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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