ISBN: 0-88739-341-1
320 pp.
Size: 6 x 9
Pub Date: 2/2001
Paperback
Price: $14.95
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Works and Days of Svistonov, The
Konstantin Vaginov
The Works and Days of Svistonov, written in 1929, is a short novel about the making of a novel. The works and days of the main character, writer Andrey Svistonov, comprise creating a work of literature. His primary task is collecting people and transferring them into his fictional world.
The setting is Leningrad in the late twenties, a time when the Russian intelligentsia was struggling to maintain not only its importance in society but its very existence amid the ruthless materialism of Bolshevism. Both Svistonov’s hunt for characters and his quarry of Leningrad philistines, decadents, and eccentrics serve, on one level, to indict Russia’s new ruling regime and cultural revolution. On another level, they pose questions about a diverse range of topics, from the nature of creativity to the authenticity of the soul.
Featuring biting sarcasm for the materialistic Bolshevik regime, this vintage Vaginov novel features a full array of modernistic techniques sure to engage any lover of fiction. It also makes use of an interlaced network of subtexts that will stimulate the intellectual appetite of every literary scholar and semiotician.
Bio: KONSTANTIN VAGINOV (1899-1934) wrote several collections of poetry and four novels. His writings, suppressed by Soviet authorities for over fifty years, recently have been rediscovered and enthusiastically received in Russia. In his homeland Vaginov is known as a descendant of the Russian Symbolists who nonetheless employed a thoroughly original style to undermine the sensibilities of the communist regime.
HOWARD SHERNOFF, translator, is the author of the guidebook Russia by River and several chapbooks of poetry. He lived in St. Petersburg, Russia, for many years and now resides in nearby Tallinn, Estonia, where he works as a copywriter, editor, and graphic designer.
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