Book Interlude

[pantryslut]

I decided, while puzzling out new fiction recs (now in the queue, thanks folks!), to pass the time by re-reading Andrei Bely's Petersburg. This is a book that's hard to recommend to the casual reader -- it helps to be a bit overeducated about Russian history and culture, particularly just prior to the Revolution; Petersburg is set in 1905. It's packed with references to Gogol and other Russian literary classics. It's high on sarcasm and absurdity. It has a bomb disguised as a sardine can. It has short sections with silly titles. It's full of hard-to-translate wordplay. It has something like fifty pages of the very best endnotes ever.

I love it with an intensity I cannot adequately share with, well, anyone. And just to compound things, my edition is 20+ years old and probably out of print. But I am so happy every time I pick up this book. (Not to mention the visions of sprawling absurdist novels it inspires in my brain. But that's a side issue. Remind me to tell you about the Dead Girls Detective Agency, too.)

Also tangentially -- that is, speaking of slightly obscure Russian literature of the early 20th century (i.e. not anti-Soviet fave Master and Margarita or SF fave We...) -- remind me to tell you how my oral exam on Cement cured me of a particularl feminine self-deprecation reflex but good. UChi butched me up, yo.

Comments

[badgerbag]

Which translation do you recommend?

[pantryslut]

The one I am reading is Maguire and Malmstad.