Pushkin: A Biography [Hardcover]

T.J. Binyon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2003

Pushkin is Russia’s greatest and best-loved poet: a romantic, enigmatic figure who, during a brief but turbulent life, changed Russian literature forever with his vital and passionate verse. Many of his works—including The Bronze Horseman, The Queen of Spades, and his extraordinary novel in verse, Eugene Onegin—have become classics of world literature and are as exhilarating to read today as they were when first published. Now we have the first full biography in sixty years of this literary legend.

Born in Moscow in 1799, he was descended on one side from an ancient noble family, on the other from a black African slave of Peter the Great. At the age of twenty he was expelled from St. Petersburg for his satirical writings. He remained in internal exile, under the direct supervision of the emperor, for the next seven years, and throughout his life attracted official disapproval for his political and religious beliefs—and for his many love affairs. In 1831, despite mounting debts from gambling and an insecure income, he married the eighteen-year-old Natalya Goncharova, who soon became recognized as one of the most beautiful women of St. Petersburg society. The attentions paid her by a Guards officer, the French émigré d’Anthès, roused Pushkin to fury. In the subsequent duel, fought on January 27, 1837, he was fatally wounded. He died in agony two days later.

This superb, authoritative biography—winner of England’s prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize—frees the complex figure of Pushkin the man from the heroic simplicity of Pushkin the myth, making palpable the poet’s rare energy, talents, and spirit. Telling Pushkin’s story with exacting scholarship, elegant wit, and acute insight, T. J. Binyon gives us a revelation of the poet and the man.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This work won the Samuel Johnson nonfiction prize in Britain, and it's easy to see why: it's a fascinating treatment of an equally fascinating subject. By chronicling Pushkin's literary successes and his personal failures, Binyon draws a compelling portrait of the writer and his milieu. One of Russia's most celebrated authors, Pushkin (1799-1837) lived a life as captivating as his poems and stories. In fact, as British academic Binyon (Murder Will Out) shows in this landmark work, Pushkin interspersed snippets of his brief life in such work as Eugene Onegin and The Bronze Horseman. Displaying a broad knowledge of primary source material, Binyon details Pushkin's life, which has all the suspense of a good novel. A known womanizer in his early adult years (he was especially fond of married women), Pushkin later married and settled down. But his past came back to bite him when a man tried to seduce his wife. Although Binyon argues convincingly that the suitor was unsuccessful, the incident prompted a duel that caused Pushkin's death in his late 30s. While his life was full of controversy, he was accused of being both too reactionary and too liberal, it was not particularly happy. Even while he was churning out his masterpieces, he was prone to two weaknesses: depression and debt. This is a must-read for students of Pushkin and for those interested in 19th-century Russia and literary history.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Nearly deified by Dostoevsky as Russia's literary messiah, Pushkin reclaims his mortality in this deeply humanizing biography. Oxford lecturer Binyon focuses his formidable scholarship not on Pushkin's luminous poetry but rather on his turbulent life. Indeed, readers will marvel that a creative titan could so frequently embarrass himself through dissolute behavior and bad judgment. Binyon particularly details the tangled amorous path that led Pushkin into marriage with a high-spirited beauty who mismanaged their household into chaos. Yet even when chronicling the poet's blunders, Binyon captures a dauntless personality, playful yet passionate. It will surprise many readers that Pushkin often expressed his playfulness in idle sketches of himself and contemporaries, many of which illustrate the text. But Pushkin's real artistic talent shines in the many passages of poetry that Binyon quotes to illuminate episodes in their creator's life. That Pushkin's life was cut short by a duel from which he could easily have withdrawn provides a tragic final illustration of the gap separating artistic genius from ordinary human discretion. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 768 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st Am. Ed. edition (October 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400041104
• ISBN-13: 978-1400041107
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,049,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lacking insight but interesting for detail, February 13, 2004

By 

Gene Zafrin (Sleepy Hollow, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pushkin: A Biography (Hardcover)

The book defies quick overall assessment. On one level it provides an extraordinary level of detail: one could learn, for example, how much, to the pound, the manager of the family Boldino estate was granted of: salt, peas, oatmeal, rice, butter etc. On the other hand, some basic information of the main protagonist remains unquestioned. For example as a child he is portrayed as having read mostly French books, but by the age of 13 he is assessed by one of his Lycée teachers as well read in Russian literature. The book is interspersed with Pushkin's drawings of the people from his milieu which, although mostly simple profiles, are good character sketches of their subjects. No comment accompanies them: neither, for example, on the origin of this skill, nor on what insight into Pushkin's personality they present. At the age of 7, it is said, Pushkin's character changed dramatically, but the book chooses not to reveal what exactly that dramatic change was. The book is rife with seemingly paradoxical statements. It is the transformation of a boy brought up by French tutors, who moreover wrote his first poem in French and had a nickname "French" in the Lycée into the preeminent Russian poet in Russian language. It is Pushkin's notorious laziness in the childhood and at school, which nevertheless did not prevent him from being remarkably educated in literary matters and displaying it in such works as "Onegin" or "Tales of Belkin". It is the source of inspiration for most of his major works. The reader is trusted to fill in the gaps on his own.

Marina Tsvetaeva, a "poet of genius" in Nabokov's words, in her essay "My Pushkin" wrote about the deeply intimate affect Pushkin had on her. Similarly, "my Pushkin" is the epithet that the emperor Nicholas I applied to Pushkin after meeting him in 1826, at the moment when he felt especially close to the poet. By comparison with Tsvetaeva and the emperor, the book lacks certain degree of ownership of its subject. The author chose to stay in the shade, bringing none of his own coloring to the facts of the poet's life. The reader, as well, is left a bit wanting, not quite able to lay the claim of "His Pushkin" to the sketchy image pieced from the book's pages.

In the preface, the author lays bare his approach to Pushkin's biography: the focus is on "the events of his life", rather than on his works. He scrupulously follows this line and if a book could be, if imperfectly, summarized in one word it would be "chronology". The most detailed part of the book, some 90 pages, relates to the fatal duel and the conflict that preceded it. By comparison, very little could be gleaned about the first 18 years of Pushkin's life from the 42 pages devoted to it. The narration, mostly quite palatable, at times feels like a ride in a city cab: bolting ahead into a gap and coming to a maddening crawl if the traffic gets thicker. True to the form of fact gathering, accounting, in the form of the exact ruble amount and nature of Pushkin's obligations and revenues, is mentioned on 78 pages. The book would have benefited from more insight into Pushkin's character and lower granularity of his finances.

Perhaps due to the author's choice of mostly staying away from analysis of Pushkin's works, the book does not really present a case for why Pushkin occupies the unrivalled place in Russian literature.

What is left? An eccentric dresser with extraordinarily long nails, who by many was considered ugly. An ardent pursuer of women, from princesses to prostitutes. A proud nobleman who fought in duels at the slightest provocation. An avid reader in several languages. A lover of exquisite drink and food. A gambler with poor arithmetic skills to boot (but an avid chess player!) who accumulated an enormous debt by the time he died. A lifelong friend with many schoolmates. A poet canonized early in his life.

The book does not contain any revelations about Pushkin and at times lacks coherency, but could be of interest for the level of detail.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Has potential to be exciting but I didn't have the patience, October 5, 2005

By 

Marritza (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pushkin: A Biography (Hardcover)

Now this is a thick book and very well-researched, too. I somewhat understand the author's desire to use his own translations, since this book has probably consumed a significant chunk of Mr.Binyon's time and effort. However, being able to read Russian certainly helps, since the translations are a bit uninspired (hey, I'm not saying I can do better though!). Nevertheless, I admire the amount of detail and research that has gone into this. There are maps and explanatory notes that are quite helpful, as well as quotations from a huge variety of sources. In addition, the narration is pleasant enough and not too stuffy. Then after about 70 pages I couldn't go on, even with the best intentions of reading it all...it simply got too overwhelming and repetitive. So, Pushkin went there, wrote this, saw this woman and lusted after her. Then in the next chapter, it repeats again, with mountains of detail. Maybe it's the genre, I don't know, but it gets a little dull after awhile. Mr. Binyon presents Pushkin as someone quite unlikeable - except for his poetry. That put me off too - can't blame the biographer much here though! In all, it's a very solid biography with OK translations that takes certain patience to get through. Hope I can finish this - might take me until retirement or so but it's on the shelf!

5.0 out of 5 stars I can't beleive there are only 4 reviews, September 28, 2011

By 

Brett Aabel (Silver Spring, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Pushkin: A Biography (Paperback)

For me this book was amazing. I felt Pushkin, I was Pushkin, I lived and now love Pushkin. I'm very surprised no other people have praised this book. It brings you into the day to day dealings and troubles of this man. I felt him in me- he's sporadic, expressive, passionate, spontaneous and deadly. Its an all true tragedy written in fine detail accounts of his life and experiences with other people, how they saw him, and how he related. I ended in anger at Pushkin for what he ends up doing but I can't help but feel good about the passionate dumbly path he lays in life. I love you man.

Brett