The player is a gloomy picture of human compulsions and addictions, especially two major impulses: love passion and gambling. Alexei Ivánovich, a young man of unstable character who lives between euphoria and despair, works as a guardian for a Russian general and his stepdaughter, who look forward to the death of his old aunt to inherit a great fortune. A convulsive love affair between Alexéi and Polina, the stepdaughter of the general, and the visit of the aunt, who discovers the plans of the general and decides to play their money in the casino instead of leaving it in inheritance to his nephew, make jump for the Aire this world of complicated balance. Framed in the gambling halls of the fictitious German city of Ruletemburg, the player was written in less than a month, as a result of a desperate bet of Dostoevsky with his publisher, product of his need to pay the gambling debts tha...read more