THE GAMBLER

Narrator Simon Prebble makes this tightly constructed Dostoevsky classic his own. Through the voice of the first-person narrator, Alexei Ivanovich, Prebble brings to life the story of the young Russian tutor who struggles with both unrequited love and his passion for gambling. The gambling at the heart of the story reflects Dostoevsky’s own compulsion for the gaming tables, and, in fact, the book was written on a bet, with the rights to the author’s entire oeuvre as the stake. Prebble’s performance is supremely well balanced, both sonically and emotionally, and he is a master at catching nuance, inflection, and emphasis on the page and giving them voice. M.G. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2011]