Russian Fiction

Translated and with a preface by Mark HarmanLeft unfinished by Kafka in 1922 and not published until 1926, two years after his death, The Castle is the haunting tale of K.’s relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable authority in order to gain access to the Castle. Scrupulously following the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, Mark Harman’s new translation reveals levels of comedy, energy, and visual power, previously unknown to English language readers.

'The Wall', the lead story in this collection, introduces three political prisoners on the night prior to their execution. Through the gaze of an impartial doctor--seemingly there for the men's solace--their mental descent is charted in exquisite, often harrowing detail. And as the morning draws inexorably closer, the men cross the psychological wall between life and death, long before the first shot rings out.This brilliant snapshot of life in anguish is the perfect introduction to a collection of stories where the neurosis of the modern world is mirrored in the lives of the people that inhabit it.

A gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes an omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.

When Pushkin first read some of the stories in this collection, he declared himself "amazed."  "Here is real gaiety," he wrote, "honest, unconstrained, without mincing, without primness. And in places what poetry! . . . I still haven't recovered."More than a century and a half later, Nikolai Gogol's stories continue to delight readers the world over. Now a stunning new translation--from an award-winning team of translators--presents these stories in all their inventive, exuberant glory to English-speaking readers. For the first time, the best of Gogol's short fiction is brought together in a single volume: from the colorful Ukrainian tales that led some critics to call him "the Russian Dickens" to the Petersburg stories, with their black humor and wonderfully demented attitude toward the powers that be. All of Gogol's most memorable creations are here: the minor official who misplaces his nose, the downtrodden clerk whose life is changed by the acquisition of a splendid new overcoat, the wily madman who becomes convinced that a dog can tell him everything he needs to know.These fantastic, comic, utterly Russian characters have dazzled generations of readers and had a profound influence on writers such as Dostoevsky and Nabokov. Now they are brilliantly rendered in the first new translation in twenty-five years--one that is destined to become the definitive edition of Gogol's most important stories.

Роман Ильфа и Петрова "Двенадцать стульев" впервые был напечатан в 1928 году. В основе сюжета — поиски бриллиантов, спрятанных в одном из двенадцати стульев мадам Петуховой. Про- изведение можно рассматривать как историческую и политическую хронику конца 1920-х годов, образец сатиры и юмора, быта и нравов эпохи нэпа.

We always believe that the bright future is just around the corner and we wait for it to come……on the face of each young Pioneer girl there remained a trace of the difficulty, the feebleness of early life, meagerness of body and beauty of expression. But the happiness of childhood friendship, the realization of the future world in the play of youth and in the worthiness of their own severe freedom signified on the childish faces important gladness, replacing for them beauty and domestic plumpness.But the future seems not to be eager to arrive and we live in the distressing present and continue to wait…In the church burned many candles; the light of the silent, sad wax illuminated the entire interior of the building right up to the cupola above the hiding place of the sacred relics, and the cleanwashed faces of the saints stared out into the dead air with an expression of equanimity, like inhabitants of that other peaceful world—but the church was empty.And then everything seems to be left in the past… But everyone keeps waiting and growing old and then it is time to die…The Foundation Pit is an absolutely perspicacious allegory.Building of utopia always begins with an excavation of a pit but despite all the exertions and enthusiasm things never go any further…

Genre of drinking songs is known since the ancient times and by writing his drinking poem Venedikt Erofeev managed to widen boundaries of the genre significantly. Moscow to the End of the Line is written in a gloomy but frilly vers libre.The protagonist awakens to a fine and crisp morning full of freshness…Oh, that morning burned in the heart! Oh, the illusory nature of calamity. Oh, the irretrievable! What’s worse about this burden which no one has yet called by any name, what’s worse – paralysis, or nausea? Nervous exhaustion or mortal sorrow somewhere in the region of the heart? But, if that all equal, then all the same what’s worse about it – tetanus, or fever?And using commuter rail the hero embarks on the epochal suburban journey. And some local travels can be much more exotic than any voyages around the world… While travelling one may encounter a lot of intriguing fellow commuters…The other passengers looked at me almost indifferently with their round, vacant eyes.I like that. I like that my country’s people have such empty, bulging eyes. This instills in me a feeling of legitimate pride. You can imagine what the eyes are like where everything is bought and sold – deeply hidden, secretive, predatory and frightened. Devaluation, unemployment, pauperism… People look at you distrustfully, with restless anxiety and torment. That’s the kind of eyes they have in the world of Filthy Lucre.And the travelled distance corresponds to the consumed liquor… And the more one drinks the stranger becomes the world and the more enigmatic turns reality…If I should ever have any children, I’ll hang on their wall a portrait of the Procurator of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, so that they will grow up neat and clean. Procurator Pontius Pilate standing there washing his hands – that’s the right kind of portrait.Even the most hopeless boozers must have their romantic ideals…

Although less famous than Mikhail Bulgakov's comic hit, The Master and Margarita, The White Guard is still an engrossing book, though completely different in tone. It is set in Kiev during the Russian revolution and tells the story of the Turbin family and the war's effect on the middle-classes (not workers). The story was not seen as politically correct, and thereby contributed to Bulgakov's lifelong troubles with the Soviet authorities. It was, however, a well-loved book, and the novel was turned into a successful play at the time of its publication in 1967.

‘It is best to do nothing! The best thing is conscious inertia! So long live the underground!’Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky’s groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter sarcasm, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the ‘ant-hill’ of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence ‘underground’. The seemingly ordinary world of St Petersburg takes on a nightmarish quality in The Double when a government clerk encounters a man who exactly resembles him – his double perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like Notes from Underground, this is a masterly study of human consciousness.Jessie Coulson’s introduction discusses the stories’ critical reception and the themes they share with Dostoyevksy’s great novels.

Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics (1899), as well as several lesser-known works, no less masterful in their composition. David Plante is a Professor of Writing at Columbia University. He is the author of many novels, including The Ghost of Henry James, The Family (nominated for the National Book Award), and The Woods. He has been a contributor to The New Yorker, Esquire, and Vogue, and a reviewer and features writer for the New York Times Book Review. The cook's wedding --The witch --A dead body --Easter Eve --On the road --The dependents --Grisha --The kiss --Typhus --The pipe --The princess --Neighbours --The grasshopper --In exile --Ward No. 6 --Rothschild's fiddle --The student --The darling --A doctor's visit --Gooseberries --The Lady with the dog --In the ravine --The bishop.

Handsome would-be poet Lucien Chardon is poor and naive, but highly ambitious. Failing to make his name in his dull provincial hometown, he is taken up by a patroness, the captivating married woman Madame de Bargeton, and prepares to forge his way in the glamorous beau monde of Paris. But Lucien has entered a world far more dangerous than he realized, as Madame de Bargeton's reputation becomes compromised and the fickle, venomous denizens of the courts and salons conspire to keep him out of their ranks. Lucien eventually learns that, wherever he goes, talent counts for nothing in comparison to money, intrigue and unscrupulousness. Lost Illusions is one of the greatest novels in the rich procession of the Comedie humaine, Balzac's panoramic social and moral history of his times.

Academics hail it as the beginning of modernism, but to readers around the world—even those daunted by Moby-Dick—Bartleby the Scrivener is simply one of the most absorbing and moving novellas ever. Set in the mid-19th century on New York City's Wall Street, it was also, perhaps, Herman Melville's most prescient story: what if a young man caught up in the rat race of commerce finally just said, "I would prefer not to"?The tale is one of the final works of fiction published by Melville before, slipping into despair over the continuing critical dismissal of his work after Moby-Dick, he abandoned publishing fiction. The work is presented here exactly as it was originally published in Putnam's magazine—to, sadly, critical disdain.

Dünyada pek çok dile çevrilen, tiyatroya uyarlanan ve hatta Moskova’da anıtı bulunan belki de ilk kez bir ‘roman’ın anıtı dikilmiştir Moskova-Petuşki romanı nihayet okurlarla buluşuyor.Venedikt Vasilyeviç Yerofeyev, Sovyet döneminde doğmuş, yaşamış ve ölmüş olsa da, o dönemin sınırlarını aşan çok az sayıda Rus yazardan birisidir. Pek çok kaynağa göre post modern Rus edebiyatının öncüsü sayılır, ancak yapıtlarıyla, Rusya’yı Sovyet ve post Sovyet olarak ikiye ayıran sınırı aşmayı başarmıştır. Her türlü parti kavgasından, etnik algıdan uzak durduğu gibi, klasik edebiyata da dahil olmamıştır. Yerofeyev’in metni, gerilimli bir dinsel hesaplaşmadır. Onun dünyayı algılayışı da dehşet gerilimleriyle doludur. Yazarın edebi tutumu, mevcut oluştan varoluşa sıçrayış gibi Hristiyan geleneğini de içine alan dertlerle ilgilidir. Sovyet deneyiminin çözülüşü sonrası ortaya çıkan dağılma ve hayal kırıklıkları toplamı onun metinlerine bir “sarhoşluk” hali olarak yansırken, yazar bu sarhoşluktan, umutsuzluk değil esrik bir coşku, bir varoluş şöleni çıkarmasını bilir. Sarhoşluk halinin metafizik keşif imkânları, ülkenin acıtıcı gerçeklerinden kaçma şansı sunar.Moskova-Petuşki yeni bir dünyanın doğuşunu, kahramanın doğum sancılarını ve insanın alçalabileceği son noktada yaşadığı arınmayı, kah küfrün kaba gerçekçi diliyle, kah gerçeküstü öğelerin incelikli ve coşkun dünyasıyla anlatır. Bindiğiniz tren Moskova-Petuşki istasyonuna hiçbir zaman varamasa da, çılgınlar, meczuplar, alkolikler, yazarlar ve tabi ki şiir ve romanın konuk olduğu o vagonlar baş döndürücü bir hızla göğe yükselir.

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr T.C.B.Cook Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is best known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina, commonly regarded as amongst the greatest novels ever written. He also, however, wrote many masterly short stories, and this volume contains four of the longest and best in distinguished translations that have stood the test of time. In the early story 'Family Happiness', Tolstoy explores courtship and marriage from the point of view of a young wife. In 'The Kreutzer Sonata' he gives us a terrifying study of marital breakdown, in 'The Devil' a powerful depiction of the power of sexual temptation, and, in perhaps the finest of all, 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich', he portrays the long agony of a man gradually coming to terms with his own mortality.Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN 1840224533 here.

De acuerdo con los hechos que el lector va descubriendo (en orden todo menos lineal), un obrero del tendido de cables es despedido de su trabajo por enviar a sus jefes unos gráficos detallados en los que trataba de buscar correlaciones entre la "productividad" de sus compañeros y su consumo de alcohol. Ante esta situación, el protagonista (de nombre Venedikt Eroféiev, igual que el autor) se abandona a una borrachera interminable que le lleva al punto en que «la frontera entre la razón y el corazón desapareció y ambos empezaron a repetirme al unísono: "¡Vete, vete a Petushkí! ¡Tu salvación y tu alegría están en Petushkí! ¡Vete!"» En el trayecto en tren hasta Petushkí (donde le espera «la más amada de las rameras», amén del «más rollizo y apacible de todos los niños»), Eroféiev diserta sobre los ángeles, los demás pasajeros y el mundo en general, en un magnífico y delirante monólogo sobre el alcohol, la política, la sociedad, la filosofía y los males de amor. A un tiempo cómico, brutal y poético, Moscú-Petushkí fue escrito en 1968 y durante años sólo pudo circular en su país en hojas mecanografiadas. En el extranjero, fue saludado como una obra maestra desde su primera publicación en Jerusalén en 1973.«El punto álgido de la literatura cómica de la era Brezhnev (…) es el libro de Venedikt Eroféiev Moscú-Petushkí. Este clásico bañado en vodka de Eroféiev es el relato del intento de un hombre roto de ir de un sitio a otro en una era de absoluta podredumbre social.» David Remnick

Genre of drinking songs is known since the ancient times and by writing his drinking poem Venedikt Erofeev managed to widen boundaries of the genre significantly. Moscow to the End of the Line is written in a gloomy but frilly vers libre.The protagonist awakens to a fine and crisp morning full of freshness…Oh, that morning burned in the heart! Oh, the illusory nature of calamity. Oh, the irretrievable! What’s worse about this burden which no one has yet called by any name, what’s worse – paralysis, or nausea? Nervous exhaustion or mortal sorrow somewhere in the region of the heart? But, if that all equal, then all the same what’s worse about it – tetanus, or fever?And using commuter rail the hero embarks on the epochal suburban journey. And some local travels can be much more exotic than any voyages around the world… While travelling one may encounter a lot of intriguing fellow commuters…The other passengers looked at me almost indifferently with their round, vacant eyes.I like that. I like that my country’s people have such empty, bulging eyes. This instills in me a feeling of legitimate pride. You can imagine what the eyes are like where everything is bought and sold – deeply hidden, secretive, predatory and frightened. Devaluation, unemployment, pauperism… People look at you distrustfully, with restless anxiety and torment. That’s the kind of eyes they have in the world of Filthy Lucre.And the travelled distance corresponds to the consumed liquor… And the more one drinks the stranger becomes the world and the more enigmatic turns reality…If I should ever have any children, I’ll hang on their wall a portrait of the Procurator of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, so that they will grow up neat and clean. Procurator Pontius Pilate standing there washing his hands – that’s the right kind of portrait.Even the most hopeless boozers must have their romantic ideals…

Мне нравится, что у народа моей страны глаза такие пустые и выпуклые. Это вселяет в меня чувство законной гордости... Можно себе представить, какие глаза там. Где все продается и все покупается... Глубоко спрятанные, притаившиеся, хищные и перепуганные глаза... Девальвация, безработица, пауперизм... Смотрят исподлобья, с неутихающей заботой и мукой - вот какие глаза в мире чистогана... Зато у моего народа - какие глаза! Они постоянно навыкате, но - никакого напряжения в них. Полное отсутствие всякого смысла - но зато какая мощь! (Какая духовная мощь!) Эти глаза не продадут. Ничего не продадут и ничего не купят. Что бы ни случилось с моей страной, во дни сомнений, во дни тягостных раздумий, в годину любых испытаний и бедствий - эти глаза не сморгнут.