Conversations With Joseph Brodsky: A Poets Journey Through The Twentieth Century [Hardcover]

Solomon Volkov (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1998

A comprehensive portrait of Nobel Laureate, Joseph Brodsky, based on the author's tape-recorded conversations with the poet over a period of 15 years. From imprisonment in the Soviet Union and flight to the West, to a new beginning in the United States, Brodsky's life was epic in scope.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Russian-born, Nobel Prize-winning poet Joseph Brodsky, who died in 1996, was as provocative as he was talented. In these conversations with Volkov, author of previous interview volumes with violinist Nathan Milstein, choreographer George Balanchine and, more controversially, with composer Dmitri Shostakovich, Brodsky evinces both talent and idiosyncrasy. Divided into chapters on important subjects in Brodsky's writing life, these lively talks, creditably translated by Schwartz, represent a dozen years of intermittent chats, up to 1992. There are some problems: a few chapters, presented as continuous dialogues, span nearly a decade, and Volkov doesn't press Brodsky on, for example, his machinations on behalf of buddies or on the gaudy crucifixes that the Jewish-born Brodsky took to wearing. Instead, Brodsky is given free rein to speak with an intensity that regularly gave his interlocutors nosebleeds. He eccentrically overrates the faded turn-of-the-century French novelist Henri de Regnier, but dismisses Nabokov. He oddly prefers Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko to Andrei Voznesensky on the grounds that the former admits to being a "big self-promotion factory." And there is no mention at all of Brodsky's friend, the great Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert. In his later years, Brodsky made an exaggerated claim to being a writer of English, a language he never mastered as memorably as Russian. Happily, this solid book of talks shows Brodsky at his conversational, and very Russian, best.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Volkov, author of St. Petersburg (1995), began his focused dialogue with Brodsky in 1978, just after the poet underwent his first open-heart surgery at age 38. In his introduction, Volkov shares his hope that this volume will serve as a "kind of Baedeker" to the late Nobel laureate's life and art (it does), then offers a rather startling portrait of Brodsky as an "animal of poetry," a lone wolf to be exact, who was not only brilliant but hypnotic and, at times, menacing. Brodsky's mind, Volkov claims, was "essentially dialogic," a statement proved true in the revelatory conversations that follow. All of their energetic discussions are of keen interest, but it is Brodsky's forthright descriptions--the first ever for public consumption--of his detention in a mental asylum, exile in the North, and expulsion from Russia that leap off the page. At one point, Volkov challenges Brodsky's matter-of-fact approach to discussing these traumas, and Brodsky retorts, "I refuse to dramatize all this!" That's because all the drama and all the fire of his experiences are found in his majestic poetry. What is preserved here is the power and complexity of the man himself. Donna Seaman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (February 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068483572X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684835723
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,065,450 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lone Wolf Poet:Review of"Conversations with Joseph Brodsky, April 20, 1998

By 

Larry D. Peltz([e-mail]) (San Francisco Bay Area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conversations With Joseph Brodsky: A Poets Journey Through The Twentieth Century (Hardcover)

If you wade into the book,"Conversations with Joseph Brodsky," by Solomon Volkov (Free Press, 1998,) more or less by accident, as I did, prepare for immersion in deep waters. I was only peripherally aware of Brodsky's work, his background as a major Russian Jewish writer, emigree, and later Nobel Prize winner and American Poet Laureate based on reading his short poetic volume,"Watermark," (Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 1992.) Based on this work alone I should have been prepared for the depths of thinking, the force of personality, and the scholarly mind that earned him his esteemed position and global reputation as the,"Lone Wolf of Poetry." Brodsky is, if nothing else,like one of those rare gems we find originally mined from and cut to shape on Russian soil, but later ending up here in the United States, much to our cultural enrichment. Once here, in this setting of freedom, they seem to shine even more brilliantly than they ever could in their homeland. Clearly, poetry is Brodsky's realm, and yet in Volkov's meticulous rendering,(the book represents a compiliation of more than fifteen years of purposeful dialogues with Brodsky,) it is evident that Volkov uncovers the man, his life experiences, and his force of personality in a manner that perhaps Brodksy, with his grand sense of irony would appreciate, perhaps even take perverse pleasure from reading. Hearing Brodsky literally thinking out loud, as this book allows us to do, adds a deeper dimension to an understanding of his life's work, and passion. Tragically, Brodsky suffered an untimely death by heart attack Jan. 28,1996 at the age of fifty-five. The reason I say perverse appreciation, is that Brodsky, in his conversations, claims that a poet's work alone should speak for him, that one needs no further digging into the poet's personal life in order to grasp the significance of his writing. Among the many topics Brodsky thinks out loud about are some perhaps unexpected ones. For example, his love for the poetry of Robert Frost, W.H.Auden, and Robert Lowell, as well as his love for the great Russian Poets, Anna Akhmatova, Pushkin, and Marina Tsvetaeva. I found myself scrambling for my long buried volume,"The Poetry of Robert Frost, (Holt Rinehart and Winston,1969) to find the poems Brodsky discusses," Servant to Servants," and " The Wood-Pile." Even as I am reading his commentary, I have to remind myself that Brodsky is quoting these American poems from memory, improvising freely like a brilliant jazz soloist, a John Coltrane taking off in counterpoint to the questions Volkov poses to him. It's a brilliant duet in dialogue form. As such, if you love literature, and poetry, and know of Brodsky's work, or even if you have never heard of Brodksy, but would like to know more about Russian writers, this book is a treasure chest filled with literary gems. Also, it needs to be emphasized that in great measure, it is Solomon Volkov's remarkable ability to stimulate and challenge Brodsky on issues that makes the dialectic so vital. Clearly, Volkov's depth of knowledge, common Russian upbringing, and his own aesthetic sensibilities serve to bring out the best in Brodsky. Towards the end of the book they get into an intense dialogue about their homeland, in particualr, St.Petersburg, a city that looms very large in the background, much like the Chorus in Greek drama. Here the discourse becomes deeply personal, going far beyond the academic realm of literary works, and anecdotes about other writer's lives. St. Petersburg is an area that Volkov knows something about, as evidenced by his recent book,"St. Petersburg: A Cultural History." In the heat of their discussion Brodsky suddenly takes off on an inspired solo: "...in as much as Petersburg is a city by the sea, so the notion of freedom-perhaps phantasmagorical, but very powerful-inevitably arises in the consciousness of anyone living there. In this city, the individual is always going to strive to reach beyond because the space in front of him is not limited or delimited by land. Hence, the dream of unlimited freedom. This is why I think that in this city it is more natural to reject the whole existing world order..." It strikes me as particularly painful that this volume is the last, unless Volkov compiles a 2nd companion volume based on his records. No more chances to raise the hand to ask the master to explain what he meant when he said such and such. As was his wish, we now have to read his poems to figure it out for ourselves.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique look into the poet's mind, August 28, 2002

By 

Heather Lowe "hslowe" (Corning NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conversations With Joseph Brodsky: A Poets Journey Through The Twentieth Century (Hardcover)

Solomon Volkov had a very good idea in putting together this book. Over a period of many years, he sat down with Brodsky and interviewed him about poetry, metaphysics and world events (with a little gossip thrown in for good measure). The result is a thorough and fascinating look at Brodsky's opinions at many different points in time. And the conversations are not just
one-sided: Volkov keeps up with Brodsky just fine, so it's like listening in on a tete-a-tete between two brilliant minds. If you like Brodsky you will love this book.