Thread: Literature Talk: Russian & Non -Discuss/Review/Q&As

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

Originally Posted by Johanna

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Yes, I read it when I was a about 15 or so.. I read it purely because I found out that it was explicitly banned from my schools' library.

That's really funny, because I read it when I was about 15 too, BUT because it was in our school reading list.
I even had to retell in front of the class the story of Humbert and Lolita's first sexual intercourse (you know, to prove that I read the book). Tell me now, that Soviet schools were boring!

Haha, my school probably banned the book in the 1960s or so, and simply forgot to "un-ban" it later. There were lots of other books available with explicit scenes, perhaps that one was just the first to break a taboo. Nabokov was not covered at all in Litterature in school.

And yeah, it's becoming clear to me that things were not as laced up in the USSR as the rest of us thought! Hilarious that you actually made a presentation about that scene! Did you wear that old-fashioned style of school uniform that with an apron, that looks like it is from ca 1890, lol..? Funny contrast with the steamy scene from "Lolita"

I am embarrassed to admit that unlike both of you (Olya and Gromozeka) I completely missed the greatness of the book. Perhaps I was truly too young, or the wrong gender to really "get" it. But the language made no particular impression, the pace was slow and the plot didn't interest me..

Originally Posted by Johanna

I am embarrassed to admit that unlike both of you (Olya and Gromozeka) I completely missed the greatness of the book. Perhaps I was truly too young, or the wrong gender to really "get" it. But the language made no particular impression, the pace was slow and the plot didn't interest me..

There's nothing wrong with not liking a book, even a classic one. Especially when the subject is rather controversal. I believe the language could not make an impression, because the words you read were not Nabokov's words, it was a translator's attempt to find a substitute. The more refined the prose, the harder it's to translate. It takes away all the magic. Also it depends on whether you can relate to the main characters (I could relate to Humbert, despite his.. er... shortcomings).

Haha, my school probably banned the book in the 1960s or so, and simply forgot to "un-ban" it later. There were lots of other books available with explicit scenes, perhaps that one was just the first to break a taboo. Nabokov was not covered at all in Litterature in school.
And yeah, it's becoming clear to me that things were not as laced up in the USSR as the rest of us thought!

Oh, I don't want to mislead you. It WAS absolutely impossible to imagin this book in an "oldschool" Soviet school (say, in the 60s). But in late 80's-early 90's things became very lax, and we studied a lot of books which were banned or not approved at some point of history (Bulgakov, Orwell, Solzenitsin, Nabokov, etc.)

Hilarious that you actually made a presentation about that scene! Did you wear that old-fashioned style of school uniform that with an apron, that looks like it is from ca 1890, lol..?

It'a pity, but no. As far as I remember we did not wear school uniforms in high school.

I saw this book (fiction) in the bookstore today and it caught my attention... Olya... one of the main characters is Olga and she is a person who masters multiple foreign languages!
There are also an interesting couple of lines in it that I want to know if anyone has read/heard before:
"Colour is life. It's how we bend light into laughs. And also shades of weeping."

The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight

Originally Posted by About the book

In a crumbling apartment building in post-Soviet Russia, there's a ghost who won't keep quiet.

Mircha fell from the roof and was never properly buried, so he sticks around to heckle the living. His wife, Azade, supervises the porta-toilet in the courtyard while worrying over a gang of feral children. Olga, a translator/censor for a military newspaper, frets about Yuri, her army-veteran son who always wears an aviator’s helmet. And Yuri's girlfriend, Zoya, just wants to own some modern things. But then there is Tanya.

Tanya carries a notebook wherever she goes, recording her observations and her dreams, one of which is to become a flight attendant so she can escape her job the All-Russia All-Cosmopolitan Museum and soar through the clouds.

But when the director hears of a mysterious American group looking to fund art in Russia, he charges Tanya with luring the Americans to their museum-- which holds a fantastic and terrible collection of art knock-offs that have been created using the tools at hand, from foam to chewing gum, popsicle sticks to tomato juice. But while Tanya scrambles to save her dreams and her neighbors, she might be getting closer to finding love right in her own courtyard.

And so in Ochsner's fable-like, magical debut, we see the transcendence of imagination. As Colum McCann has said: "[Ochsner] manages... to capture our sundry human moments and make raw and unforgettable music of them.".

Babi Yar by Anatoli Kuznetsov. Бабий Яр. Анатолий Кузнецов. Updated version.

This book tells the experiences of an eleven or twelve year old boy in Kiev starting in September 1941. Kuznetsov reports the conditions of life in Kiev, and in his home through the end of occupation, with the return of Soviet forces. The author talks about his family, consisting of mother, father, maternal grandparents, and his cat Titus. Family history is included about the lives of parents and grandparents, some details going back to Tsarist times. The author gives childhood and family experiences during the famine and purge times in the 1930s. And so we learn that the father was a Russian from Харьков, a real Bolshevik, in Frunzes forces, in Крым. His mother was a school teacher from Київ.

The book is more well known for reporting eye witness accounts of survivors from Babi Yar. But for me, the personal stories of Anatoli and his family are equally important and very interesting. Kuznetsov’s style is sparing, and clear. The story is more important than literary niceties.

Kuznetsov also describes several points about conditions in Soviet times. For example ‘socialist realism’. A writer must tell what should have been, or what was desired, not what really is, or really happened. This kind of fantasy reality is actually familiar here in the west also, but there is no grand name for it, except perhaps ‘editorial control’. Stories are continually being ‘sanitized’. Kuznetsov says that his updated version is what he really intends to say.

Many parts of this book would be suitable for young adults and teenagers. Some parts should not be given to some one with heart trouble to read.

This book reminds me of so many stories that an old gentleman from Port Arthur Canada used to tell me. He was almost same age as Kuznetsov. Stories from the Depression in Canada, stories about his relatives from WW1 and before. Stories about his ancestors from England, his grandmother. Her brothers had been in a war in 1850s … Crimea.

I've just read the short story "Explorers we" by Philip K. Dick. The story is only about a half dozen pages and tells us about the return of spacemen from a space trip. Finding themselves back on the Earth they met quite a strange acceptance. At the end of the story we see that these spacemen are a sort of clones of the real ones mysteriously made up by the something extraterrestrial. The idea of extraterrestrial clones looks like that in "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem which was discussed in the big film's thread. The difference is that in the Philip Dick's story we see the world from the clones' point of view. It is funny that both "Explores we" and "Solaris" were written by different authors at the same time.

I am reading the "Mars" trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Actually I am not reading it really, I've got all three books, unabridged on my iPod.

It describes the founding of a first colony on Mars, and subsequent event, in a way that is apparently pretty scientifically correct (the author did TONS of research to support the book with proper science).

So it is a mix of science / fiction... politics and philosophy.

The mission consists of a group of Americans and Russians (largely) plus a few Europeans and a Japanese. The personalities of the main characters make the story more interesting.

I definitely recommend this series.

This poem comes from another thread and was suggested by studyr for my book:

The Bronze Horseman: A Petersburg Tale (Медный всадник: Петербургская повесть) by: Aleksandr Pushkin

Widely considered to be Pushkin's most successful narrative poem

The Bronze Horseman (poem) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You can listen to the poem in Russian at: Bronze Horseman

You can read the poem in Russian here: http://www.rvb.ru/pushkin/01text/02poems/01poems/0795.htm?
start=0&length=all

You can read the poem in English here: The Bronze Horseman

Медный всадник!
What a marvelous combination of epic and comedy! It was my first experience of reading Pushkin's verse in Russian. Gave me some good laughs and an everlasting passion for Russian poetry. A guy told me once that there is not a single Russian who doesn't know at least a few lines of that poem by heart.
But still, I think Peter the Great was a bit too easily offended. "Ужо тебе" isn't really such a great insult for which to petrify a poor young man. I wonder what grievous curses a contemporary Evgeny would yell at the statue...

Originally Posted by bitpicker

The novel is pretty kafkaesque in its imagery and concepts. I enjoyed it a lot.
Robin

Yeah I have heard about this book and I'd like to read it too. You make it sound very interesting/
Keep meaning to start proplerly using my super fancy e-reader but I never get around to it... maybe I'll find that online and load it onto the ereader.

Originally Posted by rockzmom

This poem comes from another thread and was suggested by studyr for my book:

The Bronze Horseman: A Petersburg Tale (Медный всадник: Петербургская повесть) by: Aleksandr Pushkin


The Bronze Horseman (poem) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You can listen to the poem in Russian at: Bronze Horseman

You can read the poem in Russian here: http://www.rvb.ru/pushkin/01text/02poems/01poems/0795.htm?
start=0&length=all

You can read the poem in English here: The Bronze Horseman

You can also listen to the poem here: RussianDVD.com - Audio Stream - Читает Дмитрий Николаевич Журавлёв

The 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature goes to...Mario Vargas Llosa!
Whoda thunk it?!

I had enjoyed his "The Feast of the Goat" and especially "Conversation in the Cathedral", and I've been reading "Death in the Andes" lately, and now he's (finally) received his well-deserved prize.

The best part of it is that the Academy has at last come to give the Prize to someone I know! [Or perhaps I should've twisted that around?]

Originally Posted by Misha Tal

The 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature goes to...Mario Vargas Llosa!
Whoda thunk it?!

Wow! He's a great writer. For once they gave this prise to someone who deserved it.
I read a few books by him a long time ago, and I remember that I was very impressed by "The Green House".

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

For once they gave this prise to someone who deserved it.

yeah, Nobels are a joke; I can't believe anyone takes them seriously.

Just found about an on-line service which can help to select what to read next "What Should I Read Next? Book recommendations from readers like you". If you enter the book title which you like it gives you back the suggestions for further reading.

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

Just found about an on-line service which can help to select what to read next "What Should I Read Next? Book recommendations from readers like you". If you enter the book title which you like it gives you back the suggestions for further reading.

What an interesting concept! It works off of people signing up and creating lists of books that they have read and like. So, you enter in a book you've read and it matches to the people who have that book on their lists and then returns the other book titles on their list.

BTW, my daughters got their required summer reading books. Older one has to read The Picture of Dorian Gray and the younger one has to read Peach Blossom Sping

I am planning to read "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes though it would be a hard journey for a non-native since a great part of the story is written with mistakes as a little boy would write it. There are two versions: a short story (Hugo Award for Best Short Story) and a novel (Nebula Award for Best Novel). Anybody have an idea which one is better to start with the short story or the novel?

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

I am planning to read "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes though it would be a hard journey for a non-native since a great part of the story is written with mistakes as a little boy would write it. There are two versions: a short story (Hugo Award for Best Short Story) and a novel (Nebula Award for Best Novel). Anybody have an idea which one is better to start with the short story or the novel?

The complete short story is available online, and here are the first two paragraphs to give you an idea of the language:

progris riport 1-martch 5, 1965

Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think and evrey thing that happins to me from now on, I dont know why but he says its importint so they will see if they will use me. I hope they use me.

Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Charlie Gordon. I am 37 years old. I have nuthing more to rite now so I will close for today.

progris riport 2-martch 6

I had a test today. I think I faled it. And I think maybe now they wont use me. What happind is a nice young man was in the room and he had some white cards and ink spillled all over them. He sed Charlie what do vo see on this card. I was very skared even tho I had my rabits foot in my pockit because when I was a kid I always faled tests in school and I spillled ink to.
I told him I saw a inkblot. He said yes and it made me feel good.
I thot that was all but when I got up to go he said Charlie we are not thrn yet.


As you can see, the mistakes are mostly phonetic (e.g., "shud rite" instead of "should write"), but occasionally Charlie makes mistakes based on the shapes of letters (writing vo instead of "yo" for "you", and thrn instead of "thru" for "through").

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

Anybody have an idea which one is better to start with the short story or the novel?

I don't know. I have only read the short story. And I don't know exactly why I couldn't bring myself to read the novel. It could be a fear of being disappointed, or in other words disbelief in that this story could be just as powerful in form of a novel. The short story is so intense... Another reason could be that I may not want to relive through this once more.

though it would be a hard journey for a non-native

It will not for you. I'm sure.

Originally Posted by Оля

I'm surprised to hear that because Nabokov is famous with his brilliant language in his prose (I don't like his poetry though). Probably he was great in prose only when he wrote in Russian. However, I read 'Lolita' (in Russian, of course), and I found the language really brilliant. Actually, it's the main virtue of the novel. I don't mean I didn't find the plot interesting; but the language is what is the best about the novel. I can say the same about his other things, by the way.

Nabokov's own description of Lolita was "My Valentine's card to the English language" -- and like a number of his other novels, it was written first in English and then personally translated by Nabokov himself into Russian.

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

I am planning to read "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes though it would be a hard journey for a non-native since a great part of the story is written with mistakes as a little boy would write it. There are two versions: a short story (Hugo Award for Best Short Story) and a novel (Nebula Award for Best Novel). Anybody have an idea which one is better to start with the short story or the novel?

CoffeeCup,
I agree with E-Learner that you should be able to handle this book. Your English is VERY good! And if you run into troubles... I have an idea. If you recall, Olya had a thread dedicated to a movie she was watching where she posted question just about that movie. ... you could always start a thread just about this book and post questions and we can help you out.

I have never read this book or the short story. I do recall hearing about the musical as it won awards and was popular when I was in school. I'm certain I can get a copy of the full version either online or at our library if you plan on reading the full version (Throbert has already found the short version online for us) and would be willing to try and help you out with any questions.

So... let's get this summer reading underway.. between Dorian Grey and Flowers... we have a nice book selection this summer!