The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol
The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

Author: Nikolai Gogol

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2011-08-17

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 0307803368

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Using, or rather mimicking, traditional forms of storytelling Gogol created stories that are complete within themselves and only tangentially connected to a meaning or moral. His work belongs to the school of invention, where each twist and turn of the narrative is a surprise unfettered by obligation to an overarching theme. Selected from Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, Mirgorod, and the Petersburg tales and arranged in order of composition, the thirteen stories in The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogolencompass the breadth of Gogol's literary achievement. From the demon-haunted “St. John's Eve ” to the heartrending humiliations and trials of a titular councilor in “The Overcoat,” Gogol's knack for turning literary conventions on their heads combined with his overt joy in the art of story telling shine through in each of the tales. This translation, by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, is as vigorous and darkly funny as the original Russian. It allows readers to experience anew the unmistakable genius of a writer who paved the way for Dostevsky and Kafka.

The Little Russian
The Little Russian

Author: Susan Sherman

Publisher: Catapult

Published: 2013-01-15

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 161902070X

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From an exciting new voice in historical fiction, an assured debut that should appeal to readers of Away by Amy Bloom or Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. The Little Russian tells the story of Berta Alshonsky, who revels in childhood memories of her time spent with a wealthy family in Moscow—a life filled with salons, balls and all the trappings of the upper class—very different from her current life as a grocer's daughter in the Jewish townlet of Mosny. So when a mysterious and cultured wheat merchant walks into the grocery, Berta's life is forever altered. She falls in love, unaware that he is a member of the Bund, The Jewish Worker's League, smuggling arms to the shtetls to defend them against the pogroms sweeping the Little Russian countryside. Married and established in the wheat center of Cherkast, Berta has recaptured the life she once had in Moscow. So when a smuggling operation goes awry and her husband must flee the country, Berta makes the vain and foolish choice to stay behind with her children and her finery. As Russia plunges into war, Berta eventually loses everything and must find a new way to sustain the lives and safety of her children. Filled with heart–stopping action, richly drawn characters, and a world seeped in war and violence; The Little Russian is poised to capture readers as one of the hand–selling gems of the season.

Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka
Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka

Author: Nikolaĭ Vasilʹevich Gogolʹ

Publisher:

Published: 1926

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13:

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"In the autumn of 1831, some easter from the Poltava province issued a book under the tantalizing title "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka". The simple-hearted villager, as if in a frightened way, recommended to the enlightened public four fantastic stories allegedly told at gatherings in his modest hut. "This is real gaiety, sincere, unconstrained, without cheating, without being stiff. In some places, what poetry! What sensitivity!"--So welcomed the new book Pushkin. He knew that, under the mask of an old farmer, a twenty-two-year-old writer is hiding, happily inventing and colorful characters (daring dudes, dazzling marvels, stubborn old men, angry women, mermaids, witches, devils - in a word, all sorts of people and nonhumans), and funny storytellers, and the collector himself invariably "truthful" nonsense - Rudy Pank. Nowadays the name of the writer "Evenings ..." is known to all, in 1831, very few knew him. But among them were two great poets - Zhukovsky ..." --Vasha Kniga

Vladimir Odoevsky and Romantic Poetics
Vladimir Odoevsky and Romantic Poetics

Author: Neil Cornwell

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 1998-01-01

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1789203791

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Vladimir Odoevsky (1804-1869) was a fascinating and encyclopedic figurein nineteenth-century Russian culture, who in his day was mentioned in the same breath as Pushkin and Gogol. Thinker, pedagogue, musicologist, amateur scientist and public servant, he is now undergoing a revival as a virtually rediscovered writer of Romantic and Gothic fiction. The author, a leading specialist on Odoevsky, analyses the contribution of Odoevsky to Russian prose fiction and in particular his influential approach to Romanticism, his Gothic novellas and his proto-science fiction, as well as his critical reception.