The Gambler - Fyodor Dostoevsky

This marks the third book of Dostoevsky's I have read (the others being Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground) and to be quite honest, I don't think I get it fully. I can understand the base appeal from what i've read in the past, at least from a hand-wavy, literature analysis point of view, but it just doesn't really impress. Nothing feels particularly special or groundbreaking or intriguing enough to warrant "masterpiece". There have been passages in his work that I like, some I even find really quite good (I stand by my opinion that the first half of Notes from the Underground is by far his best work), but they're not particularly common, and The Gambler didn't have any at all.

This lack of appreciation seems to be a somewhat common thing for me though, i'm probably just stupid in this regard.

The book on the whole felt pretty stock, I suppose I don't really find 19th century romantic stuff that interesting enough to carry on its own, but it was a pleasant enough through line not to drop it. His description of gambling is interesting, I think it's pretty common to infantilise people from the distant past so it was slightly strange to read about something that feels so modern. Dostoevsky did have a massive gambling problem and you can feel his familiarity with the game and a little bit of gentleman's ambition. I did like his particular brand of 1800s xenophobia, it's funny to read about nationalist quibbles between Victorian era European countries although perhaps that's just from Dostoevsky and I having a shared disgust/fascination thing going on with the French.

I probably won't read any more of his stuff for a while. A shame, those parts of Notes from the Underground felt raw enough to make me think he had it. Always that bit more disappointing when someone proves they can, and don't, than if they never had it at all.