Dostoevsky’s The Gambler

This extraordinary volume, the first critical work devoted entirely to Dostoevsky’s The Gambler, explores the novel and its author from a variety of perspectives and contexts. Medical, aesthetic, psychological, sociological, religious, philosophical, cultural, biographical, musical, and ethical concerns all come into play in this important collection of original essays by a group of accomplished critics and thinkers from a variety of fields. Svetlana Evdokimova’s introduction, “Dancing on the Feet of Chance” unpacks and elucidates a wealth of approaches and insights. The other contributors succeed in matching the impeccably high standard she has set for inquiry into Dostoevsky, his strange novel, and its risk-filled creation. This book, dedicated to Robert Louis Jackson, reprints his classic “Polina and Lady Luck in Dostoevsky’s The Gambler.”

-- Robin Feuer Miller, Brandeis University

This wonderful collection of essays, dedicated to the radiant memory of Robert Louis Jackson, explores the psychology, metaphysics, literary texture, operatic potential, and nascent Russian national types in Dostoevsky’s early novella about a passion for roulette. Its title in Russian—Igrok—means a Player, Gambler, Person who places a bet. Play: the word implies both rules and rulelessness, both a purposeful make-believe space as well as a reliance on chance and risk-taking in real life. Each comes with the thrill of believing in the game while being addicted to beating it. Can any of us claim to be exempt from this impulse? For Dostoevsky, gambling was an obsession—but not wholly a vice. It fed his creativity and fostered hope. This volume is the broadest, deepest interdisciplinary treatment to date of what is arguably Dostoevsky’s most autobiographical and unrelievedly traumatized narrative.

-- Caryl Emerson, Princeton University

Dostoevsky’s short novel The Gambler has long been overshadowed by Crime and Punishment, written simultaneously, although most readers of Dostoevsky know its resonance with the author’s gambling addiction. This volume, brilliantly edited and introduced by Svetlana Evdokimova, surpasses biographical commentary with essays which give The Gambler the prominent place it deserves in the Dostoevsky canon. This is our first volume devoted entirely to The Gambler, which it illuminates with rigorous, unfailing attention to the text and with conceptual frameworks shaped by many disciplines: psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, aesthetics, theology, narrative theory, existential philosophy, and cultural history. Together the essays present gambling and Dostoevsky’s art in all of their richness and complexity.

-- William Mills Todd III, Harvard University

This is a remarkable collection of essays, not least for the way that Evdokimova and the other contributors draw our attention to the dynamically sociological character of the sole work of fiction by Dostoevsky that takes place entirely outside of Russia. Among other insights, these critics make us vividly aware of the interconnectedness of yearning in The Gambler. Here, we witness the novel’s striking anticipations of Existentialist thought, its portrayal of the difficulties of expatriate life, and the serious clinical problem of gambling addiction as fellow participants in a world that is as monstrous as it is poetical.

-- Alexandar Mihailovic, Hofstra University

The first English language work to center Dostoevsky’s The Gambler, Svetlana Evdokimova’s thoughtful volumereveals how important the novella was for Dostoevsky’s philosophical development. The essays examine the cultural, philosophical, and religious aspects of the text, taking a multidisciplinary approach to illuminate the complexity and artistry of this often-overlooked work. This collection will be essential reading for Dostoevsky specialists and those who seek a broadly humanistic approach to chance and gambling.

-- Katherine Bowers, The University of British Colu