A review by faintgirl
Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin

3.0

Now, it's probably a bit of a crime to take on Summer in Baden-Baden before having read any Dostoyevsky, or indeed knowing little about his life, but Baden-Baden does stand alone. Written by Leonid Tsypkin, a Jew who's self professed fascination with Dostoyevsky he admits is a little morbid, it consists of Tsypkin's musings over Dostoyevsky's final summer (I think), gambling away his and his wife's small earnings, and the return to St Petersburg, which Tsypkin is currently making himself, where D. dies with a bible in his hands. It's a real chronicle of descent, of a man methodical yet obsessed, who's love for one devoted woman is not enough to save him from himself. It's occasionally comical (the story of Anna Grigor'evna begging on the street from her own husband is a lovely but sad picture), but it's also a bit repetitive, as every day in Baden-Baden looks much like the last. But then, that's addiction, that's the loss of a life to an imagined pattern. I enjoyed this more than I thought, knowing so little about the subject, but it didn't stand out as exceptional.