Novels, Tales, Journeys

September 5, 2016
Pushkin (1799–1837), arguably Russia’s greatest poet, finds worthy translators in Pevear and Volokhonsky, who have compiled an indispensable edition of the master’s complete prose. Pushkin’s great ambition, keen curiosity, and comprehensive range are all in evidence here, beginning with the unfinished “The Moor of Peter the Great,” a historical fiction about the writer’s grandfather, an African courtier of the czar. Russian history also figures in the short novel “The Captain’s Daughter,” set during a bloody 18th-century peasant rebellion, as a young officer in a besieged rural fortress develops a strange comradeship with the Cossack ringleader of the uprising. In “Dubrovsky,” a young aristocrat flouts the law after his inheritance is unjustly denied him. Always mindful of his position vis-à-vis European literature, Pushkin both draws on romanticism and lampoons it; in the short story “The Queen of Spades,” rational young engineer Hermann comes to believe in a mystic secret of gambling, and in his quest to learn the secret wrecks several lives, including his own. Pushkin moves with great facility from bored, hotheaded St. Petersburg aristocracy to the pastoral peccadilloes of country squires and the deprivations of peasant life (“The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin”), and even farther afield, to the exoticized landscape of the Caucasia (“Journey to Arzrum”). Pushkin the storyteller is witty and compassionate, panoramic and precise. Although he’s best known in the States for poetry, in this thoughtfully annotated, syntactically loyal edition, readers will discover another facet of a prodigious talent.

Starred review from September 15, 2016
Superb gathering of writings by the short-lived author Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), best known as a poet--but, argues translator Pevear, also "the true originator of Russian prose."Scholars will argue over whether Evgeny Onegin is novel or poem, but this anthology makes a clear distinction between verse and prose, then gathers all of Pushkin's prose writings, down to a few delicious fragments. One of them, it seems, was enough to inspire Leo Tolstoy to build the novelistic world of Anna Karenina around just a few words; though prolific and seemingly capable of writing masterfully in any genre, Pushkin's finished prose pieces are frustratingly few. Perhaps the best of them, the novel The Captain's Daughter, is a study in fine detail: "Pugachev was sitting in an armchair on the porch of the commandant's house. He was wearing a red Cossack kaftan trimmed with galloons. A tall sable hat with gold tassels was pulled down to his flashing eyes." Like so much early modern Russian literature, that novel and Pushkin's other tales sometimes seem exotic, sketches from a long-vanished world in which a tutor amuses himself by seducing "a fat and pockmarked wench and the one-eyed milkmaid Akulka" and a young woman, awakening, "beckoned to the maid and sent her for the dwarf." Still, all the universal emotions and realities are in play, from jealousy to greed and overweening ambition, and Pevear and his longtime partner Volokhonsky render Pushkin's words in an easy, conversational tone that is very far from the fustiness of the Constance Garnett renderings of old. The completed pieces are masterful, but the fragments are tantalizing; one wonders what Pushkin would have done had he lived to complete the piece that begins, "My fate is decided. I am getting married...." A long overdue collection that speaks truly and well to Pushkin's brilliance as a prose stylist as well as observer of the world.

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Starred review from July 1, 2016

Pushkin (1799-1837) is the fabled "Father of Russian Literature," most famous for his epic novel in verse Eugene Onegin, yet also the author of at least one classic short story, "The Queen of Spades," and a host of other tales. This new translation of his prose works, by the current hot names in Russian lit, Pevear and Volokhonsky, is filled with vivid characters and a charming voice. Pushkin's lively and often ironic tone feels fresh as ever, and the harmony and perfection that Leo Tolstoy praised (especially in the Tales of Belkin) still radiates from these literary gems. Many of these stories would make for wonderful adult read-alouds. Recently there has been critical concern about some of the weaknesses in Pevear and Volokhonsky's translations of the work of Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, with scholars questioning the new work's literary quality. Regardless of that, readers unfamiliar with Pushkin's writing will be captivated and won't probably care one lick about who the translator is, and those already familiar may be curious to have a look at the latest rendering of an old favorite. VERDICT Highly recommended. Readers will delight at the originality of these timeless pieces.--Herman Sutter, St. Agnes Acad., Houston

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