Customer Reviews

The Queen of Spades

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The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin

This ebook is a very good translation of Russia's most celebrated author -Alexander Pushkin. It is a good introduction into the works of a classic and exceptionally talented writer.

The amazon blurb says this book in in Russian with accented text. Perhaps the paper text is, but the kindle one is in what I think is Ukrainian and is not accented.

Pushkin's work is great. This edition is terrible. It is not the full story (short as the original story is) -- it is an adaptation, a shortened version, and most of the nuances are gone.

I read this short story as preparation for the reading of Alice Randall's latest novel "Pushkin and the Queen of Spades". The main character of Pushkin's short story is Hermann, a man who at the onset of the story appears to be a level headed and prudent engineer. He is able to observe his friends gambling for hours without participating. "I am very much interested in cards," Hermann says, "but I am not in a position to sacrifice the essential in the hope of acquiring the superfluous". After hearing a story of the Countess X and her secret to winning in cards, Hermann undertakes a ploy to romance the Countess's maiden in hopes of gaining access to the Countess and her secret. While I didn't find this story particularly moving or creative in a modern literary sense, I am excited to see how Randall will integrate Pushkin's original story with her latest novel.