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The Gambler
Fyodor Dostoevsky
1866 · 188 pages · Classics
How it reads
The Gambler is classics (psychological, specifically), and its dominant mood is melancholy. It's quietly sad, wistful and reflective. It's a slow burn: character-driven, with a payoff that comes from accumulation rather than twists. It rewards attention and suits unhurried reading more than five-minute gaps.
It's set in a big city setting, in the historical past, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are class and society, identity and love. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is left open, for you to argue about. At 188 pages it's a single-sitting book. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something melancholy
- you have time to settle in
- you want something to chew on
Maybe not if…
- you need something funny or hopeful
- you're reading in five-minute gaps
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- classics
- Author gender
- male
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- big city
- Setting: time
- historical
- Mood / feeling
- melancholy
- Pace
- slow burn
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- short
- Narrative style
- third person, one viewpoint
- Publication era
- classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- class and society, identity, love
- Ending style
- ambiguous
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- Netochka NezvanovaFyodor DostoevskyShares: classics, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn
- The Death of the HeartElizabeth BowenShares: classics, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn
The Great GatsbyF. Scott FitzgeraldShares: classics, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, set in big city- SidharthaHermann HesseShares: classics, heavy and literary tone, slow burn, ambiguous ending
- The Birth DearthBen J. WattenbergShares: melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn, ambiguous ending
- The StrangerAlbert CamusShares: classics, heavy and literary tone, slow burn, historical setting
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