafka and Sartre-in which a minor official named Goliadkin becomes aware of a ...
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780375719011ISBN:0375719016
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Inc
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780375719011ISBN:0375719016
Description: New. The award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have given us the definitive version of Fyodor Dostoevsky's strikingly original short novels, "The Double "and "The Gambler. " "The Double "is a surprisingly modern hallucinatory nig... read more
"The Double: While this is probably one of the first attempts to recreate the process of going mad in literature, I have to say that this book would've been a lot more comprehensible if D. had done some more work on the first 3/4 of the book, as the connection between the story and its ending still seems forced to me. (This may be partly due to my not appreciating or understanding the pathogenesis of something like full-blown schizophrenia.) He is very good at letting us look at the world through the (demented) eyes of Our Hero, but it makes it quite a bit harder to judge the story by its progression, as I have no way to know where the problem lies. Not a light read in any case.
The Gambler: This starts out as a very entertaining story, accessibly written, but by the end the tone is decidedly more unpleasant, though still written mostly the same way. The protagonist, we are shown, does not really care either way. And this is especially poignant in the last part, where he is basically living out a part that he does not want to play, but does it because he feels he has to, because it's expected. It was an odd twist, although in line with the romantic tendencies of the literature of his time, somewhat comparable to Werther in that respect. I'm somewhat hesitant to call the story profound, as the conclusion would have to be counter to a lot of (western) expectations, but it's definitely got a point."
"I debated for a bit whether I really should round up and give this 5 stars, but though the ideas in both these short books by Dostoevsky are masterful, his usual artful sloppiness doesn't fully work throughout either of these books. The visionary nature of The Double in how it predates Kafka and yet does so much of what Kafka is noted for, and even The Gambler plays on ideas that would take another century to define mathematically (and give it a fancy name - stochasticity), is all wonderful stuff, but Dostoevsky's indicative sloppiness does drag both works down a bit in terms of how they inspire compulsive reading.
In The Double, Dostoevksy proves that he might be the one man in literary history who could have disproven the writing maxim that you can't write a story about a man alone in the woods. Yakov Petrovich Goliadkin's thoughts take such precedent in this book that it becomes clear that Dostoevsky might have been able to maintain a narrative of a man alone with no one else to react to. And when Goliadkin's double appears and begins to revise the original Goliadkin's entire existence, Dostoevsky adeptly addresses where the original source of one's identity comes from in the first place. But Goliadkin's mental ravings do get a bit much to go along with and be riveted to every word.
In The Gambler, Dostoevsky studies the motivation and the outcome of gambling - more so, the compulsion for finding control in a system full of chance (let the metaphor bloom outward from there as you see most fit). But the book doesn't really pick up until a compulsive grandmother shows up to go ballistic on the roulette wheel. From there, this book moves along just fine, but the opening pages with its soap opera-esque romantic drama, just wasn't a driving force for a while."
"The Gambler was great. Five stars. Exactly what I want from Dostoevsky. The Double was terrible for me. It's been a long time since I've read a novel that was so painful to read and that I got so little out of. I have no idea what happened. All I know is that the style was so painful that I had to use a mantra to get through it. "This is Dostoevsky. There's got to be a point. This is Dostoevsky. There's got to be a point.""
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