Andrei BelyCritiques

Wonderfully told. Humorous, elegiac, chaotic, and energetic. The vacuousness of the aristocracy as well as the revolutionaries is expressed without cynicism. There is sympathy-empathy, really for the characters shown in all their self-absorbed idiocy. The rottenness of all our human edifices- society most of all, is splayed out in the story.

Three stars for my enjoyment plus two for my respect. Given the date of its composition (first published in 1916), this is a mind-numbingly original and remarkable book. The story is so simple it can be told in a sentence or two. But this is a book that, ultimately, defies easy explanation or, indeed, translation. It is so clearly and deeply rooted in Russian culture, in St. Petersburg (both history and culture), and in its times (about the 1905 revolution) that one simply has to either know about those things (i.e., be born Russian) or rely as I did upon very substantial and extensive notes. Don’t misunderstand: the notes were brilliant and indispensable. But the more I read, the more I realized that this almost impossibly inventive book is inextricably interwoven with its context. (Example: the lengthy note explaining the significance in why a particular building is painted yellow!) All that said: read this book! I highly recommend the translation I read (Maguire and Malmstad: 290 pages plus 60 pages of notes). I simply would not have understand this book at all without the notes. And I cannot praise it highly enough. It’s not entirely my cup of tea, but the achievement is so plain, so enormous, and so…mind-boggling, that I can understand why Nabokov considered it one of the four greatest books of the 20th century.
I enjoyed Petersburg. Really. It is, I think unarguably, a very dense work, though, and a fair amount of work on the part of the reader. I will say, however, that the narrative is mostly very clear. Indeed, sometimes I think Bely was trying to be purposefully obtuse. Still, though I started it with great apprehension, I did enjoy it and I would recommend it.

La acción de Petersburgo transcurre durante el último día de septiembre y varios días grises de octubre de 1905, entre mítines, huelgas, manifestaciones y proclamas obreras. Con el trasfondo de la primera revolución rusa, Biely escribió un relato maestro que, articulado en torno a temas como el zarismo caduco, el terrorismo y el conflicto padre-hijo, tiene a la ciudad de San Petersburgo como gran protagonista.

“He was simply seized by an animal feeling for his own invaluable life; he had no desire to return from the corridor; he did not have the courage to glance into his own rooms; he now had neither strength nor time to look for the bomb a second time; everything got mixed up in his head, and he could no longer remember exactly either the minute or the hour when the time expired: any moment might prove to be the fatal one. All he could do was wait here trembling in the corridor until daybreak.”

One of the most unusual novels I have read. It is set in Petersburg in 1905 during the first Russian Revolution (the one we have largely forgotten). Published in 1913, this book portrays the city just before a series of revolutions that would dramatically change the course of history. It is not typical Russian literature – it does not follow a straight-forward plot or structure. The city itself serves as one of the main characters.

The narrative is infused with shapes:
“After the line, of everything symmetrical the figure that soothed him most was the square. He would give himself over for long periods to the unreflecting contemplation of: pyramids, triangles, parallelepipeds, cubes, trapezoids. Disquiet took hold of him only at the contemplation of a truncated cone. Zigzag lines he could not bear.”

and a whirl of colors:
“To their left the last gold and the last crimson fluttered in the leaves of the garden; on coming closer, a blue tit could be seen; a rustling thread stretched submissively from the garden on to the stones, to wind and chase between the feet of a passing pedestrian, and to murmur as it wove from leaves a red-and-yellow web of words.”

It is slow-paced. There are many digressions. It is occasionally absurd – the statue of the Bronze Horseman (Peter the Great) jumps off its pedestal and gallops around the city. The tone is one of foreboding. It is mostly dark, with a few hints of humor.

I read the English translation by John Elsworth. His afterword sheds light on some of the difficulties in translating it. This book is considered a classic and is worth reading for the historical perspective alone. I recognize the literary merit of this book but did not always enjoy reading it. I found it inventive and modernistic for its time.

First, what Petersburgs is not. A beach read. There is nothing simple about Petersburg. Even the plot, which on the surface seems simple, is just a framework on which hangs the complex experiences of its characters.

I came to this work knowing nothing of Bely or the Symbolist movement of which he was a part. The work's introduction was of great help but didn't begin to unravel the depth of the work. It became obvious the work was a masterpiece but also one that deserved serious and in-depth attention. I felt the work would make an excellent focus for Masters or Doctoral study.

The author uses unique literary techniques to reveal multiple facets of both characters and setting. Reality is not so much broken apart as it is opened up to view what's inside. I felt somwhat like a tourist observing and appreciating a wonderful scene but not taking the time to explore the depths of what I see. Probably would have been better to have read at a younger age when time didn't seem like such a precious commodity. The work deserves serious attention.

Petersburg is an exhausting book. Not exhausting in the sense that you just want to crawl off to bed, but rather exhausting because it is full of motion; there is no rest. Things are always moving, they never stay still. Just when the reader might think there is a pause, Bely will repeat some actions, some sentences.

All this movement is accompanied by colours and sound, often smells, adding layers of depth to the narrative.
The Petersburg street in autumn penetrates your whole organism: it turns the marrow of your bones to ice and tickles your freezing spine; but as soon as you escape from it into a warm room, the Petersburg street flows in your veins like a fever. The stranger now experienced the quality of this street as he entered a grimy vestibule, densely crammed with black, blue, grey and yellow overcoats, swanky hats, lop-eared hats, dock-tailed hats, and galoshes of every description. A warm dampness enveloped him; in the air hung a milky steam: steam that smelled of the pancakes.

As the book progresses, it becomes clear that the different colours represent different people and states of mind. A character's change of colour choice often indicates a change of mind. The one constant is the green swirling mist, coming in off the marshes, hiding who knows what, enveloping the Bronze Horseman who created it all. There is a threat out there, undefined as yet, but in October 1905 Petersburg, everyone sensed it.

Just like navigating in a mist, nothing is ever clear. There is a plot on the part of radicals to kill a high government official, but who dreamed it up? Was it the person entrusted to carry out the assassination, or was it the bomb-maker, the Fugitive? Maybe it was even the Person, he who directs it all (maybe). The designated killer and the Fugitive both obsess over ten days until nothing is clear to either. The reader too is often left befuddled until the action circles around again and more is revealed and then a bit more.

This world of obsession and hallucination makes the omniscient narrator work hard; circling back, making connections, speaking up when things get too absurd. Nothing is sure until the very end, when suddenly everything is resolved.

This is a book I imagine people spend years studying, reading it over and over. Despite an excellent translation, I suspect it can only ever be fully grasped in the original Russian. This Pushkin edition did not have notes and they were sorely missed. Reading it, there was always a feeling of "If only I knew more about..."; "If only I knew more about the accepted stereotypes behind regions and family names"; "If only...". This is not to take away from the book in any way whatsoever. Rather, it is to suggest that there is always something more [Petersburg] has to offer the reader. As the quote from the New York Times Book Review on the back cover put it, this book is regarded by many as "The most important, most influential, and most perfectly realized Russian novel written in the twentieth century."

This is a difficult book - at least it was for me. However, it is worth the effort and I am glad I persevered.
It meanders all over the place and time. The main plot is almost secondary to the many distractions along the way. The city itself is a primary character with many moods but mostly brooding and cold and menacing.½

Yana N.

Yana N.'s Reviews > Petersburg
Petersburg by Andrei Bely
Petersburg
by Andrei Bely, J.D. Elsworth (Translator)
44823137
Yana N.'s review
Oct 06, 2017 · edit

it was amazing
bookshelves: classics, fiction, russian

Amazing. I can barely find words to describe this book, not least because anything I write seems stale in comparison to Bely's prickly prose. Where to begin? Petersburg is not a novel that can be described - it is much greater than the sum of its parts, which themselves are considerable. A story about a father and a son, about a city and a swamp, about the absurdity of life. A summary? When Nikolai Apollonovich is charged with a mission to assassinate his own father by bomb, chaos ensues. And what chaos...

The plot itself takes the backseat to the unimaginably exceptional prose of this novel. The descriptions of hallucinations, of the ever-present Petersburg mists, of the tender gaze that burgeons between Apollon Apollonovich and Anna Petrovna - all of it is simply brilliant! There is such a richness of imagery, such inventive forms and metaphors, a fascinating use of recurring images and fixed expressions as in an ancient epic, a wealth of biblical allusions and style that makes one's heart pound in visceral reaction. The depth of abstract feeling that assails the characters is rendered to perfection in its intensity and complexity. The density of prose and opaqueness of certain turns of phrase do nothing to take away from that experience of perfect unity with the characters, with the city, with Bely's entire universe, which sucked me in and still won't let me out. There is even something fitting about the fact that I didn't understand everything, that certain references went over my head and that more than one or two words might have necessitated a trip to the dictionary... This is not a book to be understood, but one to be felt in the flesh. I am simply beside myself, so I'll just stop here. Maybe when I reread Petersburg one day, I will manage a more coherent review. For now, I will just bask in the wonder that was this novel.

L'Anima eterna pagana animista cristiana idealista della Grande, Grandissima Madre Russia... sottotraccia, tra le righe e NELLE righe di questo romanzo c'è, si sente e rimane con te.
Poi c'è il racconto, c'è Belyj che scrive bene, ma soprattutto c'è l'Anima.

Definitely a strange book. At first glance a Laurence Stern ramble full of digressions. But the book was written, rewritten and revised many times over many years. If it is a ramble it is a very deliberate one. A very conscious adoption of a specific style carried through with great imagination and persistence. A drift from figurative to impressionism tending towards abstract in literature rather than art. Thanks to the extensive footnotes a realisation that there is much, much more to this than a casual reading gives.

I’ll generally give any novel or collection of short stories fifty pages before I give up. In the case of Boris Nikolaevich Bugayev’s (nom de plume: Andrey Biely) St. Petersburg, I gave it two hundred—and then abandoned ship. I just didn’t get it.

Both John Cournos, who wrote the Introduction and did the Russian – English translation, and George Reavey, who provided a Foreword, may rightly feel that Biely was an unrecognized genius. I don’t dispute that. I just don’t get him.

It could well have to do with my immediate reading environment: almost exclusively in the NYC subway system. But I do much of my reading on the subway – and do it to a good end. Unfortunately, this was not the case with St. Petersburg. I found the plot line every bit as noisy and chaotic as the subway system itself.

Far be it from me to dissuade anyone with a serious interest in Russian literature from undertaking a read of St. Petersburg and correcting, for him- or herself (and for any other potentially interested reader her at Goodreads my negative verdict. I’d prefer to think I just don’t have the right stuff for Biely.

Rather than give the novel a low rating, however, I'd prefer to leave that part of this review blank. If there's any fault here, I have to believe it's with the reader and not with the writer or translator.

RRB
11/08/13
Brooklyn, NY

I’ll generally give any novel or collection of short stories fifty pages before I give up. In the case of Boris Nikolaevich Bugayev’s (nom de plume: Andrey Biely) St. Petersburg, I gave it two hundred — and then abandoned ship. I just didn’t get it.

Both John Cournos, who wrote the Introduction and did the Russian – English translation, and George Reavey, who provided a Foreword, may rightly feel that Biely was an unrecognized genius. I don’t dispute that. I just don’t get him.

It could well have to do with my immediate reading environment: almost exclusively in the NYC subway system. But I do much of my reading on the subway – and do it to a good end. Unfortunately, this was not the case with St. Petersburg. I found the plot line every bit as noisy and chaotic as the subway system itself.

Far be it from me to dissuade anyone with a serious interest in Russian literature from undertaking a read of St. Petersburg and correcting, for him- or herself (and for any other potentially interested reader here at Goodreads) my negative verdict. I’d prefer to think I just don’t have the right stuff for Biely.

RRB
11/08/13
Brooklyn, NY

Interesting take on the city in 1905 Russia. Like a travelogue.

A Petersburgo irreal e fantástica de Biéli descende diretamente do mito da Petersburgo de Puchkin, Gogol e Dostoiévski, mas não é a mesma. Isso porque a Petersburgo de Biéli é fruto de seu século, neurótica, parricida, descrita em uma linguagem quebrada e intrincada. Não é a toa que o exigentíssimo Nabokov disse que era um dos quatro melhores livros do século.
"Tu, Rússia, és como o cavalo! Dois cascos dianteiros projetados para a escuridão, pasa o zazio; e os dois cascos traseiros cravados firmemente no solo de granito.
Queres tu também te separar da pedra que te segura, da mesma maneira que alguns dos teus filhos loucos que se apartaram do torrão pátrio - queres tu também te separar da pedra que te sustenta e ficar suspensa no ar, sem rédeas, para precipitar-te depois no caos das águas? Ou talvez queira lançar-te, rompendo as neblinas, através do espaço, para desaparecer, juntamente com os teus filhos, nas nuvens? Ou, empinada, puseste-te a meditar por muitos anos, oh, Rússia, diante do terrível destino que aqui te lançou - no meio deste norte soturno, onde até o ocaso leva muitas horas, onde o próprio tempo se lança, ora na noite gelada, ora - no resplendor do dia? Ou, temerosa do salto, baixarás novamente os cascos para levar, bufando, o enorme Cavaleiro das terras ilusórias para o fundo dos espaços planos?
Que assim não seja!...
Tendo uma vez se empinado e medido o espaço com o olhar, não baixará mais os cascos: o salto sobre a história: haverá; haverá uma grande agitação, rachar-se-á a terra; abalados pelo grande temor, irão ruir os próprios montes e as planícies queridas virarão um mar de corcovas. Nijni Nóvgorod, Vladímir e Uglitch ficarão sobre as corcovas.
Mas Petersburgo afundará.
Nesses dias todos os povos da terra irão arremeter-se de seus lugares; haverá uma grande batalha, - uma batalha inédita no mundo: hostes amarelas de asiáticos deixarão os locais tradicionais de sua habitação para manchar os campos da Europa com oceanos de sangue; haverá, haverá - Sushima! Haverá - uma nova Kalka!...
Campo de Kulikovo, à tua espera estou!
E neste dia o último sol resplandecerá sobre a minha terra pátria. Se, oh, Sol, se tu não nasceres, então, oh, Sol, as costas européias irão afundar sob o pesado calcanhar mongólico, e sobre essas costas irá encrespar-se a espuma; criaturas nascidas na Terra descerão novamente para o fundo dos oceanos - para o caos, progênito a muito tempo esquecido...
Nasce, oh, Sol!"

"Time sharpens its teeth for everything-it devours body and soul and stone."

This is no ordinary book, and it was a mistake to think I could read it like one.

It is fantastically dense, with layers upon layers of symbolism, history - a very Russian book. Which is appropriate, as it deals with the Russian idea of identity. The unusual style and use of symbols is very off-putting, but you become accustomed to it, if not totally comprehending. I will have to return to this book in the future. It deserves as much.

Allettato dall'alto voto su librarything e dalla difficile reperibilità in Italia (il miglior libro di letteratura russa introvabile, stampato nel lontano 1961), ho prenotato una copia in biblioteca. Ho aperto trepidante il libro e mi sono arenato. Al di là dei nomi russi che sembrano cambiare da paragrafo a paragrafo (viene usato un po' il nome, un po' il cognome, un po' il soprannome), la lettura è veramente ostica.
È uno dei pochi libri che ho abbandonato: non sono andato oltre pagina 79 (343 in totale e XXXVI di introduzione).
Illeggibile in italiano, forse in russo è meglio.

"Not so loud, Nikolai Apollonovich - not so loud: people might hear us here!"
"They won't understand anything: it's quite impossible to understand..."

These sorts of modernist novels aren't really my cup of tea, I read them for the sake of it, and Petersburg didn't really do anything to change my mind about such books. There are the surreal elements, the various allusions throughout, and the often incoherent mumblings of the characters that at times makes this hard work to get through. At other times there's a haunting beauty to the novel and some quite touching passages; it's just shame they're a slim section of the story.

Historically important, sure. A pleasant read? That's another thing. But, to be fair, when contemplating whether to read a novel that is called a precursor to Ulysses you ought to know what you're letting yourself in for.½

Nabokov called it one of the best books of the 20th century. It's good, but really. The city and history are the real characters of this symbolist novel. It doesn't drag like a lot of Russian literature. I went and looked at photos of St. Petersburg and its monuments when I first started reading; if you haven't been to that city, it helps.½

uno dei più bei libri della letteratura russa.
peccoto che da noi non si stampi più.

There are two translations of this available and the one published by Grove is shite, so caveat lecter.

St. Petersburg is a strange book, set during the first socialist revolutions in Russia in 1905, written in 1916 with the Tsars losing their grip on power, and revised in 1922, after the Bolshevik revolution had succeeded. It covers a period of about 24 hours, in which Nikolai Ableukhov, an anarchist and reactionary revolutionary, attempts to plant a bomb in his father's study. His father, Apollon, is a dignitary of the old guard, representing old Russia to Nikolai and his group. The bomb, in an old sardine tin, is planted early in the novel, and ticks away in the background as Apollon and Nikolai attend a society function and travel the streets of their home city.

St. Petersburg is often cited as a pioneer of modernist fiction. Although it covers similar territory to Dostoevsky's 'The Devils', its reliance on different narrative viewpoints and psychological slants set it apart. At times it borders on horror, as a lovesick and disturbed Nikolai stalks his love wearing a mask and cape, like a ghoul on the misty streets. Although clearly political, it is as much a 'father and son' novel as one about revolution, with Nikolai's reactionary politics and Apollon's fustiness presented as both a cause of, and metaphor for, Russia on the brink of revolution. This very human approach, combined with a genuine spookiness touched with comic absurdity, made for a fascinating and unique book. It was a very enjoyable read, but just disturbing enough to be uncomfortable. A book I enjoyed a lot.

The one symphony [of his four] that are translated into english. Here he takes his idiosyncratic style found in Kotik Letayev and Petersburg and takes it further, treating images and patterns in the same way composers treat motifs in music. the experiment isn't always successful, but it is interesting.

The Bely Symphonies! I wish these would get translated! I saw them on a table in Moscow and bought them just so I could have them on the shelf. Only one has been translated so far--the others need to be.

Fun avant-garde reading that starts off quite odd [introducing parallelepiped to my vocabulary]and ends up as a strange suspenseful revolutionary pageturner. This makes me wish his Symphonies would get translated to English...½