[review for The Double]
A mock-heroic, conducted in the indirect language and polite circumlocutions of the civil service classes. I felt for the absurd anxieties of our ridiculous hero from the start – I don’t think D. is being mean to him, but that’s what a softy I am. A bit obviously, he didn’t know how to end it. Young, messy; a sketch for future work; funny, and kind of brilliant.

Dostoevsky's two novellas, "The Double" and the "The Gambler", are both tales of madness.

The Double tells of the paranoia and schizophrenic breakdown of its hero, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, a man who has little insight into his own character and who struggles to empathize with others. Golyadkin does not possess the social graces to be invited to the grand coming-out ball of his employer's daughter, a girl whom he obsesses about but has likely never met. His shame on such exclusion from polite society and the worse humiliation he experiences on gate-crashing the ball are the triggers of his mental breakdown: Golyadkin meets his double - a man with the same name, background and place of origin as himself but with all the political skills and extraversion that Golyadkin lacks. The double remorselessly subverts Golyadkin's position, gradually eroding his identity. We never learn whether the double is a real person on whom Golyadkin projects an alternate self or else is simply a delusion A closing bathetic scene has Golyadkin in the early hours of the morning hiding alone in the dark and the snow, concealed behind a woodpile in the grounds of his employer watching the daughter's window and waiting to be invited inside. His madness places him alone in a world utterly different from that of the girl he loves, assuming Golyadkin can be said to love at all.

In contrast to Golyadkin, the hero of "The Gambler", Alexei Ivanovich, is a connoisseur of the finest human interactions. As the tutor to a struggling aristocratic Russian family holidaying in a German gambling resort he watches how the family tries to defend what remains of its wealth from avaricious French aristocrats and "actresses". He can well read the motives and emotions of the people surrounding him, no matter how artfully hidden they are behind a screen of social convention. He is intelligent and, except when his passions overtake him, entirely rational. Alexei's' flaw is a lack of insight into his own condition: at the end of the story he cannot control his passion for gambling and, for whatever reason and despite many clues, he fails to recognize that Polina, the elder stepdaughter of the family and the love of his life, is also in love with him. Like Golyadkin, Alexei's madness has left him alone a world away from that of his love.

Which is worst, I wonder - to be mad like Golyadkin, tortured by delusion but unaware of your insanity? Or mad like Alexei, rational but unable to control your compulsions? Hell may well be other people, but madness can surely leave you very alone.

aaarhgahahahajandnsksmdb!!! bravo

These two stories don't necessarily compliment each other thematically but it's very interesting to see the different points of view from such different eras in D's bibliography (The Double was published in 1846, one of his first published works, whereas the Gambler was published 1867, in the midst of his most popular and profound works).

The Double is the story of a man and his doppelganger which is equal parts intriguing and terrifying, but it also shows Dostoevsky to not only be a precursor to what would become Existentialism but also a precursor to absurd and weird fiction (arguably equally as profound and relevant as Existentialism in literature and philosophy).

The Gambler was much more introspective and an example of Dostoevsky's mastery at understanding and describing his characters motivations and internal struggles to understand their own motivations.

Two novellas each about a particular brand of insanity. Oh well, one can critique it as such, much like how Dostoevsky critiqued the Russian character itself, especially in The Gambler. If I were to express my true thoughts at what are to be considered some of the most forgotten and fleeting stories of Dostoevsky, it would be that The Double is not without merit but is also not to be recommended, but The Gambler would appeal very much to a wide variety of reader. Doubtless you would expect me to ramble about the unclear and flat-falling P&V translation for The Double, yet much of that comes anyway from the already nervous and stuttering narrator and a variety of incidents he's involved in which I could only laugh or cry. Yes, the doppelganger, it's all about the doppelganger, but in the end its the narrator who ruins himself, what could Dostoevsky possibly be saying with this recurring theme I wonder!? I think anyone who has read The Gambler would know it's not just a purely psychological novel about the evils of chance and folly of money but includes a highly stringent and often more complex set of relationships than any novella should deserve. An aspect of gambling is self-affirmation as Dosty has not failed to notice; a pride and a fear and a sense of wonder that drives us to bet again and again against all logic that an outsider could not possibly hope to understand not having experienced it himself. Read it for this truly edge-of-the-seat writing and nothing more.

The Double is okay-okay but The Gambler is Dostoevsky at his very best. There is not very much to say about The Double but wherever it is lacking, The Gambler does an excellent job. The voice of the protagonist, Alexei Ivanovich, full of hatred for the French and simping for Polina, is one of the most entertaining I have read. The support cast are all colourful and memorable. The novel is rather short and kept me at the edge of my seat throughout. Helps that it was narrated by Michael Page whom I fondly remember from The Lies of Locke Lamora.

The Double = 2/5
The Gambler = 5/5

Really enjoyed The Gambler, especially towards the end of the story. A solid 4 stars. The Double on the other hand... not quite enjoyable and, although the plot was interesting, the execution bored me. 2 stars.

Though I've only read The Double thus far, and I may not get to The Gambler for many months, I felt I could post a review for half this book. Honestly...I have very little idea what happened. Was it all a dream? Did he die? Was he kidnapped by a German? I've got next to nothing. Hopefully after a few months of marinating in my mind and then studying it in class, this will make more sense!
*Later* I still have not read The Gambler, but I have reread The Double, and since the page count adds up, I'm marking this complete. I'll edit my review if I get around to The Gambler anytime soon. I have a new theory on The Double--the narrator, I believe, portrays the world purely as Goliadkin sees it. Which means it takes a second time through to recognize that Goliadkin Jr. may be mostly (if not entirely) an invention of Goliadkin Sr.'s paranoia. He is convinced of his enemies and their desires to undermine him, and if one realizes that, then his nonsensical conversations make considerably more sense. I think it's also relevant that the two Goliadkins almost never speak to each other unless they're alone. Several of their interactions are through mirrors, which implies that he's not truly there, and the interactions in the office, where Goliadkin Jr. is almost always quite confused could probably be explained as his being a man who coincidentally has the same name, but who is not an identical double the way Goliadkin Sr. believes he is.

As always, Dostoevsky does a masterful job of describing the character, emotions, and thoughts of everyday people, oftentimes even the lowest or least virtuous members of society. One of the biggest reasons I would recommend reading Dostoevsky or Tolstoy is to better understand and sympathize with people--people you could never actually meet in real life. The difference between the two authors is that Tolstoy writes about high society (or at least those who aspire to high society), and Dostoevsky mostly writes about the lowest of the low (financially or in terms of vice). These short stories are a pretty good entry point, too.

The Double was very difficult to follow, which I know was by design, because of its dreamlike setting. It was interesting, and very well written, but I think I might enjoy it more after a second reading.

The Gambler painted an accurate portrait of the rise and fall of a gambler, his emotions and rationalizations, as well as the influence that our nationality or ethnicity can have on our virtues and vices. They should hand this out to people about to enter casinos. If they actually read it, maybe we'd have fewer homeless in LV.

"Truly, there's something peculiar in the feeling when, alone, in a foreign land, far from your own country and your friends, and not knowing what you're going to eat that day, you stake your last gulden, your very, very last! I won, and twenty minutes later left the Vauxhall with a hundred and seventy guldens in my pocket... There's what your last gulden can sometimes mean! And what if I had lost heart then, what if I hadn't dared to venture?" (The Gambler, 329.)

You already heard this one, but Dostoevsky once gambled away his wife's wedding ring, This book was in itself a gamble. He took a loan from a guy in exchange for the following wager: if he didn't present the guy with a novel on a certain date, the guy would own all rights to his other books up to that point. He procrastinated in order to write The Idiot, ended up hiring a stenographer with weeks to spare and dictating this whole thing to her, got it to the guy on the very last day and promptly married the stenographer. That is a good story.

Tomorrow, it'll all be over tomorrow!

The Double and The Gambler tells the stories of two men unable to cope with their own lives, chasing unlikely promotions or engagements, losing their sanities one way or another in the process.

The Double (3.5/5) - Dostoyevsky portrays my greatest fear: that someone who looks exactly like me but is kinder and hotter and better in every way takes over my life. And makes more use of it.

The Gambler (4/5) - Dostoyevsky, a notorious gambler himself, lets us into the mind of a gambling addict to be, showing us the thrill, the highs that come with winning, that encroach on the gambler and force him to play again, no matter the consequences of losing.