The House of the Dead / The Gambler (Wordsworth Classics)

Just brilliant!, as a ex con myself, Dostoevsky's descriptive articulation of the prisoners experience(in tsarist Russia) in the house of the dead is timeless. A great insight for those who have not had the misfortune of incarceration. Highly recommend for that book alone but you get the Gambler too! Another great (and brief) story of the human condition, traversing the entirety of its spectrum from its worst to its best, something this writer and Tolstoy were masterfully skilled in.

I thought this was the popular SEGA video game but was pleasantly surprised. This book is an instantly gripping read exploring themes of increasing bitterness, isolation and loathing.

Excellent

These are two decent accounts of the lives of a convict and a compulsive gambler respectively. The former seems more superficial and anecdotal than Dostoevsky tends to be, whereas the Gambler captures the writer’s usual impeccable psychological insight, despite not being carried to the same extremes as in his other works. This book is a more manageable dose of FD than his monstrous novels but this is met with a marked decrease in the depth of ideas and meticulous character development that separate him from all other writers, in my opinion. Bottom line: Not bad, but not representative of Dostoevsky by any stretch. And for anybody looking for a digestible introduction to his work, read Notes from the Underground instead. You’ll get a more accurate impression of his style in my opinion.

A present my fiance wants for Christmas - I am sure he will love it!

Thank you

(Y)

'The House of The Dead' (1860-62) is Fyodor Dostoevsky's tale of life in a grim Tsarist prison. The book is quasi-autobiographical, the author having served a 4-years term with labour for holding reformist sympathies. It isn't a rip-roaring novel in the style of 'Crime and Punishment' or 'Demons', neither, in my view, does it quite have the chilling intimacy of Solzhenitsyn's 'One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovic'. But it is nonetheless a moving narration that shines a light on human adaptability - some of it very unattractive, some of it rather touching - within the Siberian incarceration system. The book's structure, wit and perspicacity are, of course, pretty much peerless. 'HoTD' lends an invaluable insight into a criminal justice environment, the impact of prison life on those that reside or work within its walls and the writer's values. From page 16: "Prison only develops hatred, lust for forbidden pleasures and a fearful levity." 'The Gambler' is also a quasi-autobiographical story. It illuminates the warped thinking that underpins compulsive betting and also the correspondingly warped relationships that ensue between those seeking to fill a void in their souls by chancing the odds. It has all Dostoevsky's trademarks - complex characters, twists and turns, wonderful humour – and, in common with ‘HoTD’, gives an invaluable insight into the author’s psychology.

Good price, quick delivery.

En perfecto estado

Romanzi brevi e racconti. La traduzione inglese (Garnett) mi costringe a leggere più attentam. Dostoevky è unico, tra i Tragici Iliade Dante Shakespeare , Non c'è una sola parola che non sia essenziale, tutto è denso e vero .Una stupefacente avventura. ...Vantaggio di traduzione inglese è che non mi accorgo delle sbavature di lingua, che invece mi sembra di avvertire spesso in quelle italiane .Considero, forse a torto, la maggior parte dei traduttori come i doppiatori utili ma insopportabilmente tutti uguali, che si sono inventati una lingua robotica artificiale fortunatamente (ancora) inesistente nel mondo reale, ovviamente mi aspetto di sentire tra non molto il doppiatese , come già il giornalistese, a pranzo e cena.. That's entropy, honey!

So far it’s been an interesting window into a world (I hope) I’ll never see. Very glad to be able to reap the benefit of the wisdom Dostoyevsky brings out of the Siberian prisons. He emphasizes how mistaken the idea is that criminals are fundamentally different from everyone else. Their hearts are scarred and laden with the burdens of their mistakes, but they are still people. The prison is overflowing with the convict’s expressions of humanity toward each other. The only one who seem perhaps beyond hope is the superintendent of the prison, for he is convinced the prisoners are fundamentally different from him, and he treats them accordingly, as subhuman. Here, Dostoyevsky calls us to have a more mature and nuanced view of humanity, something that is much needed in a day when ideologies have made nuance a rare commodity.

A good read.