Dostoevsky's Last Night

By Cristina Peri Rossi

Book Overview

In this wonderfully provocative novel, gambling is both a powerfully erotic and a spiritual experience for one man, Jorge: a gambler addicted to the godlike sensation of mastering games of chance.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312143222
• ISBN13: 9780312143220
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Cynical but hilarious

I picked this book up on the way to the airport, and ending up laughing out loud the whole flight (much to the annoyance of my fellow passengers, I'm afraid.) A bleak but terribly funny look at human nature... nature red in tooth and claw, in this instance.

A Literary Gamble

Dostoevsky's Last Night is a daring and unexspected ride through rick and redemption by an author who is obviously not afraid to take risks. In this dazzling novel, Jorge, a passionate and eccentric man addicted to gambling seeks help with Lucia, his shrink. But instead of finding the accepting and caring person he was looking for Lucia attempts to cure him with straitforward no nonsence opinions and caustic advice, which causes Jorge to become more fond of her than he exspected. The plot, however, is not the most interesting part of Dostoevsky's Last Night -- the ideas are. Rossi moves through her novel with incredible grace, showing both the beauty and the tyranny of passion. Borrowing from numerous psychological, literary, and popular influences she constructs a book that burns with all the passion of the gambling table but with much more certainty of comming out a winner.

Not full of hope.

Although I've not read the translation into English, I wanted to set the record straight and indicate that this novel is not "full of hope." It is, however, a completely engrossing story. One finds oneself being seduced by Jorge and pulled into sharing his vision of gambling, the world, and himself, which is an indication of Peri Rossi's virtuosity as a writer, as this pessimistic, superior and world-weary vision is apparently not her own.

Smart, sexy book about a man addicted to gambling

A sexy, intelligent book about a man who defines himself by his addictions (in his case it is too gambling). An idea novel, plus just a moving story full of hope.