The real of the real writting the human experience in both stories. Very good illustration of personalities and people different social status. I especially like how it relates to his life as gambler. As a fan of early Guy Ritchie films, the gambler servers as an inspiration, like how the characters arcs overlap with another character.

“Yes, sometimes the wildest thought, the seemingly most impossible thought, gets so firmly settled in your head that you finally take it for something feasible… Moreover, if the idea is combined with a strong, passionate desire, you might one day take it, finally, for something fatal, inevitable, predestined, for something that can no longer not be and not happen!”

double two stars gambler five. upsetting portrayal of an addict’s unintentional selfishness!

Surprisingly, this book concludes both my favorite (or at least one of my many favorites) and my least favorite of Dostoevsky’s novels. 

The Double

I really don’t have to say much about the Double. I guess on its own, I would give it 3 stars if I were feeling generous.

The story is a bit like Fight Club, but make it Russian and way more confusing. There was a lot of potential, and it’s of course written great with the typical Dostoevsky hero (aka a man closer to insanity than me to quitting my job), but it still feels like it could’ve been better, mostly because at times it dragged on and it really was confusing as hell.

The Gambler on the other hand, though…  

  The Gambler 

The Gambler is definitely the best book about gambling addiction I've ever read.
... Ok, ok, it's the only book about gambling addiction I've read, but still.

The depiction of addiction is incredible, which is not very surprising, as Dostoevsky himself was a lifelong gambling addict.
Watching our main character, Alexei, dive deeper and deeper into this obsession and lose himself along the way was almost scary to read.

I also found myself getting way too invested in the whole thing. Alexei was playing roulette, which is so easy that even I understand the rules (and that's saying something) and every time he played, I was also hoping, wishing and dreading the outcome of the game.
I even found myself screaming "Don't place it on zero, what the hell!?" out loud at one point. So yeah, as you can see, the gambling spirit definitely got to me too.

At first, Alexey’s character threw me a bit off, though. He just seemed to be so... much? Very dramatic and even a bit ridiculous (much like Mr. Goliadkin in The Double), but he really grew on me (unlike Mr. Goliadkin in The Double).

It's also impressive how much character development we get in such a short book. 
But then again, it's Dostoevsky, so I don't know why I am even surprised. That guy was a genius.

I read The Gambler, and I read the first 30 pages of the Double. I'd give The Gambler 2 stars and The Double one star. In my opinion The Double may well be a worse book than Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, making it the worst book I've ever read. I can't tell for certain because there's just no way I'm wasting any more time on that book. Golyadkin seems to be an rambling, incoherent idiot with an IQ well into the 'disabled' category, and I don't give a crap what happens to him, or his double, or anyone else in that book for that matter. The language of that book is awful.

The Gambler was a little better, although the protagonist of that book also seems a bit short on brain cells and although none of the characters were at all easy to relate to.

The Double
Written by a young and fresh (and slightly arrogant) Fyodor. This one wasn’t great but it is wonderful to see his growth. 3/5

The Gambler
Written under a deadline when he was older (and out of 10 years of hard labor in Siberia), this one is a lot more captivating.
“If it’s not roulette, it’s something like it…” Mr. Astley says of Russians’ tendencies to become addicted to the poison of their choosing. ‘The Gambler’ is fast-paced and somehow recognizable in themes and character dynamics (especially M/F).
4.5/5

Picked this one up cause i thought i would like the double and wanted to try something short before attempting the brothers karamazov. Did not like the double, the main character’s interactions with society were very surreal and it worked to illustrate his descent into madness but it was kinda hard to read through and tell what was actually going on at times, but also entertaining and a fun puzzle in the beginning. Got old pretty fast though. Gambler was a banger tho

This two part P&V translation begins with The Double, Dostoevsky’s earlier of the two works, and then moves to The Gambler, released prior to The Idiot and later Karamzov. In both you begin to see the formation of two characters whom are fully developed in his later works: Goliadkian to later become a fully formed Raskolnikov and Proskovya (Polina) who becomes Nastasya Filipinova.

The Double is the story of a man torn in two; his hallucinations amplify his interpretation of his split personality inevitably leading to his own demise. Dostoevsky’s style can be a bit confusing, not in the writing itself, but in the structure for which the story moves. But this aids to the lucid dream like confusion the reader must experience to become Golidakin’s companion in his unraveling. The short 150 ish pages are digestible and keep the reader intrigued as to the how’s and why’s of the man’s eventual unbecoming.

The Gambler, which I preferred over The Double, mainly as it’s style is light and playful opposed to other works, is engaging from the start. The story follows a tutor, Alexei Ivanovich, in service of a Russian general and his family, with whom he loves Polina, the general’s daughter. The use of shorter sentences and striking language, in conjunction to elevated character dialogue, allow a certain transparency into the humor of tragedy had from Alexei’s gambling addiction. The chapters are short and far easier to digest than the larger works in shorter sittings, and will make the attentive reader laugh with wit and excitement as each page turns.

Both are highly recommended reads for the reader looking to sample one of the greatest authors and both are very nice prefaces to understanding the moral development of more complex and robust characters in Dostoevsky’s later works.

Cheers!

3 for The Double; 4 for The Gambler

Reliably translated by the firm of Pevear and Volokhonsky, I just can't see my way clear to a higher rating because I simply cannot stand The Double. The Gambler is a first-rate novel with loads of Russians acting against their best interests (duh) at the roulette table and in love. No one is particularly good or nice and everyone is active and interesting. The Double, on the other hand, feels like Kafka, only slower. The poor main character meets his doppelganger and things go sideways fast. A lot of has to do with the fact that the hero is a stammering git who can be relied on always to take the most pusillanimous route and then second- and triple-guess himself. I can see how some might find it funny, but it just gives me a migraine.

I was surprised when I realized at the end of these two novellas, that I preferred the earlier work over the later one. The Double was one of Dosty's first major works and he was stupidly excoriated for it by Belinsky and other idiots who thought it wasn't "relevant" enough. Whatever. The Double, which could be seen as D-Bag's answer to Gogol's Petersburgian weirdnesses, is an excellent tale which still has a familiar ring even today: paranoia, mental illness untended, and the belief that one is being targeted by some nefarious force, here the titular doppelganger that dogs poor Mr. Goliadkin. It's a fine and dark self versus self story.
The Gambler I remember liking more than I do on this reread. Coming as it did after D-Train's exile, just as he was embarking on the Great Five Novels, would surely be the more mature piece, but I found it honestly a little dull. Dosty had a gambling problem, too, but the somewhat flat pacing and uninteresting drama that unfolds around the little spa of Roulettenburg lacks his usual quiet ferocity.

Liked it, didn't love it

There's a lot of talking at the end that got tiresome - all in all solid and approachable. Good story about the madness of love, of money, and Frenchmen vs. Russians.