Gambler

Imagine living in an adult world with the emotional patience of a child. Dostoevsky has provided his readers with a first person account of this form of existential existence, with its highs and its lows and its lack of predictability. In particular, this is a story about addiction, a gambling addiction. It's also about the mind numbing effects perpetrated on one's psyche by being obsessed and overrun by a constant feeling of urgency. Thrill seeking and risk taking go hand in hand creating this drama of a group of idle people addicted to pleasure. Pretentious adults living for and in the moment is the backdrop for what Dostoevsky calls, an example of the Westernization of Russian culture. Hard work and persistent effort are to be superseded by idle days and sleepless nights. The fixated and fixating atmosphere is somewhat familiar to any of us who have been to a Casino. The intensity of the atmosphere is based on the suspension of the moment but the relationships are anything but cordial, genuine, or satisfying. Throughout is portrayed the compulsive inability to postpone gratification. 'As if' people playing as if life were merely a game of chance is not a novel theme. Dostoevsky tells us, "One month of such a life is worth your whole existence", an appeal to the sheer intensity of the experience. "What they crave is pure risk"..., pure chance". We desire "not freedom but the thrill itself". This is the story of the pathology of extremism, a quest for infinite time, the suspension of thoughtful self-discipline, even, the suspension of conscience. The consciousness of self and the direct sensation of existence are antithetical. An abnormal intensity is hard to resist where one experiences neither their history, in the form of memories, nor their futures, in terms of long term planning. "Even people who do not pretend are turned into pretenders by others". Gambling takes Alexey out of any concern with morality and into the sphere of amorality, where good and evil do not exist. We see phrases like, "carelessly and contemptuously ...;... horribly abusive; I must have money!; I set no value on my life at all now; she did not regard him as a human being; that some radical and fundamental change would take place in my destiny; it all struck me as so dirty, somehow, morally horrid and dirty". It has become, Alexey asserts, "Horribly repugnant to me to test my thoughts and actions by any moral standard whatever. I was guided by something different". Narcissism abounds as relationships lose any human significance and become simply vehicles for making a bundle or should I say, losing one. "A refinement in her contempt, ... she had to make use of me in some way, as a slave or an errand boy, ... I was her slave and utterly insignificant". If you enjoy the existential qualities of great fiction; if you like the intellectual challenges of penetrating psychological studies; and you have some familiarity with Dostoevsky, the darkness of his characters, their petty concerns, and pathological indignities, this book is a worthwhile read. In conclusion, its true what the existentialists say, we really do know reality by how it feels, especially, morally relevant dimensions of reality. It's also true that the range and depth of one's personality has much to do with that person's capacity to love.