Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet [Paperback]

Roberta Reeder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1995

Tall, slender, austere, with features that were described as haunting and hypnotic, Akhmatova possessed a quiet reserve, combined with an unusual intensity, that early on attracted fellow artists. As Picasso changed the face of art, Akhmatova would revolutionize the poetic vision of her contemporaries, for it was she who introduced the laconic style of twentieth-century poetry that seemed to blend in with the modernist forces of her age. One of those writers on whom she cast her spell was Nicholas Gumilyov, a swashbuckling Hemingway type, an eminent literary figure in his own right, who became her first husband. On their honeymoon, they went to Paris in 1910, where they met Modigliani, with whom Akhmatova later had an affair, succeeded by other extremely close relationships with the likes of the composer Arthur Lourie and Osip Mandelstam. Akhmatova and Gumilyov's relationship was clearly strained from the start, and the two, in a love-hate style, tortured each other until their divorce in 1918. Only after Gumilyov was shot by the Bolsheviks in 1921 did Akhmatova realize how much he had meant to her. Friend and protector of writers like Pasternak and Mandelstam in the 1920s and 1950s, she was so lionized by her intellectual peers that even when the Bolsheviks turned on her poetry, the authorities feared to harm or kill her. When Mandelstam, for example, was arrested. Akhmatova was in his apartment, and she did everything she could to save him, before he later went mad and died under mysterious circumstances in 1958. Unlike Mandelstam, Pasternak chose to compromise, and wrote an ode to Lenin and translated other poems to Stalin, becoming for a while the government's literary "golden boy."While Akhmatova was spared the physical torture of others, her son, Lev, was arrested several times, the authorities believing that she could be tortured through her son's imprisonment. As an artist and mother, she reacted to her trauma by composing a cycle of poems about suffer

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this monumental biography of one of Russia's-and the 20th century's-greatest poets, Reeder, editor of the poet's complete works, deftly combines incisive literary analysis with a complex portrait of Akhmatova (1889-1966) and her turbulent times. Initially influenced by the Symbolists and Imagists, the poet became more oracular, moving from the "chamber intimacy" of her earlier work to poetry that increasingly addressed the oppressiveness of the Russian people: "I-am your voice," one poem proclaims. So fervently did Akhmatova embrace this role that Stalin's regime suppressed her poetry for 20 years. Drawing upon interviews with the poet's friends and colleagues, some interviewed for the first time for publication, Reeder humanizes a woman lionized by the Russian people. Oppressed by governmental scrutiny, she was sometimes afraid to commit poetry to paper, relying instead on her memory and on those of her friends. Her romantic entanglements with Modigliani and Pasternak (whose persistent advances she rebuffed), as well as a sense of self-mockery about her exalted status, give further depth to Reeder's absorbing study. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

"The chamber intimacy of Akhmatova... what meaning [does it] have for our harsh, iron age?" asked the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky in the early days of the revolution. That intimacy has in fact proved remarkably enduring, but for decades Akhmatova faced censure, deprivation, and the imprisonment and death of loved ones before her genius-recognized in the early 1900s-was again acknowledged by the regime. Reeder, editor of The Complete Works of Anna Akhamatova (LJ 4/1/90), does not emulate her subject's spare, lucid verse, offering instead a richly detailed, exhaustively-indeed, exhaustingly-researched work. She brings in other writers with whom Akhmatova was linked, analyzing and quoting from their works as well as Akhmatova's, and while the result is a nice overview of the era, the poet does get lost in the process. Reeder seems to have hunted down every last reminiscence, however peripheral, and some filtering might have resulted in a stronger portrait. Still, this major study of a major poet usefully assembles a breadth of material. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.
--Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 619 pages
• Publisher: Picador USA; First Edition edition (November 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312134290
• ISBN-13: 978-0312134297
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,934,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Indigestible, June 25, 2008

By 

Irina Hynes (Chicagoland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet (Paperback)

This is an exhaustively researched biography; no stone is left unturned in the names, places, dates and events of the poet Akhmatova's life. However, Reeder doesn't seem to manage compiling the mountain of data into a flowing narrative. The effect is a bit like watching a homemade movie made with a handheld camera, constantly zooming around and giving a sudden close-up of something. Suddenly, you'll get several pages in which she heavily excerpts other works about a particular person's life, even at the expense of shining any light on Akhamatova herself. In the section she devotes to the poet Osip Mandelstam, we are suddenly told that he "had the brilliant idea of getting a cow" to survive his exile. In fact, his widow Nadezhda wrote in her superlative memoir that getting a cow was her idea and (Osip) was "not keen on my plan ... 'Nothing ever comes of such schemes,' he said." Ultimately, Reeder's biography feels a bit clinical. She does a good job at analyzing the poetry, but Akhmatova herself eludes us. (By the way, to hear Akhmatova reciting her own poetry, go to www.russianpoetry.net, then click on "Voices.")

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting character in interesting times, June 26, 2007

By 

DOROTHY (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet (Paperback)

Beautifully written bringing to life the real Anna set in the real history of that period in Russia. Both a history lesson and a poetry lesson.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A look into Russian intellectual life, October 17, 2008

By 

Paul E. Richardson "Russian Life" (Montpelier, VT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet (Paperback)

Much more than the biography of a great poet, it is a looking glass into intellectual life in Russia during one of its most prolific and tragic eras. Invaluable. (Reviewed in Russian Life)