Queen of Spades

Semblance—or parody—is, of course, the operative word when considering a text that strives to be subversive of both form (the “anti-realism” of minor literature) and social function. Regarding the latter, as stated before, my goal in the text is the reverse of the traditional moral fable’s: implanting a desire in readers to experience firsthand the world of risk as a means to live in a more vital way, outside the text, whether through gambling or another form of chance-taking. Uncertainty is troubling, unsettling, but it is also mysterious and enlivening—this is what gamblers, acolytes at the altar of luck, understand in the final analysis.