Author: Maxim Gorki

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-01

Total Pages: 66

ISBN-13: 9781330549339

Excerpt from Stories of the Steppe Maxim Gorki, the Bitter Voice of Russia, can tell fairy tales whose coloring has all the richness of oriental twilights and whose cadences are garlands woven of sea-spray and wind-blossoms. His stories of the steppe are not propagandistic, and with the exception of the powerful tale Because of Monotony, they are not sordid pictures of realistic misery, but they are sweet fairy lullabies that the gods must sing to the baby angels when they are sad and weary with their contemplation of human sorrows. These tales are filled with longing, and throughout that longing there is a thread of red fire that at times bursts forth into a flaming prophecy of hope. Perhaps Gorki, in writing those strange, wonderfully magical fairy tales, was unconsciously rehearsing that strangest and most wonderful fairy tale of them all, - the great Russian Revolution. He who has no love for music had better leave these stories alone, as they will have no charm for him. He who prefers society to sunsets will find these stories dull and colorless, - as colorless as the clouds at the close of the day are to a blind man. But those who have the capacity for enjoying the silent music of the night, the barely audible purling of sea-waves in the distance, the soft pit-a-pat of the wind-dance on the prairie, will be charmed by these stories as they have rarely been charmed in their waking hours. For these stories of the steppe have all the magic of dreams; their atmosphere envelopes you and permeates your every pore, sinking deep into your heart through every one of your five senses, and through a sixth sense, too, - a sense whose very indefinable vagueness makes if the most vivid of them all. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.