OH MY! Of course, _Dead Souls_ and the wonderful _Oblomov_! Thank you,
Larissa! Talk about "in your face" wit----G and G excelled.
wow,
Judy
2008/9/8 Larissa Shmailo <[log in to unmask]>
> Nabokov's lectures on Russian literature really open worlds for 19c
> Russkie novels, esp Gogol and Karenina. I think the only thing Nabokov liked
> about Dostoevsky was a description of a ring left by a glass on a table in
> C&P
>
> I need to put a vote out for Goncharov's Oblomov.
>
> Larissa
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 5:45 pm
> Subject: Re: hello, again
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Judy, yes, Tolstoy can be a bit soap-operatic, however, if you get
> past the first three hundred pages or so of War and Peace, you get, as
> Forster said in Aspects of the Novel, 'great chords' beginning to
> sound. On a smaller scale in 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' a certain
> inevitability happens, that one only normally associates with those
> Antique Greeks, or Shakespeare at his best.
> Or maybe Stefan Zweig's novella 'Chess' or maybe etc ... I'm sure you
> know what I'm getting at.
> There was also another 19th century Russkie writer, who was in some
> ways completely barking, as we say over here, but also magnificent. I
> think his first name began with F.
>
> best
>
> Dave
>
> 2008/9/8 Judy Prince <[log in to unmask]>:
> > Hadn't I hesitated just _this_ much, thinking 'hey, this echoes....',
> having
> > years ago done a respectable minor in 'Rushing Lit' at U of Michigan!
> But
> > ease yourself, Christopher---you wrote the collapsing scaffold POETICAL,
> and
> > those lightweight Russian novelists/shortstorytellers hadn't the talent
> to
> > distill their comparison, had they?
> > On that subject, naturally: Who's your favourite 19th c Russian writer?
> > Overall, mine's Chekhov. Fun as Tolstoy is, he's too 'soap operatic',
> > couldnae even insinuate War into Peace in that interminable book.
> Gogol's
> > 'Dead Souls'---fantastic! Pushkin......hmmm......groundbreaking, in
> Russia
> > and at that time.....but.....too much the writer of domestic 'cameos',
> > Tolstoy in poetry.
> >
> > Then there's the man who can describe the 'battle' of the blundering
> sexes,
> > the quintessential Russian writer: Lermontov. 'A Hero of Our Time', the
> > passionate, but gently objective slivering away at our bleeding corpses.
> > His incisions, so blindingly felt, nevertheless don't hurt.....they
> build
> > us new tissue [scaffolds of incipient poetry?].
> >
> > Ah yes, $$$ Casually Acquired clothing: best to buy basic jeans and
> you'll
> > never go wrong.
> >
> > Judy
> >
> >
> >
> > 2008/9/8 Christopher C Jones <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> >> Many thanks but I should perhaps say that writers using scaffolds which
> >> are later removed has been used before by Bakhtin and was it Tolstoy?
> >> Collapsing scaffolds is more so one of my variations especially when it
> >> comes to novel creation of worlds. Many best wishes all the same and
> >> thanks.
> >>
> >> PS. I have just discovered a dress code called neat casual attire, which
> >> appears to what got termed designer wear in my days, especially since it
> >> cost two or three times what a business suit would.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, 2008-09-06 at 02:19 -0400, Judy Prince wrote:
> >> > Love this image/analogy of yours, Christopher: "a scaffold which
> needs
> >> to
> >> > be removed or collapses into the text....."
> >> > Judy
> >>
> >
>
>
>
> --
> David Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>
>
>
>
>
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