Customer Reviews

Petersburg (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

According to Vladimir Nabokov, this work rates with Joyce's Ulysses and Kafka's Transformations. I'll take this one over its competition. One of the most well-read works of Russia's Silver Age, I recommend it not only as literature but also as cultural history. PLEASE, find an edition of the Maguire and Malmstad translation, it's much more lucid. Bely is difficult enough even if you read Russian; you need all the help in translation you can get. The notes are copious but, if read attentively, help place the book in the cultural context in which it was written.

Nabokov, the translator's introduction triumphantly proclaims, thought Petersburg one the three best books ever written, beside Joyce's Ulysses and Kafka's Metamorphosis. Nabokov, they do not emphasize quite as proudly, was also a native Russian, so he might have had this book a little easier.
Truly, this is a masterpiece, even if a little hard to translate. Imagine Ulysses, barely possible to read as it is, translated into another language, and you might come close to the difficulties in navigating through Bely's symbolist playground complete with 50+ pages of endnotes. However, unless you plan on learning Russian sometime very soon, that is no excuse for skipping this novel--certainly the lack of a successful English translation is the only thing that keeps it from joining the ranks of other great Russian novels. The fragile tale of an enchanting yet troubled city and the dancing psyches that inhabit it is well worth any difficulties in translation.

Andrei Bely's "Petersburg" is rightly praised as a masterpiece. Knowing Bely's symbolist background, I had exepected the shimmering interlacing of symbols. Yet, while reading the book, I was surprised by the amount of historical and personal desire (and their intertwining) and the masterful way in which it was rendered. Linguistic experiments, grotesque, time-and-space shifts, intertextuality, metatextuality... and, yet, a fully comprehensible narrative! This novel is a true modernist diamond. The book questions what we usually perceive as the predominance of Anglomodernism - yes, the Russians were writing great things after Dostoevsky, too!

In any discussion of Bely's PETERSBURG there eventually arises the question of whether or not it's one of the 20th century's greatest novels. Frankly, I'm not even sure what this means, because what you will take from this book depends very much on what you came for.

Distinctive narrative structure, mind-bending imagery, and creative use of language earn PETERSBURG a place in the literary pantheon. As an important product of the Symbolist movement and a document of Russian revolutionary ferment, it deserves the considerable scholarly attention it has received. The Maguire/Malmstad translation is a tour de force, and their care for their subject is greatly in evidence in what must have been one of the toughest translation tasks ever attempted. For any students out there: if any of the foregoing are of any interest to you, you are in for a treat.

None of these things, however, guarantee that PETERSBURG will be a particularly good choice for the casual reader, and in fact it's an extremely tough row to hoe. The book is noisy, chaotic, cluttered, and at times supremely difficult to follow. As a reader, I felt myself experiencing the book very much as a painting, albeit one viewed through a frenetically shaken magnifying glass. Some of what you'll see will be stunning; much will be baffling. I believe very much that there is sense behind every fragment of this book, but it takes hard work to dig it up, and often just dragging your eyes across the page is not so easy.

As a further stumbling block to many readers, PETERSBURG's beauty relies very much on the beauty of the city of Petersburg itself. The city's atmosphere will be familiar, of course, to almost all Russian readers, but for non-Russians who have not spent time in Petersburg, an important sense of place will be missing.

As other reviewers have noted, the plot is relatively thin, but if you're looking for a good yarn, there are other reasons why PETERSBURG is not a good choice for you. I suspect that very few casual readers--or even folks who just like Russian literature and want to try something from the 20th century--will have the background knowledge needed to put this novel in its intended context. Bely had an audience in mind, and we were not really it.

If you're interested in Russian novels from the 20th century, of course there are many, but please allow me to suggest Bulgakov's THE MASTER AND MARGARITA in place of PETERSBURG. They are not particularly closely related--although, again for students: I sense there's a term paper there--but there is a similarity in their zany madness and Bulgakov is much more approachable.

I have been obliged to read this book for two different classes, but please don't dismiss it out of hand as "academic." Although brilliantly inventive (suggesting that ideas are more "real" than reality, that objects themselves can assume their own lives in the mind's eye, using the city itself as a character) the real importance of this book is the humanity. It is funny, familiar, and achingly beautiful. It's a coming of age tale, a dying of age tale, a commentary on revolution, change, and family. Also, it gets better if you read it again: I wouldn't be at this site or writing this review if I hadn't mauled my copy with multiple readings and incessant scribbling in the margins. Buy the Malmstead edition; the Penguin's just so-so. Buy it! Don't make me come over there!

One of the great modern novels, as revolutionary in its way as Ulysses or At Swim Two Birds, it dazzles with humor, allusion, wit, imagery...It's a distinct advantage to know a bit about Russian culture and to have visited the city of the title.

Having read the original prior to reading this translation, I feel this book lends itself poorly to translation; the translators do a decent job but the nature and essence of Bely's art is quite inextricable from the Russian language; still, a glimpse of the quality of the original can be had.

"Petersburg' is a book I stumbled across, not having planned to go there. I'm delighted that I did, as it turned out to be one of the most unique and absorbing reading experiences I've had to date. Frankly, the cover art of this edition was the lure which dragged me in. The whimsical/macabre, cartoonish image of a masquerader in a checkered harlequin costume, extending forth a card with skull and crossbones imprinted thereon, with an occult-looking red moon over his shoulder, suggested that no ordinary story was contained inside.

The book delivered on my expectations, but not in the theater-of-the absurd manner I had presumed. Though the style of the book is unconventional and contains fantastical or phantasmagorical episodes, the symbolism of the novel seems always to relate back to real events, persons, or mental concepts. Whereas theater of the absurd ignores conventional literary forms to convey an impression of man's isolation in a meaningless universe, 'Petersburg' seems to use it's unconventional methods to point in the opposite direction.

If it were not for the excellent commentary provided by translators Maguire and Malmstad, I wouldn't be able to offer that opinion with any confidence. The more than sixty pages of explanatory notes add a clarity to what would be mass confusion on the part of a non-Russian reader confronted with the many allusions to Russian history as well as the cultural and physical setting of St. Petersburg. Explanations of puns as well as the noting of philosophical and religious allusions clear up many things which would have been obscure. With the help of the commentary, it seems plain that there is an intent of showing a historical direction for Russia, with St. Petersburg representing it's soul. There is an evident integral belief embedded in the story, in a purposeful destiny for Russia, even though the exact nature of that destiny was as yet unclear.

The claim has often been made that any translation of a book is, in fact, a different book. Be that as it may, this English translation of 'Petersburg' has captured a quality of romantic strangeness in this story of St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1905 that points toward transcendence rather than nihilism. Though there is absurdity, irrationality, psychic fragmentation, hallucination, and paranoia manifested in the actions of the characters, these elements serve to point out the need for and groping toward transcendence by these very imperfect people.

There is a good deal of symbolism in the novel, of a kind that is different from symbolism encountered in other books, in that much of it was influenced by the author's association with Anthroposophy, as well as uniquely Russian symbols. The frequent use of colors to establish a context, and the occurrences of para-normal mental phenomena point toward his occult leanings. The symbolism of the bronze statue of Peter the Great coming to life and clattering through the streets is a product of Russian heritage and the iconography of Peter as the founder and patron of modern Russia.

Though the style of the narration seems quite disjointed and fragmented at first, it continually weaves itself together into a unified whole where history, location, people, ideological as well as armed conflict, and symbolism blend together in an inseparable whole which yields a very strong impression of the historical period of September-October, 1905.

Many beautifully vivid passages evoke a sense of the mystery and grandeur of the city, and a sense of it's destiny. The city and its unique features figure prominently in the novel, but that is not to say that the human characters count for nothing. Although they are not developed in great depth, what we do learn about them is extremely relevant toward the portrayal of the revolutionary and apocalyptic currents sweeping Russia at the time.

If you enjoy cerebral books which challenge your comprehension by presenting their messages in unique and layered vehicles of language, 'Petersburg' might well appeal to you.

Just absolutely wonderful! Perhaps the finest work ever written, Bely mixes beautiful language with a stark political commentary on early 20th century Russia. Petersburg represents in both narrative and language the confusion and anarchist tendencies in modernism. The moments of hallucination parallels the "Circe" chapter of Joyce's Ulysses and are crafted with genius. If only I could read Russian to capture the full flavor of Bely's brilliance.

A strangly comical story about the chaos and absurdity of Russian life and politics circa 1905. It tells the story of a Russian family at odds with itself. The main characters are an aristocratic father, his politically rebellious son, the estranged wife, a back-stabbing political party, the "Red Domino", and a ticking bomb....!!! Warning: The prose is somewhat a slow read as it takes time to get used to the Symbolists style of writing. If you can get through the first 30 pages you won't regret it. This book has not been called the best Novel of the 20th century for nothing !!!

Petersburg was originally published between 1913 and 1914 in installments by Sirin in its literary miscellany of the same name, and then in book form in 1916. Obviously dissatisfied with the first edition, Bely began revising it almost immediately, but during the revolutionary and civil war period, he could find no one interested in publishing a revised second edition. Bely emigrated to Berlin temporarily, where he found a publisher, and made massive cuts to the novel. The revised novel was published in 1922 (the authoritative text for this translation), and was reprinted in the Soviet Union in 1928 with minor changes made by Bely and extensive modifications made by the Soviet censors. The 1928 edition was reprinted in 1935, but with the growing demand that literature conform to the standards of Socialist Realism, Petersburg was virtually ignored until, with the gradual easing of restrictions after Stalin's death, it regained a certain respectability.

The novel takes place over a short period of time in the autumn of 1905. Although Russian cultural activity was gaining more and more prominence on an international scale, political and social unrest were on the rise domestically. Demand for reform was rampant, and even outright revolution was being advocated in some circles. Commencing in January 1905, a series of strikes, assassinations, and uprisings had occurred. The widespread feeling among the populace that the old values were inadequate for a burgeoning modernity, and that Russia was teetering on the edge of an abyss, becomes apparent early in the novel in this beautifully poetic passage:

From the fecund time when the metallic Horseman had galloped hither, when he had flung his steed upon the Finnish granite, Russia was divided in two. Divided in two as well were the destinies of the fatherland. Suffering and weeping, Russia was divided in two, until the final hour.

Russia, you are like a steed! Your two front hooves have leaped far off into the darkness, into the void, while your two rear hooves are firmly implanted in the granite soil. (64)

As Maguire and Malmstad note, this prophetic meditation on Russia's destiny is similar to several lines in Pushkin's poem, The Bronze Horseman. Both Bely and Pushkin raise the issue stemming from Peter the Great's Westernizing innovations: had Peter's western influences detached Russia from her native traditions and divided her in two, the peasants on the one hand and the Westernized elite on the other, setting her on an unknown course that would eventually lead to destruction?

The plot is rather simple, a political thriller paced by a ticking time bomb that Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov, a university student who has become entangled in a revolutionary terrorist organization, agrees to plant in his father's house, the senator, Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov. Underlying the apparent simplicity, however, is a very complex text with intricately woven plots and subplots on many levels. Petersburg is suspenseful, socially relevant, political, psychological, philosophical, and historical, and loose ends come together in the myriad of characters who populate the novel, ranging from the powerful and privileged to the poor and discontented, through whom Bely paints a vivid picture of Petersburg society. There are double agents, terrorists, journalists, secret police, government officials, and society people. Peter the Great is himself evoked through the images of the Bronze Horseman and the Flying Dutchman. Many characters confront a personal crisis: the family crisis triggered by his wife's flight to Spain with her Italian lover in the case of the senator; the love crisis of his son, Nikolai Apollonovich, as a result of his broken relationship with Sofia Petrovna; and the consciousness crises experienced by both Nikolai, who has rejected Kant, and Dudkin, who has become disillusioned with Nietzsche, each searching for a new meaning in life. These personal crises are intensified by, and representative of, the real social, political and governmental crises within Russia herself.

As a paradigm of Russian Symbolism, with no omniscient narrator, Bely demands that his readers be attentive, astute, and perceptive. Using synecdoche as a mode of expression, Bely often will not provide an image as a whole-we see a piece of attire, a prominent feature, a segment:

Rolling toward them down the street were many-thousand swarms of bowlers. Rolling toward them were top hats, and the froth of ostrich feathers.

Noses sprang out from everywhere. (178)

Earlier in the novel, Bely depicts another crowd scene:

Contemplating the flowing silhouettes, Apollon Apollonovich likened them to shining dots. One of these dots broke loose from its orbit and hurtled at him with dizzying speed, taking the form of an immense crimson sphere-
-among the bowlers on the corner, he caught sight of a pair of eyes. And the eyes expressed the inadmissible. They recognized the senator, and, having recognized him, they grew rabid, dilated, lit up, and flashed. (14)

The present is chaos, precariously moving on an apocalyptic path. Apollon Apollonovich recognizes the chaos and sees the crowd in fragments because of his sense of isolation and vulnerability in a Russia at the brink of radical change. The dots and spheres also form a leitmotif through which the apocalyptic themes of the novel are presented. The sphere is crimson, a color associated with revolution and danger. An ominous feeling, together with a sense of apprehension and disorientation, permeates the novel. The sense of insecurity we experience as we read through the novel parallels the sense of insecurity the inhabitants of 1905 Petersburg must have endured.