The Gambler - Fyodor Dostoevsky

A friend of mine said that as Dickens has mastery over describing a scene, so Dostoevsky can describe the human soul. It seems that is no more self-evident than in The Gambler. It is a tale of addiction told through the lens of an addict.

Alexey is an intelligent man with good employment and a passionate love for Polina, yet a trip to the local casino overwhelms it all. He identifies 2 types of gamblers, those who gamble as a form of entertainment and those driven by unabashed covetousness. He of course misses the 3rd type, the "gambler" who is addicted to the dizzying effect of adrenaline, the rush of winning. Though the stacks of gold on the table add all the more to the excitement of the event he could just as well walk out the door and cast it all to the wind. The real drive is a sort of hypnotism created by the spinning roulette wheel in which all other passion fades away.

In true Russian fashion, Dostoevsky leaves the story and the character with a choice, but it seems if there isn't really a choice at all, that the outcome is "something fated, inevitable, predestined - as something bound to be, and bound to happen." Alexey isn't someone we want him to be, he is someone we identify with and that's what devastates the reader.