Petersburg

by Andrei Bely, David McDuff (Translator), Adam Thirlwell (Introduction)

Andrei Bely's masterpiece, Petersburg is a vivid, striking story set at the heart of the 1905 Russian revolution. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Russian by David McDuff with an introduction by Adam Thirlwell.

St Petersburg, 1905. An impressionable young university student, Nikolai, becomes involved with a revolutionary terror organization, which plans to assassinate a high government official with a time bomb. But the official is Nikolai's cold, unyielding father, Apollon, and in twenty-four hours the bomb will explode. Petersburg is a story of suspense, family dysfunction, patricide, conspiracy and revolution. It is also an impressionistic, exhilarating panorama of the city itself, watched over by the bronze statue of Peter the Great, as it tears itself apart. Considered by writers such as Vladimir Nabokov to be one of the greatest masterpieces of the twentieth century, Bely's richly textured, darkly comic and symbolic novel pulled apart the traditional techniques of storytelling and presaged the dawn of a new form of literature.

This acclaimed translation captures all the idiosyncrasies and rhythms of Bely's extraordinary prose. It is accompanied by an introduction by Adam Thirwell discussing the novel's themes, extraordinary style and influence.

Genres: Fiction, Russia, Russian Literature, Classics, Literature, Novels, 20th Century

600 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1913

About the author

Boris Bugaev was born in Moscow, into a prominent intellectual family. His father, Nikolai Bugaev, was a leading mathematician who is regarded as a founder of the Moscow school of mathematics. His mother was not only highly intelligent but a famous society beauty, and the focus of considerable gossip. Young Boris was a polymath whose interests included mathematics, music, philosophy, and literature. He would go on to take part in both the Symbolist movement and the Russian school of neo-Kantianism.

Nikolai Bugaev was well known for his influential philosophical essays, in which he decried geometry and probability and trumpeted the virtues of hard analysis. Despite—or because of—his father's mathematical tastes, Boris Bugaev was fascinated by probability and particularly by entropy, a notion to which he frequently refers in works such as Kotik Letaev.

Bely's creative works notably influenced—and were influenced by—several literary schools, especially symbolism. They feature a striking mysticism and a sort of moody musicality. The far-reaching influence of his literary voice on Russian writers (and even musicians) has frequently been compared to the impact of James Joyce in the English-speaking world. The novelty of his sonic effects has also been compared to the innovative music of Charles Ives.[citation needed]

As a young man, Bely was strongly influenced by his acquaintance with the family of philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, especially Vladimir's younger brother Mikhail, described in his long autobiographical poem The First Encounter (1921); the title is a reflection of Vladimir Solovyov's Three Encounters.

Bely's symbolist novel Petersburg (1916; 1922) is generally considered to be his masterpiece. The book employs a striking prose method in which sounds often evoke colors. The novel is set in the somewhat hysterical atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Petersburg and the Russian Revolution of 1905. To the extent that the book can be said to possess a plot, this can be summarized as the story of the hapless Nikolai Apollonovich, a ne'er-do-well who is caught up in revolutionary politics and assigned the task of assassinating a certain government official—his own father. At one point, Nikolai is pursued through the Petersburg mists by the ringing hooves of the famous bronze statue of Peter the Great.[citation needed]

In his later years Bely was influenced by Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy[3][4] and became a personal friend of Steiner's. He died, aged 53, in Moscow.

Bely was one of the major influences on the theater of Vsevolod Meyerhold.[citation needed]

The Andrei Bely Prize (Russian: Премия Андрея Белого), one of the most important prizes in Russian literature, was named after him. His poems were set on music and frequently performed by Russian singer-songwriters.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his later years, when Andrei Bely was slowly going mad, he hacked his original text of Petersburg making it twice shorter and endlessly dryer in order to make it readable for proles. I doubt that any proletarian had ever read the novel but somehow this bastardly version had found its way to English translation. And only lately the adequate modern translation of the novel has been published in English.
The book is written in the magnificently burlesque language and it is a kaleidoscope of human whims, caprices, fixations, phobias and ideas.

Solitary street lamps were metamorphosed into sea creatures with prismatic spines”

Andrei Bely virtually turns Petersburg into a tenebrous undersea realm and populates it with all sorts of revolutionary, reactionary, anarchistic, deranged, regressive and renegade monsters.

And now, as he looked pensively into that boundlessness of mists, the man of state suddenly expanded out of the black cube in all directions and soared above it; and he desired that the carriage should fly forward, that the prospects should fly towards him – prospect after prospect, that the whole spherical surface of the planet should be gripped by the blackish-grey cubes of the houses as by serpentine coils; that the whole of the earth squeezed by prospects should intersect the immensity in linear cosmic flight with rectilinear law…

And somewhere near the bomb keeps ticking…

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 5 out of 5]

”Nikolai Apollonovich raised curious eyes toward the immense outline of the Horseman (a shadow had covered him); but now the metal lips were parted in an enigmatic smile.
The storm clouds were rent asunder and, in the moonlight, clouds swirled like the green vapor from melted bronze. For a moment, everything flared: waters, roofs, granite. The face of the Horseman and the bronze laurel wreath flared. And a many-tonned arm extended imperiously. It seemed that the arm was about to move, and that metallic hooves at any moment would come crashing down upon the crag, and through all of Petersburg would resound.”




The Bronze Horseman that Andrei Bely is referring to in this novel is of course the statue of Peter the Great which is the most recognizable structure that people will identify with St. Petersburg. I had a postcard of the Bronze Horseman that someone gave me when I was a kid. When I discovered that St. Petersburg was the center of cultural achievement I knew it was the place I most wanted to visit in Russia. They’ve changed the name several times: to Petrograd in 1914 and to Leningrad in 1924; as if you can change the soul of a city by changing the name. In 1991 it was changed back to Saint Petersburg although the name had never changed for me. Whenever I see a picture of Tsar Peter on his frisky horse I get a jolt that connects the middle aged me to the child me and I dream again of seeing Russia. Pushkin wrote a narrative poem about the statue and the influence of Pushkin on Bely is evident in the text.

He runs and hears as if there were,
Just behind him, the peals of thunder,
Of the hard-ringing hoofs’ reminders, –
A race the empty square across,
Upon the pavement, fiercely tossed;
And by the moon, that palled lighter,
Having stretched his hand over roofs,
The Brazen Horseman rides him after –
On his steed of the ringing hoofs.
And all the night the madman, poor,
Where’er he might direct his steps,
Aft him the Bronze Horseman, for sure,
Keeps on the heavy-treading race.
Alexander Pushkin

[image error]
Andrei Bely, a fortunate son of brilliant parents.

Andrei Bely was a polymath, but his main interests were mathematics, music, literature, and philosophy. All figure prominently in the story. He describes the character Apollon Apollonovich, father of Nikolai, in mathematical terms.

”While dwelling in the center of the black, perfect, satin-lined cube, Apollon Apollonovich revelled at length in the quadrangular walls. Apollon Apollonovich was born for solitary confinement. Only his love for the plane geometry of the state had invested him in the polyhedrality of a responsible position.”

Apollon goes on to describe his house.

”He would have characterized even his own house with laconic brevity, as consisting, for him, of walls (forming squares and cubes) into which windows were cut, of parquetry, of tables. Beyond that were details.”

Even with hallucinations math figures prominently.

”A man of all three dimensions had entered the room. He had leaned against the window and had become a contour (or, two-dimensional), had become a thin layer of soot of the sort you knock out of a lamp. Now this black soot had suddenly smoldered away into an ash that gleamed in the moonlight, and the ash was flying away. And there was no contour. The whole material substance had turned into a phonic substance that was jabbering away. But where? It seemed to Alexander Ivanovich that the jabbering had now started up inside him.”

Nobody does crazy like the Russians.

Nikolai’s has been approached by an anarchist group to kill a high ranking Tsarist official that just happens to be his father. The father and the son have issues, but as the novel progresses it becomes more evident how much they are exactly alike. The mother/wife ran off with an opera singer two years ago and probably whatever differences the two men had could have easily been smoothed over by her presence. They both miss her, but both are busy or at least distracted by their lives and most of their issues seem to be more about misunderstandings than any real hostility. Nikolai is given a bomb in a sardine tin that is set on a timer so it is already ticking. He loathes sardines which does not help his state of mind as this ticking tin also reeks of fish.

To make matters worse he is in love with a married woman named Sofya Petrovna Likhutina who has spurned his advances. Her husband, a military officer, gets wind of Nikolai’s interest in his wife and after a failed suicide attempt that is pathetic/hilarious he decides his problem isn’t with himself, but with Nikolai.

Immanuel Kant is doing his best to keep Nikolai sane.

Nikolai has been reading Immanuel Kant, but despite the best efforts of the philosopher his mind is unwrapping, becoming untethered from logic.

”In this room, not so very long ago, Nikolai Apollonovich had grown into a self-contained center, into a series of logical premises that flowed from the center and predetermined everything: the soul, thought and this very armchair. Not so very long ago he had been the sole center of the universe here. But ten days had gone by, and his self-awareness was now getting disgracefully stuck in the heaped-up pile of objects. Thus does a fly, freely running around the edge of a plate on its six legs, suddenly get hopelessly stuck by one leg and wing in sticky thick honey.”

He begins dressing as a domino, pursuing Sofya, nothing like making a fool of yourself for a woman. I’ve even heard sometimes it works. He is dressed in scarlet which might indicate a lot of things. It might be that he already feels stained by what he intends to do to his father.

”The domino, stepping over the threshold, trailed its bloody satin across the parquetry. It was barely mirrored in the panels which shimmered in a crimson ripple of its own reflections, as if a little pool of blood were flowing from panel to panel.”

Nikolai is recognized as the domino and as a result his father is passed over for a promotion. Humorous situations ensue as Nikolai attempts to get to the ticking tin to toss it in the river, but his harried life keeps getting in the way.


I’m not going to tell Vladimir he is wrong.

To be clear this is a masterpiece. You don’t have to believe me. It was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the four greatest "masterpieces of twentieth century prose", after Ulysses and The Metamorphosis, and before In Search of Lost Time. It was published in 1913 so it predates Ulysses, but because Petersburg was not translated into English until 1954 it gets shortchanged by Joyce’s masterpiece.

For me this was a much more accessible book than Ulysses. I was lost at times, but not Joyce lost. The edition I read was the Indiana University Press version and it has these wonderful footnotes that at times I hungrily devoured and at other points simply ignored. I believe that sometimes you just have to let the story take you and ignore what you don’t quite grasp.
This book has layers upon layers and if I were to read it again, I would write a totally different review merely by focusing on a myriad of other wonderful pieces of writing.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

[Fionnuala]

The twin spires of Time and Light stand out for me on the busy skyline of this phenomenal book. Time counts down the narrative while Light provides the special effects that rhythm the ebb and flow of the truly idiosyncratic counting down process.

Yes, 'ebb and flow' is appropriate to mention here. We expect Time to move only in one direction and always at the same pace according to the age-old rules but Bely's Time strikes right through the rule book. It doubles back, and when it's not busy reversing, it suddenly speeds up in a thunderous wave, or, even more bizarrely, slows down to a complete stop! The exclamation mark at the end of that sentence is there for more than exclamatory purposes. Bely uses exclamation marks as if they'd just been invented; sometimes they even mark pauses especially when the narrative has gone into one of its fast forward modes and the reader is at risk of collapsing from the exhaustion of keeping up. Then Bely drops an exclamation mark onto the page followed by an ellipsis or two and some blank space, and our hearts return to normal rhythm and we take time to rethink what we've just read, realising that it may only have been an hallucination on the part of a character—or even a hallucination of our own!……


…When the blank space becomes print again, we invariably find the clock has been wound back once more so that we are being shown the same scene from a different point of view, and what seemed utterly phantasmagorical a few moments before becomes just an ordinary Petersburg night with a few trees tossing about on the city's main thoroughfare, the Nevsky Prospect.
But even a regular windy night can seem bizarre when Bely gives it his Light treatment. The sky is often greenish or pewter coloured; the Nevsky Prospect is enveloped in a fiery murk; street lights are blood-red pinpoints; the roofs of houses give off a phosphorescent sheen; passersby are reduced to shadows while shadows suddenly form themselves into passersby. Alongside the oddly ticking Time, this playing around with Light leaves us uncertain about what we've just read. Does the crimson sky indicate morning or is it actually evening? Is that building really adorned with black lace or is it only the shadow of the trees? Did the statue of the famous Bronze Horseman just thunder down from its giant plinth to chase a character through the city as in Pushkin's poem of the same name? Or was it a trick of the Light—in collusion with some phantom Sound engineer?


Yes, Sound works closely with Light to make us very wary of Petersburg's grey and foggy streets. They seem to echo all the time with a ghostly 'ooo', and even when we stop reading, we think we can still hear it, ooo-ooo-ooo...

Of course the year is 1905, when 'revoloootion' was in the air, and that backdrop is partly responsible for some of the sounds we think we hear as we read, such as the whoosh of gravel thrown at a window by a mob or the clicking sound in the corner of a room that could simply be a cockroach or a mouse, but could also be something much more menacing. Then there's the constant whistle of steamboats out on the Neva, and the 'i' sound that the wind carries from across Russia: the sound of public ire, of strikes, of picket lines, of every Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov, marching, marching, marching.

Footsteps rhythm the story, tatam, tam, tam!…tatatam, tam, tam! perhaps while a character thinks about the music of Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, or on a different page, a different character plucks the strings of a guitar, bam, bam, bam, strumming out what could be the line of the narrative, but then breaking off...mid-line...

The line of the narrative, if it could be traced on paper, might follow this odd pattern:

That graphic representation of a narrative arc was made by Laurence Sterne nearly 200 years before Bely wrote this book, but if I've paused to recall Sterne's Tristram Shandy, it's with a dual purpose. Both authors play around with Time in their novels, pulling it out to an extraordinary degree, and both authors also love digressions—in Sterne's novel the digressions simply amuse whereas in Bely's they heighten the suspense in a major way, and increasingly, as the pages turn. And while we're talking digressions, let me mention another author who plays with Time: Dostoyevsky, in Crime and Punishment. Coincidentally, the time span of that novel is the same as Bely's, ten days or so. Dostoyevsky makes us very aware of Time passing although he specialises not in jumping about in time but in slowing it down, recording each second of his character's ten day existence. And as I read Bely's Petersburg, I was reminded of Dostoyevsky's novel for other reasons besides the treatment of Time. Dostoyevsky's main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, constantly roams the Nevsky Prospect just as Bely's characters do, and Raskolnikov himself possesses traits that mirror those of Bely's two main characters, Nicolai Apollonovich Ableukhov and Alexandr Ivanovich Dudkin. Like Raskolnikov, Ableukhov's intensive course of philosophical studies has confused his mind so much that he finds himself involved in a crime, while Bely's second hero, Dudkin, suffers from hallucinations just as Raskolnikov does. Both Dudkin and Raskolnikov live in tiny cupboard-like rooms with yellowed wallpaper through which they imagine they are being spied on by malevolent eyes, and both eventually commit violent acts, one with an axe, one with a...scissors! It's also interesting that in both novels there's an agent provocateur who plays psychological games with the main characters and drives them to a state approaching delirium:
Had my panic-stricken hero been able to take a look at himself from the side at that moment, he would have been horrified; in the greenish, moonlit little cupboard of a room he would have seen himself clutching at his stomach and bawling with effort into the absolute emptiness in front of him; his head was thrown right back, and the enormous opening of his yelling mouth would have seemed to him a black abyss of non-existence; but Aleksandr Ivanovich could not jump out of himself: and he did not see himself…


But to return to the themes of Time and Light that dominated Bely's book for me, perhaps the image I will take with me from the reading experience is not Munch's Scream but the following word picture: the Nevsky Prospect is bathed in a fiery crimson glow that might be dawn or might be dusk; it is thronging with bowler hats, moustaches, noses and shoulders; noses flowed past in large numbers; the aquiline nose and the cockerel nose; the duck-like nose, the hen's nose; and so on, and so on...; the nose was turned to one side; or the nose was not at all turned; greenish, green, pale, white and red...and shoulders, shoulders, shoulders flowed past; all the shoulders formed a thick mass, as black as coal; all the shoulders formed a highly viscous and slowly flowing mass. This viscous mass snakes along the Prospect, day in, day out, while high above the city, the Bronze Horseman leaps forward, eternally...

………………………………………………

And now of course I'm reading Gogol's Nevsky Prospect in a volume that includes The Nose....

[°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Πετρούπολη, Πετρούπολη!
Πολιορκημένη ἀπὸ τὴν καταχνιά, κι ἐμένα μὲ καταδίωκες μὲ ἕνα μάταιο παιχνίδι τοῦ μυαλοῦ· ἐσύ, ἄκαρδε τύραννε, ἐσύ, φάντασμα ἀνειρήνευτο, χρόνια ἐσὺ μὲ κυνηγοῦσες. Ἔτρεχα στὶς φρικτὲς λεωφόρους σου καί, μὲ τὴ φόρα ποὺ ἔπαιρνα, ἔβγαινα σ’ ἐκείνη τὴ σιδερένια γέφυρα ποὺ ξεκινοῦσε ἀπὸ τὴν ἄκρη τῆς γῆς καὶ ἔβγαζε στὴν ἀπεραντοσύνη τοῦ ἀπείρου. Πέρα ἀπὸ τὸν Νέβα, μέσα στὴ θαμπή, πράσινη ἀπεραντοσύνη ὑψώνονταν τὰ φαντάσματα τῶν
νησιῶν καὶ τῶν σπιτιῶν, πλανεύοντάς σε μὲ τὴ μάταιη ἐλπίδα ὅτι ἡ στεριὰ ἐτούτη εἶναι ἡ πραγματικότητα καὶ δὲν εἶναι ἡ ἀπεραντοσύνη ποὺ οὐρλιάζει, ποὺ κυνηγάει μέσα στοὺς δρόμους τῆς Πετρούπολης τὸν ὠχρὸ καπνὸ τῶν νεφῶν».

Η «Πετρούπολη» είναι ένα ποιητικό έργο πεζογραφίας, μια επική δημιουργία μοντέρνου λυρισμού και χαοτικού συμβολισμού.
Μια βαθιά βιοψυχολογική ραψωδία διαλογισμού σχετικά με το πεπρωμένο της Ρωσίας που διασπάται ανάμεσα στο πάθος και το κλάμα, τις φιλοσοφικές απορρίψεις που οδηγούν σε διαλυμένες κοινωνικές σχέσεις, αναρχικές κρίσεις εθισμών αλλά και σε ατομικές συνειδησιακές θύελλες

Όλο το έργο ως πολιτικό θρίλερ, με άπειρες διακλαδώσεις δραματικής αναπαράστασης συναρπαστικής τέχνης, προς ένα κοινό απαιτητικό και επίμονο, που ζει και εξελίσσεται με τα πατήματα του χορού μιας τραγωδίας, σε ρυθμό ωρολογιακής βόμβας.
Αντίστροφο, πολυεπίπεδο παράδοξο, επαναστατικό, τρομοκρατικό, υποκειμενικά και φαινομενικά απλό, μέσα σε έναν λαβύρινθο απομόνωσης.

Σιωπή και αφόρητη βουή συνομωσίας σε ένα ετερόκλητο πλήθος υπάρξεων. Σκοτάδι και ιριδίζουσα αναπνοή απο υδάτινες αναπνοές νερών σε αιωνόβια ποτάμια γεμάτο βακίλους και ορμητικούς χείμαρρους εμφύλιας αλλαγής. Χίλια κομμάτια σπασμένα οι καθρέφτες του δυτικού καλλωπισμού σκορπίζονται απο ανέμους που δεν άντεξε να κρατήσει ο κόκκινος ασκός του Αιόλου και πλημμύρισαν οι ψυχές με θύελλες και έμπιστες προδοσίες.

Ο Μπέλυ εκφράζει ολοκληρωτικό κίνδυνο ευπάθειας, απομόνωσης και δυσοίωνα, αποκαλυπτικά αισθήματα ανησυχίας και αποπροσανατολισμού.
Αυτή η αβάσταχτη αίσθηση ανασφάλειας και παραληρηματικής ενδοσκόπησης βαλτώνει την Πετρούπολη του 1905 και συμπίπτει με την συναίσθηση του αναγνώστη και την απόγνωση των κατοίκων της.

Οι ήρωες ειναι αριστουργηματικές φιγούρες πανανθρώπινων χαρακτηριστικών και ιδιοτήτων.
Σε μια ενθουσιώδη Πετρούπολη που παραπαίει σε μια συναρπαστική, κοινωνική, ιστορική, και ψυχολογικά νευρασθενική φιλοσοφία, συναντώνται μυριάδες χαρακτήρες που πλημμυρίζουν την πόλη και το μυθιστόρημα.
Ισχυροί και προνομιούχοι, φτωχοί και δυσαρεστημένοι.
Ο μπρούτζινος καβαλάρης παρακολουθεί την ζωντανή εικόνα απο διπλούς πράκτορες, τρομοκράτες, μυστική αστυνομία, δημοσιογράφους, κυβερνητικούς αξιωματούχους και έναν λαό απρόβλεπτο στη χαρά και τη λύπη.
Όλα αυτά κρυμμένα σε μια πεζογραφία που είναι πυκνή σε ήχο και νόημα και πολύπλοκη σε σημεία και σύμβολα.

Ξεχωριστή αφηγηματική δομή και λέξεις που δημιουργούν εικόνες για να λυγίσουν το μυαλό. Κίνημα συμβολισμού, δημιουργική χρήση της γλώσσας και ένα έργο ζύμωσης της ρωσικής επανάστασης.
Υπερτέλειες περιγραφικές δημιουργίες και η παντοτινή ρωσική τρελή φρενίτιδα.

Ειλικρινά, δεν είμαι σε θέση να πω με σιγουριά κάτι, μια άποψη απόλυτη ή κατά προσέγγιση χαρακτηριστική, ως προς την κατάταξη του βιβλίου στο πάνθεον της παγκόσμιας λογοτεχνίας, διότι αυτό που θα πάρετε απο αυτό το έργο εξαρτάται άρρηκτα απο αυτό που θα του ζητήσετε να σας δώσει.


« -ἀπὸ ἐκεῖ ἀκριβῶς, μὲ τὰ σκιερὰ πανιά του πέταξε γιὰ τὴν Πετρούπολη ὁ Ἱπτάμενος Ὁλλανδός, ἀπὸ τὴ μολυβένια ἀπεραντοσύνη τῶν θαλασσῶν τῆς Βαλτικῆς καὶ τῆς Γερμανίας, γιὰ νὰ στήσει ἐδῶ μὲ ἀπάτη τὶς δικές του καταχνιασμένες χῶρες καὶ νὰ ὀνομάσει νησιὰ τὸ κύμα τῶν νεφῶν ποὺ ἔφταναν ὣς ἐδῶ, δυὸ αἰῶνες τώρα ἄναβε ἀπὸ δῶ ὁ Ὁλλανδὸς τὰ κολασμένα φῶτα τῶν καπηλειῶν, κι ὁ ὀρθόδοξος λαὸς ὁλοένα σερνόταν μέσα σὲ τοῦτα τὰ κολασμένα καπη- λειά, μεταδίδοντας τὴ σαπρία...»

🖤

♥️
Καλή ανάγνωση. ⭐️
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick note on the four available translations:

The first point is that there are two versions of this novel – the original of 1916 and a later version from 1922. The 1922 version was heavily edited by the author, with significant portions of the text removed, mainly to make it easier to read. He removed many of the more experimental sections, and added clearer structure at the expense of some of his flights of fancy. The shorter version is about 380 pages in the Maguire, the longer is 570 in the Pushkin and 600 in the Penguin, and both have similar size type. For that reason alone I would not recommend reading the 1922 version.

Here is what someone else has said: “"Peterburg was first published serially in 1913-14 and in book form in 1916. Bely revised it--largely by making more or less random drastic cuts--for its republication in Berlin in 1922. The novel was reprinted in Soviet Russia with further changes in 1928 and 1935. Several reprintings of different versions have since appeared outside Russia. While the cuts of the 1916 version may have improved the novel structurally, they resulted in dangling loose ends and unpursued hints. This in turn, incidentally, has had a negative effect on translations, giving rise to passages which make little sense."

The Elsworth and McDuff translations are from the 1916 edition, and should therefore be preferred. Of the two translations it should be noted that the Elsworth is the most recent, he is a respected scholar of Bely’s work (and has written books in English on him) and it won the Rossica Translation prize in 2012.

Comparison of translations:

The first line in Russian is: "Аполлон Аполлонович Аблеухов был весьма почтенного рода: он имел своим предком Адама."

Google translate gives me: "Apollo Apollonovich Ableukhov was very respectable kind : he had his ancestor Adam."

1. Elsworth - "Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov was of exceedingly venerable stock: he had Adam for his ancestor."

2. Maguire - "Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov came of most respected stock: he had Adam as his ancestor."

3. McDuff - "Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov came of most respected stock: he had Adam as his ancestor."

4. Cournos - "Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov came of very good stock: Adam was his ancestor."

I think the Elsworth is much better, certainly “exceedingly venerable” is much funnier.

****************

This is a dialectic novel.

East/West
Father/Son (interesting similarity to Ulysses in that respect, though this came first)
Chaos/Order
Apollo/Dionysus
the City/the islands
geometric forms/mist and fog
creation/destruction

etc etc etc


An excerpt (if this does not make you want to read this novel, please make an appointment with your doctor...)

Beards, moustaches, chins: that abundance comprised the upper extremities of human torsos.

Shoulders flowed by, shoulders and shoulders; all together, the shoulders formed a pitch-black porridge; all the shoulders formed a slow-flowing porridge of extreme viscosity; and Alexandr Ivanovich’s shoulder immediately became attached to that porridge; stuck to it, you might say; and Alexandr Ivanovich Dudkin followed that self-willed shoulder, in accordance with the law of the indivisible wholeness of bodies; thus he was disgorged on to Nevskii Prospect; and there he was compressed like a single grain into the porridge that flowed with blackness.

What is a grain? It is both a world and an object of consumption; as an object of consumption a grain—of caviar, say—does not represent in itself a satisfactory wholeness; that wholeness—is caviar: the aggregate of grains; the consumer is not aware of grains of caviar; but he is aware of caviar; that is, the porridge of grains of caviar. Spread on a proffered sandwich. In just the same way the bodies of individuals who emerge on to the pavement are transformed on Nevskii Prospect into the organs of a communal body, into the grains of the caviar: the Nevskii pavements are a field of sandwiches. Exactly the same happened to the body of Dudkin as he emerged here: exactly the same happened to his persistent thought—to the thought of a huge, many-legged creature that ran along the Nevskii.

They left the pavement; multitudinous legs were running there; and they stared speechlessly at the multitudinous legs of the dark porridge of people as it ran past: the porridge, incidentally, was not flowing, but creeping: creeping and shuffling—creeping and shuffling on a tide of legs; the porridge was composed of many thousands of tiny constituents; every tiny constituent was a torso: and the torsos ran on legs.

There were no people on Nevskii Prospect; what was there was a creeping, clamouring myriapod; a miscellany of voices—a miscellany of words—was pouring out into a single moisture-laden space; coherent sentences clashed against each other and broke; and words flew apart there senselessly and terribly like the shards of empty bottles, all broken in a single spot: all of them, mixed at random, were woven together again into a sentence that flew for all infinity, without beginning or end; this sentence seemed senseless and woven from fantasy: the unalleviated senselessness of the sentence thus composed hung like black soot over the Nevskii; the black smoke of fantastic tales enveloped all its space.

And the Neva, swelling now and then, roared at those fantastic tales and beat against the massive granite walls.

The creeping myriapod is terrible. Here, along the Nevskii, it has been running for centuries. But higher up, above the Nevskii—it’s the seasons that do the running: springs, autumns, winters. There the sequence is changeable; but here—the sequence is unchanging in its springs, summers and winters;; through springs, summers, winters the sequence is the same. And, as we know, a limit is set to periods of time; and—period follows upon period; after spring comes summer; autumn follows upon summer and passes over into winter; and in spring everything thaws. There is no such limit to the human myriapod; nothing takes its place; its segments may change, but it—is forever the same; somewhere over there, beyond the railway station, its head bends round; its tail protrudes into Morskaia; but along the Nevskii its segments, the legs that are its members, shuffle by—with no head, no tail, no consciousness, no thought; the myriapod creeps past as it has always crept; and as it has crept, so it will go on creeping.

(pages 342-344, Petersburg by Andrei Bely, Pushkin Press, 2009, translation by John Elsworth)

[Mark André · Rating 4 out of 5]

A curious work. Something definitely out of the common groove. But it is a novel, and there is a story that does get told, albeit in a rather quirky way. When the pace is strong, it's good and fun to read; while at other times when the pace is slow, the author becomes somewhat self-indulgent: entertaining himself with mists and shadows and other unsubstantial things. Not bad, not great; 3.5-stars, we'll call it 4.

[ArturoBelano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bu kitap ile yolum Ulyssese dair okumalar yaparken kesişti. Bir internet sitesinde başka ülkelerin Ulyssesleri diye bir liste yapılmıştı ve orada rusça için Petersburg kitabı önerilmişti. Hemen hemen çoğu rus klasiğini okumuş olmama rağmen bu kitabın adını duymamıştım. Türkçeye Sabri Gürses tarafından 2006 yılında çevrilen Petersburg için Nabokov joyce'un Ulysses, Kafka'nın Dönüşüm ve Proust'un Kayıp Zamanın İzinde'siyle birlikte 20. Yüzyılın dört büyük başyapıtından biri diyordu ve bu doğallığında beklentimi artırıyordu. Yaklaşık iki hafta süren okuma sürecinin sonunda söylemek isterim ki Petersburg bütün beklentilerimi kat be kat karşıladı. Anthony Burgess bu kitap için " bütün Rusya'yı anlatan tek roman" derken haklı, 1913 yılında yazılan roman tüm rus edebiyat geleneğinin hem devamcısı hem de onu aşan bir eser. Gogol'un burunları, 9. Dereceden memurları, Dostoyevski'nin çatı katlarında yaşayan radikal meczuplarına, Turgenyev'in nihilistleri ile karışıyor ve hepsi 1905 devriminin öngünlerinde bir saatli bombanın tik takları eşliğinde Petersburg'u arşınlıyor. Marshall Berman Katı Olan Her Şey Buharlaşıyor'da Petersburg için şunları diyor

Petersburg modernist ve gerçekçi bir yapıt olduğu kadar da bir gelenek romanı, Petersburg geleneğinin romanıdır. Her sayfa şehrin tarihinin, edebiyatının ve folklorunun gelenek birikimine bulanmıştır. Gerçek ve hayali figürler- büyük petro ve ardılları, Puşkin, Puşkin'in memuruyla Bronz Süvari,Gogol tarzı paltolar ve burunlar, lüzumsuz adamlar ve rus hamletleri, ikizler ve ecinniler, katil çarlar ve çar katilleri, Aralıkçılar, yeraltı adamı, Anna Karenina, Raskolnikov, bir yandan da Pers'liler, Moğollar, Uçan Hollandalalı ve daha bir çokları- Biely'nin karekterlerinin zihninde gezinmekle kalmaz şehrin sokaklarında bedene bürünürler. Zaman zaman kitap Petersburg geleneğinin birikmiş ağırlığı altında gömülüp kalacakmış gibi olur; kimi zamansa geleneğin artan basıncından parçalanıp gidecekmiş gibi gelir. Ama kitabı dolduran sorunlar şehri de uğtaştırmaktadır. Petersburglular da kendi şehirlerinin gelenekleri tarafından parçalanacak ve boğulacak gibidirler.

Geçenlerde okuduğum bir yorumda dendiği gibi " Ulysses'den önceki Ulysses'i" tüm iyi okurlara tavsiye ederim, belki siz de Nabokov'a hak verirsiniz.

[foteini_dl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Το βιβλίο αυτό είναι η ιστορία μιας ολόκληρης πόλης, της Πετρούπολης, λίγο πριν την επανάσταση του 1905. Όλοι οι ήρωες ζουν εκεί, όλη η δράση εξελίσσεται εκεί. Ακούμε τα βήματα των ανθρώπων, τα γέλια, τον καλπασμό των αλόγων, τη βουή των δρόμων. Ακούμε τις διαμαρτυρίες ("επανάσταση","προλεταριάτο","απεργία"). Ακούμε, βλέπουμε, αισθανόμαστε και την κοινωνική αλλαγή που έρχεται, η οποία δηλώνεται με κόκκινο χρώμα/ντόμινο, αυτό που φοβάται ένας απ' τους κεντρικούς χαρακτήρες της ιστορίας, ο Απολλών Απολλώνοβιτς, εκπρόσωπος της αστικής τάξης που παρακμάζει. Περιπλανιόμαστε στους αχανείς δρόμους της Πετρούπολης, γινόμαστε ένα μ' αυτή.

Και ξαφνικά, ο τόπος διαστέλλεται. Ο συγγραφέας ξεφεύγει απ' τα όρια της Πετρούπολης, αρνείται να κλειστεί στα όριά της, για να εξερευνήσει όλη τη Ρωσία.Και, έπειτα, επιστρέφει πάλι στην Πετρούπολη. Την εξερευνά εκ νέου, τη χαρτογραφεί -αυτή και τους ανθρώπους της.

Ένα πραγματικά υπέροχο βιβλίο. Και μια μετάφραση από την Ελένη Μπακοπούλου που φαίνεται άθλος.

[Το Άθχημο γατί του θενιόρ Γκουαναμίρου · Rating 5 out of 5]

Μυθιστόρημα που μπορεί να διαβαστεί ποικιλοτρόπως, επέλεξα να το προσεγγίσω ως μια κωμωδία ηθών και ως μια παρωδία των Ρώσων κλασικών.

Στον κορμό της υπόθεσης υπάρχει μια βόμβα που μοιάζει με σαρδελοκούτι. Στην Πετρούπολη, εκεί όπου τα πλήθη φαίνεται πως δημιουργούν μια οντότητα κολοσσιαίων διαστάσεων η οποία πλέει μεθυσμένη μέσα στις δηλητηριώδεις αναθυμιάσεις ενός βάλτου, που το βίτσιο ενός Τσάρου τον μετέτρεψε σε πόλη, ζει ένας πατέρας κι ένας γιος, αποξενωμένοι και ανίκανοι να επικοινωνήσουν.

Το ζήτημα της επικοινωνίας ή ορθότερα της έλλειψής της αποτελεί μια βασική πτυχή του έργου. Δεν είναι μόνο όσα δεν λέγονται εκείνα που οδηγούν τους ήρωες σε παράλογες και παρανοϊκές συμπεριφορές αλλά και όσα λέγονται πέφτουν στο κενό, χάνονται μέσα σε ένα γαϊτανάκι ψεμάτων, υπεκφυγών, παραισθήσεων και ψευδαισθήσεων.

Γιατί ένας νεαρός πλούσιος άνδρας αναλαμβάνει την ευθύνη της εκτέλεσης ενός τρομοκρατικού σχεδίου με στόχο τον ίδιο του τον πατέρα; Απλούστατα δεν την αναλαμβάνει. Δεν μπορεί να αποφασίσει για τίποτα, είναι ένας κόκκινος παλιάτσος, που στέκει μετέωρος ανάμεσα στις ασιατικές καταβολές του και τη δυτική κουλτούρα την οποία σπουδάζει και στην οποία οφείλει τα προνόμιά του.

Γιατί ένας πατέρας δεν μπορεί να κάνει το πρώτο βήμα συμφιλίωσης με το γιο του; Γιατί νιώθει το βάρος της ενοχής, αυτό το παιδί συνελήφθη από μια σχέση χωρίς αγάπη, είναι κατά μία έννοια προϊόν βιασμού και ο καθωσπρεπισμός, η τάξη, οι επιφανειακές εκδηλώσεις σεβασμού, το πρωτόκολλο είναι όλα όσα τον κάνουν κακό πατέρα αλλά εξαίρετο δημόσιο λειτουργό, είναι ο καλύτερος γραφειοκράτης της Ρωσικής Αυτοκρατορίας.

Ανάμεσα στους δύο κεντρικούς ήρωες παρελαύνει ένα πλήθος φαιδρών χαρακτήρων, ένα μικροαστικό ζευγάρι παρωδία ρωσικού δράματος, ένας παράφρονας επαναστάτης, ένας χαφιές, ένας θλιμμένος χριστός ή αρχάγγελος, ένας θρησκομανής από ένα προηγούμενο μυθιστόρημα του συγγραφέα, μια μητέρα που επιστρέφει μετά από χρόνια ως πρόβατο απολωλός. Στα νησιά και στα εργοστάσια της μεγάλης πολιτείας επικρατεί επαναστατικός αναβρασμός, ετοιμάζονται απεργίες, ακονίζονται μαχαίρια. Αλλά ο λαός βρίσκεται στο περιθώριο της αφήγησης.

Ένας τόπος διχασμένος όπου καμία από τις δύο πλευρές δεν μπορεί να έρθει σε επικοινωνία με την άλλη για να επιτευχθεί ένας σωτήριος συμβιβασμός. Οι μόνοι μεσάζοντες είναι οι χαφιέδες και οι προδότες, πέρα από αυτούς δεν υπάρχει τίποτε άλλο εκτός από έναν τεράστιο ωρολογιακό μηχανισμό που από λεπτό σε λεπτό ετοιμάζεται να εκραγεί.

Ακόμα κι αν η βόμβα δεν βρει τον στόχο της η ζημιά έχει γίνει. Καθώς οι ανθρώπινες ζωές κατακερματισμένες ματαίως πασχίζουν να βρουν κάτι που να τις κρατήσει ενωμένες.

...Θέλεις άραγε να αποκοπείς από την πέτρα που σε κρατάει όπως αποκόπηκαν από το έδαφος κάποιοι από τους άφρονες γιους σου; - θέλεις άραγε να αποκοπείς από την πέτρα που σε κρατάει και να ανυψωθείς στον αέρα χωρίς χαλινά για να καταδυθείς στη συνέχεια στο χάος των νερών;

Η μετάφραση της Ελένης Μπακοπούλου είναι εξαίσια (υπάρχουν στο τέλος του βιβλίου υποσημειώσεις κι ένα επίμετρο) και προσωπικά δεν βρήκα τίποτα στο κείμενο που να μου θυμίζει τον Οδυσσέα του Joyce. Ο Bely πατάει επάνω στον κανόνα του κλασικού μυθιστορήματος του 19ου αιώνα, απλά ως ένα βαθμό χαλαρώνει και αποδομεί το κείμενό του, προφανώς για να μπορέσει να χωρέσει περισσότερα από όσα μια παραδοσιακή αφήγηση θα του επέτρεπε.

[Jan-Maat]

The Bronze Horseman descends from his pedestal and goes visiting at night (it turns out that he smokes a pipe) and indeed generally appears to have calmed down since the days of Pushkin's poem. A young man has a bomb which is given literary expression - like a talking clock but with more drama. The wallpaper bubbles with crawling cockroaches.

This is St. Petersburg before the revolution. It has a great long street on which are doors with numbers on them, numbers in sequence mind you. It is the capital, but it is not the capital, and if it is not the capital then what is it?

A novel that isn't The Brothers Karamazov but still has the potential of parricide and Terrorism and neo-Platonist Orthodox Christianity swooping in to the rescue. One of those turn of the century books that is at or pushing against the boundaries of the novel.

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 4 out of 5]

پترزبورگ کتابی گیج کننده ، بسیار سخت خوان و البته کمتر خوانده شده نوشته آندری بیه لی نویسنده اهل روسیه هست ، بیه لی در این کتاب به شهر پترزبورگ جان بخشیده ، شهری که بر روی باتلاق ساخته شده ، شهر اوهام و غرق شده در مِه ، شهر شبهای روشن و جنایت و مکافات داستایوفسکی . بیه لی به این شهر افسانه ای جان بخشیده ، شهر ، نمادها ، پلها و ساختمان های آن بخش مهمی از کتاب هستند ، به قدری مهم که نقشه ای از پترزبورگ درکتاب قرار داده شده .
مجسمه ها ، خیابان های شهر ، همگی شاهد حوادثی هستند که در داستان روی می دهد ، سوار مفرغی ( مجسمه پطر کبیر – سازنده شهر ) در خیابانهای شهر سرگردان است ، شهر آبستن حوادث است ، تاریخ روسیه در این جا رقم خواهد خورد .
کتاب پترزبورگ بر پایه ادبیات بسیار غنی روسیه بنا شده ، کتاب هشت فصل دارد که همه آنها با شعری از پوشکین آغاز می شود ، گوگول ، داستایوفسکی و چایکوفسکی و اپرای معروفش همگی به شکلی در کتاب حضور دارند و البته شهر پترزبورگ که همه حوادث را نظارت می کند .
از سیر وقایع کتاب آشکار می شود که فاجعه ای در آستانه رخ دادن است ، اعتصابات عمومی که رخ می دهد ، شورش و تظاهرات ، پترزبورگ رنگ و بوی خون گرفته ، بوی تزار کشی ، بوی پدر کشی .
خانواده آبلئوخوف در مرکزاین داستان عجیب وغریب قرار دارد ، داستانی که به حق شبیه و مشابه هیچ اثر دیگری نیست ، آپولون آپولونویچ پدر خانواده است که در دستگاه حکومتی و تزاری ، سناتور است و شغل مهمی دارد اما خانواده او روبه زوال است ، همسرش با معشوق خود به اسپانیا گریخته و پسرش نیکلای عملا یک بازنده و هیچ کاره است ، دانشجوی فلسفه نه چندان موفقی که در زندگی و رابطه عاطفی و عشقی هم شکست خورده است ، نیکلای ثُبات شخصیت ندارد ، او جذب یک گروه تروریستی انقلابی شده و باید یکی از مقامات را با بمب ساعتی بکشد .
خط اصلی داستان در کنار مجموعه حوادث فرعی و با اهمیت دیگر که رخ می دهد کتاب را شکل می دهد ، داستانی بسیار پیچیده سرشار از حس تعلیق و ابهام ، همراه با نگارش شاعرانه و جادویی آقای بیه لی که ذره ای از جذابیت کتاب کم نمی کند .
خانم فرزانه طاهری بدون شک ترجمه بسیار درخشانی انجام داده ، او بیشتر از صد صفحه برای داستان چهارصد صفح ای توضیحات و پیوست نوشته ، توضیحاتی که برای درک کتاب و فضای شهر و تاریخ آن بسیار مفید و حیاتی بوده ، خانم طاهری چهار سال از عمر خود را برای این کتاب گذاشته و با استادی تمام همان حس و حال شاعرانه آقای بیه لی را به کتاب منتقل کرده است .
شاید نتوان حسی که بعد از تمام کردن کتاب به خواننده دست می دهد را توصیف کرد ، حس رضایت ، تحسین و احترام، هم به نبوغ جناب بیه لی و هم ترجمه درخشان خانم طاهری .

[Malacorda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrea Il Bianco è lo pseudonimo più da stregone che si possa immaginare, ma sin dalle prime righe del prologo risulta evidente che colui che ci sta parlando non è tanto stregone quanto saltimbanco, e ci racconterà una storia a suon di onomatopee, frasi ripetute come filastrocche, un umorismo molto russo e al tempo stesso molto british, personaggi e oggetti descritti in modo naïf, raffiche di citazioni e riferimenti impossibili da cogliere tutti (vuoi perché troppo colti, vuoi perché troppo astrusi). Perfettamente figlio del suo tempo, l'autore trasferisce su queste pagine tutta una serie di fantasmi evocati in una seduta spiritica. E' il libro più funambolico e delirante che abbia mai letto, ma mi venisse un colpo se non è da cinque stelle. E' farneticante, ma contrariamente a qualsiasi logica e previsione, si regge perfettamente in piedi: un po' come quella storia per cui il calabrone, secondo le leggi della fisica e dell'aereodinamica non dovrebbe poter esser in grado di sollevarsi in aria, ma lui la fisica e la matematica non le sa, e quindi continua a volare.

E' autobiografia e insieme recherche di un'identità collettiva, storica e politica e di classe. Brevissime nozioni, come pennellate decise, introducono il lettore alla geografia e alla storia del grande Impero Russo. La tragedia della rivoluzione del 1905 - con la guerra russo-nipponica, il terrorismo, gli scioperi delle ferrovie e i comizi nelle fabbriche, le cariche dei cosacchi e gli scontri sulle prospettive, le campagne in rivolta - non fa solo da sfondo ma è a tutti gli effetti il marchingegno che mette in moto i personaggi, lo spartiacque tra il passato e il futuro, la contrapposizione tra le geometrie di palazzi e prospettive con l'informe sregolatezza delle pittoresche isole. Il protagonista della vicenda è certamente alter-ego del Bianco, e così leggendo il libro si apprende non solo del suo carattere, delle sue manie e dei suoi difetti e delle sue goffaggini, ma si conoscono anche i suoi difficili rapporti con il padre, si apprende della madre assente e dei suoi innamoramenti folli. E ancora una volta, come in altri libri celebri, il tema del parricidio non sviluppa solo il dissidio interno ad una famiglia ma anche il discorso politico di rivoluzione contro reazione, ed anche lo scontro storico che contrappone il passato ed il futuro come dicevo sopra. Un parricidio che a tratti finisce per apparire come un'eutanasia, sia nei confronti del vecchio senatore ormai ridotto ad una mummia ambulante, e anche nei confronti di una casta di burocrati anch'essi incartapecoriti e avulsi dalla realtà, come dice Ripellino: "quei dignitari retrogradi che amministrarono la Russia negli ultimi anni dello zarismo". Tutte le arruffate vicende qui narrate oscillano tra l'allegoria e la semplice esasperazione della realtà: anche il continuo camuffarsi e mascherarsi dei vari personaggi, secondo Ripellino rispecchia la realtà dei travestimenti cui ricorrevano all'epoca gli agitatori e gli sbirri nel darsi vicendevolmente la caccia. E i loro comportamenti assurdi riflettono l'ansietà delle catastrofi imminenti, i nervi tesi e l'animo inasprito fino all'isterismo. Ma c'è di più: sotto una superficie tutta fatta di gusto bambinesco nel descriver melme e miasmi e insetti ripugnanti e tutto un parlar di emorroidi o di orifizi, dicevo da sotto questa superficie naïf emerge un grido, che non è il lugubre uuuuu-uuuuu da alcuni qui già citato, ma è un canto tristissimo, un'urgenza di descrivere la bellezza e lo splendore ormai svaniti della città di San Pietroburgo, la Palmira del Nord, la nostalgia per un passato che non tornerà più, qualunque cosa succeda nel futuro, e il progressivo immalinconire per l'addensarsi delle nubi nel presente (iniziando a scrivere all'incirca nel 1910, il Bianco non poteva sapere con esattezza cosa sarebbe accaduto di lì a poco, ma certo i presentimenti non gli saranno mancati, e poi in seguito, revisionando il romanzo negli anni venti, avrà potuto confermare quelle che prima erano solo previsioni).

Otto brevi capitoli vanno a comporre un quadro che è decisamente espressionista per quanto concerne i paesaggi, le atmosfere della città nordica, le macchie di colore e i rispettivi significati di ogni colore; e più in particolare un quadro cubista per quanto riguarda le descrizioni dei personaggi che ivi compaiono, deformi, spezzettati, visti da più angolature, umani ridotti a semplici oggetti e cose inanimate che vengono umanizzate e finanche battezzate; ogni singolo episodio rivisto da più angolature; incubi dell'infanzia che prendono sorprendentemente corpo e vita proprio sotto gli occhi attoniti dei protagonisti.

La trama è alquanto squinternata e stagliuzzata: già lo si capisce leggendo, e poi ne dà conferma Ripellino nella sua prefazione, spiegando che la presente versione del romanzo è parecchio ridimensionata rispetto la stesura originale. Ma le linee che l'intero quadro intende comporre non perdono di consequenzialità: per quanto la storia narrata sia farneticante, le sensazioni che lascia sono nette e decise. Il finale - contrariamente a quello che ci si potrebbe aspettare perché molti scrittori di oggi si sentono quasi in obbligo di proporre determinati schemi - non è per nulla pirotecnico, anzi: dopo un intero libro di evoluzioni verbali e suoni indiavolati, tutto basato sull'idea di una imminente esplosione, la chiusa giunge in modo sorprendentemente posato e pacato. Questa lettura è un'esperienza fulminante e significativa, vale la pena della faticata.

Le mie osservazioni finiscono qui, a chi vuole capirne qualcosa in più consiglio di leggere la interessante recensione sul blog "I fiori del peggio". Ora faccio un esperimento ricopiando alcuni passi che ho sottolineato: mantenendoli nello stesso ordine così come compaiono nel romanzo, compongono già da soli un poemetto che rievoca i fasti del passato e le ombre del presente nella città che alla fin fine è la maggiore protagonista del romanzo.

"Incombevano strane giornate nebbiose: passava il velenoso ottobre; la polvere volava per la città in bruni vortici; e docilmente si posava sulla terra la porpora frusciante, per turbinare e rincorrersi ai piedi degli uomini, e per sussurrare, intrecciando di foglie le proprie giallo-rosse distese di parole. Tali erano quei giorni. Ti sei avventurato di notte negli spiazzi deserti dei sobborghi, per udire una "u" persistente e molesta? Uuuu-uuuu-uuu: così risonava lo spazio; ed era poi un suono? Il suono di qualche altro mondo; eppure raggiungeva una rara forza e chiarezza; uuuu-uuuu-uuu: echeggiava sordamente nelle campagne dei sobborghi di Mosca, Pietroburgo, Saratov: ma non era la sirena delle fabbriche a sibilare, non c'era vento; e tacevano i cani. Hai udito codesta canzone ottobrina dell'anno millenovecentocinque?"

"Dopo la pioggia melmosa i tetti di Pietroburgo si bagnavano nel sole."

"…sotto la figura atteggiata della statua di Irelli, che allungava le dita verso il crepuscolo, echeggiavano bisbigli e sospiri, luccicavano le grosse perle delle damigelle a passeggio. Era di primavera, il lunedì di Pentecoste; l'atmosfera serale si addensava, vibrando per una poderosa voce d'organo che proveniva dagli olmi dolcemente assopiti: e di là a un tatto si spandeva una gaia luce verde; là, fra verdi barbagli, i rosso-sgargianti bandisti del reggimento dei cacciatori, protesi i corni, riempivano di melodia le adiacenze, facendo vibrare l'etere: hai udito il languido pianto di questi corni puntati verso l'alto? Tutto ciò è stato; e non è più…"

"Sopra la Neva fuggiva un enorme sole di porpora: e gli edifici di Pietroburgo parevano sciogliersi in leggeri merletti di fumosa ametista; e dai vetri si sprigionava un riverbero d'oro fiammante; e le guglie avevano un luccichio di rubini; e terrazze e sporgenze fuggivano in quel mare di fiamme: cariatidi e cornicioni di balconi di laterizi. […] Imbruniva lentamente una lunga sequela di linee e di muri sul cielo gridellino che si andava spegnendo, e si accedevano torce sfavillanti; e si accendevano leggere fiamme. E in tutto ciò risplendeva il passato."

"Osservando il viavai delle bombette, tu non avresti mai detto che gli avvenimenti tonassero: nella città di Ak-Tjuk, nel teatro di Kutaisi; a Tiflis la polizia aveva scoperto una fabbrica di bombe; la biblioteca di Odessa era stata chiusa; nelle università della Russia erano in corso comizi; si incaponivano di abitanti di Perm'; aveva cominciato a inalberare bandiere rosse la fonderia di ghisa di Revel... Osservando il viavai delle bombette, nessuno avrebbe detto che sulla ferrovia Mosca-Kazan' si fosse iniziato lo sciopero: nelle stazioni la folla fracassava i vetri, irrompendo nei magazzini delle merci; e sulle linee di Kursk, Vindava, Nižnyj-Novgorod e Murom veniva sospeso il lavoro; erano fermi i vagoni; e nessuno avrebbe detto che a Pietroburgo tonassero gli avvenimenti […] La circolazione però non cessava: fluivano cadavericamente le bombette."

"Il gigante dalla testa di bronzo aveva galoppato attraverso le epoche sino a quell'attimo, compiendo l'intero ciclo; era salito al trono Nicola I; e dopo di lui gli Alessandri; ed Aleksandr Ivanovič, ombra, superava senza stanchezza le epoche, correndo per i giorni, per gli anni, per le umide prospettive di Pietroburgo - in sogno, nella realtà: e dietro a lui, dietro a tutti tonavano i colpi del metallo, stritolando le loro esistenze. Quello schianto io l'ho udito: l'hai udito anche tu?"

"Solitario ed altero era stato, senza batter ciglio, sotto la bocca da fuoco dell'uragano - saldo benché assiderato; ma anche il platino si fonde. Era bastata una notte perché Apollon Apollonovič diventasse del tutto curvo; in una notte era crollato e la testa gli penzolava. E sullo sfondo di fuoco dell'Impero Russo in fiamme, invece di un uomo robusto dall'uniforme d'oro, stava adesso un vecchio emorroidale, non raso, non pettinato, molle di sudore - nella sua veste da camera adorna di fiocchi. Avete mai visto, ormai rimbambiti ma ancora famosi, degli uomini che per mezzo secolo pararono tutti gli attacchi? Io ne ho visti. Nelle riunioni, ai congressi salivano in cattedra con le marsine lucide e le mascelle cascanti, sdentati - ne ho visti - continuavano ancora per abitudine a commuovere gli ascoltatori!"

"Immutata pende sopra il portale del palazzo a molte colonne la cariatide di pietra. Vecchio colosso barbuto! Per lunghi anni ha sorriso sopra il frastuono delle strade, sopra le estati, gli inverni, le primavere - coi suoi svolazzi di stucco ornamentale. E dallo spazio senza tempo s'è curvata, come sulla linea del tempo; un corvo s'è posato sulla sua barba; l'umida prospettiva ha un bagliore cangiante; e le lastre, illuminate da malinconica luce, riflettono i visi verdognoli dei passanti."

"Dietro le finestre Pietroburgo perseguitava gli uomini coi suoi giuochi cerebrali e la sua vastità lamentosa; un freddo vento umido sferzava le strade; sotto il ponte brillavano nella nebbia enormi nidi di brillanti. E non si vedeva nessuno, nulla."

[Anna Iakovidou · Rating 5 out of 5]

θα ήθελα να ξεκινήσω αυτή την ανασκόπηση με μία διευκρίνηση...ΟΧΙ ο Andrei Bely ΔΕΝ είναι ο Ρώσος Joyce, ΔΕΝ είναι ο Dostoevsky του 20ου αιώνα, ΔΕΝ είναι ο νέος Tolstoy...και ακριβώς γι'αυτό βαθμολογώ αυτό το έργο με 5 αστεράκια. Ο Andrei Bely σίγουρα έχει επηρεαστεί απο τους προγενέστερούς του, φαίνεται άλλωστε στο μυθιστόρημά του είτε με άμεσες είτε με έμμεσες αναφορές. Η πρωτοτυπία του όμως, η προσωπική του γραφή, ο ιδιαίτερος τρόπος περιγραφής, από το αστικό τοπίο μέχρι τον ονειρικό κόσμο των πρωταγωνιστών του, δεν πρέπει να επισκιαστούν.

Επίσης, δεν θα ήθελα να αναφερθώ στο θέμα του βιβλίου καθώς για μένα η εκ των προτέρων γνώση δημιούργησε λάθος εντυπώσεις και προσδοκίες. Πρόκειται σίγουρα για ένα πολύ ιδιαίτερο θέμα που έχει να κάνει με την εσωτερική πάλη, την αγωνία, τα ηθικά διλήμματα και την ιστορική βαρύτητα των επικείμενων γεγονότων που βιώνουν τα δρώντα πρόσωπα.

Ένα από τα χαρακτηριστικά που με εντυπωσίασαν είναι ότι στην Πετρούολη του Bely δεν ένιωσα να παγώνω από το κρύο, δεν ήρθα αντιμέτωπη με την ρωσική γραφειοκρατία, δεν ένιωσα την πείνα και την εξαθλίωση του ρώσικου λαού. Η Πετρούπολη του Bely δεν είναι μία συνηθισμένη πόλη, ξεχωρίζει με την "γαλάζια καταχνιά της" και με τα χρωματιστά της κτίρια. Είναι μία πόλη με ιστ��ρία που αναδεικνύεται μέσα από τα δημόσια κτίρια και τα αγάλματα, μα κυρίως είναι μία πόλη με ένα μέλλον που αρχίζει να αχνοφαίνεται μέσα από την πλοκή του μυθιστορήματος. Η περιγραφή της πόλης δεν είναι μια στείρα περιγραφή, ένα απλό σκηνικό σε ένα μυθιστόρημα αλλά οι περιγραφές της εντάσσονται αρμονικά στην αφήγηση και στην πλοκή παίζοντας πολλές φορές καίριο ρόλο στην εξέλιξη της ιστορίας.

Η μουσικότητα της αφήγησης, οι σχεδόν κινηματογραφικές σκηνές, η συμμετοχή του αφηγητή και οι άμεσες απευθύνσεις του στον αναγνώστη λειτουργούν διαδραστικά, δημιουργώντας μία συμμετοχική αίσθηση. Οι επεξηγηματικές σημειώσεις της έκδοσης ( εκδόσεις Κίχλη) καθώς και ο χάρτης στην αρχή (επιτέλους ένας χάρτης!) επικουρούν στην καλύτερη κατανόηση των συμβολισμών και στην διευκρίνηση κάποιων δυσνόητων σημείων. Σχετικά με την έκδοση θα πρέπει να αναφερθώ στην δυσκολία που αντιμετώπισα προσωπικά σε κάποια σημεία όπου ενώ μιλάει το ίδιο πρόσωπο αλλάζει η παύλα του διαλόγου με αποτέλεσμα να δημιουργείται μία σύγχηση για το ποιός λέει τι.

Καταλαβαίνει κανείς πολύ εύκολα ότι η μετάφραση από το πρωτότυπο πρέπει να ήταν ένας άθλος και γι'αυτό αξίζουν συγχαρητήρια στην μεταφράστρια και σε όσους επιμελήθηκαν την έκδοση κα πιστεύω ότι όσον αφορά ένα σπουδαίο έργο, αξίζει το τίμημα να χαθούν κάποια στοιχεία του έργου, όταν η μετάφραση είναι καλά δουλεμένη.

[K.J. Charles]

yeah, so when I picked this book for the 'randos on Twitter rec me 12 books' challenge I had not fully understood it was a modernist novel, my bad.

I am the woman who got through an entire three-year Eng Lit degree without reading more than 1.5 modernist novels. I am the woman who whipped through the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in one (admittedly long and immobile) day, but who took a month to plough through twenty pages of Ulysses. I am the woman who would rather floss with barbed wire than open anything by Woolf, Joyce or Lawrence.

I'm not averse to experimentation with language, and form, or to hard work. Riddley Walker is one of my favourite books in the world. The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas blew me away. But fucking modernist novels, man. (It's possible it's Symbolist rather than modernist. Don't look at me. I did a special paper on Arnold Bennett instead.)

All of which is to scream NOOOOPE at the sky like Anakin Skywalker in that film I'd rather rewatch than ever read a modernist novel. Apparently this is one of the great masterpieces of the twentieth century / Russian literature, and I'm entirely prepared to believe I'm missing out, but it is not a book for me.

DNF at 27% and wow is the 12 book challenge not a success this year. :/

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Petersburg is a dream

This is one the hardest reviews I've had to write as Petersburg is such an amorphous, intricate, multilayered book that it's hard to pin it down in any sense. It's powerful and yet playful, there are farcical scenes which yet contain something desperate and tragic about them. There is a plot but it's a relatively undemanding one, and it's not so much the plot itself which the narrative is interested in as the ways in which the story might be told.

Even categorising the book proves delightfully problematic: I've seen it described as Symbolist, and as Modernist - and yes, it has elements of both, but it also reminds me of fin-de-siècle and Decadent texts with its neurasthenic characters and the uses of the grotesque. At the same time, it looks backwards to Dostoeyevsky (especially Crime and Punishment and The Devils) and Pushkin (as well as, I'm reliably informed, Gogol who I haven't read) and forwards to Eliot's The Wasteland ('Unreal city...'). Review after review quotes Nabokov and the four masterpieces but this is only like Proust in that it probes the limits of the novel, and like Joyce in challenging how language might work textually, and perhaps in making the city itself a living character.

Bely's prose is frequently fevered as characters are chased through foggy streets by shadows, as letters control destinies (ha, Eugene Onegin), as 'The Elusive One' and 'The Person' weave in and out of the story both revealed and yet deceptive.

Most striking is Bely's use of colour: watch out for instances of red, yellow and green; and sound. Sadly, sonority and the affect of phonemes is something that is erased in English translation: Russian 'u' or 'y' as the sound of chaos or revolution is only barely registered in the 'oooo oooo' sound of the city, and other sounds may be less frequent in English than in Russian thus limiting the translator.

It's easy to see why Nabokov was enamoured of this: the absurdity that morphs into something more urgently emotive, the way objects seem to have a subjectivity of their own, the transference from sardines to a sardine can to a ticking time bomb whose sound 'Pépp Péppovitch Pépp' links back to a childhood toy and forwards to catastrophe... And I haven't even mentioned the use of the Nietzschean schema of Apollo and Dionysus, or the topography of lines, zigzags and dots, or the eschatological... and this review is already too long!

So, if you want a book that follows a traditional nineteenth century style offering a defined storyline and rounded characters with 'motivation' and psychological realism then perhaps step away now - this is brilliantly iconoclastic, unrepentantly modernist and rewardingly rich.

[Gorkem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nasıl anlatabilirim böyle bir kitabı cidden bilmiyorum. Öncelikle, Goodreads'in tam yorumumu yayınlamadan önizleme sürecinde hata verip tüm yorumumu yok edip şu an bu yorumu tekrar yazmamın verdiği meşakkat ve goodreads'a düzdüğüm sövgülerden mi yoksa yaklaşık 4 ayımı alan, sayfa 300'lerde ne okudum ben ya diyip en başa dönüp beni yıldırma eşiğine getirmesinden mi başlamalıyım? En iyisi aklımı başımdan alan Beliy'den başlamak bu durumda en doğrusu olacak.

Bir Anlatım Ustası

Nabokov, Beliy için 20 yüzyılın en büyük ve en önemli ilk dört yazarından biri dediğinde acaba mübalağa ediyor olabilir mi diye düşünmedim desem sanırım yalan söylemiş olurum. Beliy'in büyüklüğü ve önemi nerden geliyor sorusu kitabın içinde saklı. Şöyle ki, çok az yazar betimlenen durumu; tasvirin somutluğu- soyutluluğu fark etmeksizin; okurun zihninde büsbütün var edebilir. Renkleri belli bir skalaya kadar anlatabilir. Sesleri belli bir deneyime kadar sunabilir. Beliy'in anlatımında bu üçüde var. Tüm renkleri görüyor, tüm sesleri işitiyor, en saçma diyalogların içinde yer alıyor ve Beliy'le birlikte ilerliyorsunuz. Kendisinin, sembolist bir şair olması bu anlatımın sınırlarını daha da sınırsız hale getiriyor ki, belli bir anlatım sonrası bu sembolik akışa kendinizi tamamen teslim ediyorsunuz. Fakat şunu belirtmeliyim ki, Beliy kolay bir yazar değil. Okuru, okuma süreçinde sürekli ayık tutmaya zorlayan, sözel matematiği kavramaya mecbur bırakan bir yazar. Keza sonuç ortada: Dön len başa diyebiliyor!

Konu-İçerik: Petersburg

Kitap 1905 savaş döneminde, yaşamın en sıkıntılı, tekinsiz olduğu, paranoyak Rusyası'nın Politik, sosyo-ekonomik, jeopolitik, tüm Rus tarihine selamlar çakan, ortodoks mistisizmine ait fantastik öğeleri barındıran, ana karakteri Petersburg'un kendisi olan; fakat Senator Apollo Apollovich ve oğlu Nikolay'ın ekseninde geçiyor. Son derece çok katmanlı, hiciv, yergi, absurd ve kara mizah öğeleri müthiş bir felsefe içinde oluşturulmuş bir kitap.

Beliy VS Joyce

Bu duruma değinmeden edemeyeceğim. Bely'in sıklıkla Ulysses ve Joyce'a benzetilmesi okumaya başlamadan önce beni son derece kasan okuyup ilerleme sürecinde ise çok rahatsız eden ve az da olsa sinirlendiren bir durum oldu. Beliy'in Joyce'dan tamamen farklı düşünen, spirituel olarak da ve mizah algısı olarak bambaşka yerde duran bir yazar. Konu açısından, bazı karakterler açısından benzerlikler içerse de, Beliy Petersburg'u okurun zihninde haritasını çıkarmak kalmıyor, anlatımsal olarak Joyce kadar küstah olmayan bence son derece ekstra romantik bir tez-antitez anlatısı ortaya çıkıyor.

Sonuç

Petersburg, benim bu son dönem okuduğum en etkiliyeci kitaplardan biri oldu. Beliy, Petersburg'u oluştururken bu kitabın müzikal olması için çok uğraştığını söylemiş. Cidden okurken kitapta çağdaş anlamda hem şehrin müziğini, hem bomba hem de zamanın müziğini fazlasıyla hissettiğim bir kitap oldu.

Okurken ingilizcesinde bulunan ve dağılma sürecindeyken 2 edisyona göz atma fırsatım oldu. Everest ve Sabri Gürsoy çok başarılı bir iş çıkarmışlar. Bu arada son olarak şunu eklemek iyi olacak. Petersburg'u okumaya başlamadan önce Rus Sembolizmine biraz göz atmanızı ve de Beliy'in diğer kitabı olan Kazım Taşkent Klasiklerinden çıkan "Senfoniler"i göz atmanın okuma deneyimini başarılı kılmak açısından etkili olabileceğini düşünüyorum.

Zamanla muhakkak ki kitap hakkında eklenecek söz edilecek çok fazla şey olacak. Daha fazla ayrıntı arayanlar için sevgili ArturoBelano’nun yorumuna bakmalarını öneririm.

Çok keyifli bir okumaydı. Denemek isteyenlere:

İyi okumalar!
10/10

[Olga · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Petersburg' is undoubtedly a great modernist novel. A masterpiece.
Ideally, one needs to read it in the original (like 'Ulysses') in order to fully appreciate and enjoy its often 'bumpy', expressive language, wordplay, allusions, references, irony, vocabulary (e.g. numerous diminitives), punctuation pecularities, etc.

The autumn of 1905. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire, a foggy majestic city on a dark river inhabited by ghostly monuments (e.g. the Bronze Horseman) and the numerous caricatures; of those who represent the world that will soon be gone , those who will destroy the old world and those who are in between. In fact, it is a brilliant satire on the full spectrum of the society; aristocracy, government officials, the military, the intelligentsia and especially, the members of the 'party', 'revolutionaries', marxists and terrorists. They (the revolutionaries) are especially despicable.
'Petersburg' shows the beginning of the end, the outbreak of the bloody chaos which will rule the country for the decades to come. And only majestic St. Petersburg with its silent caryatides, the Bronze Horseman, the gilded spire of the Admiralty and the cold and dark river will survive the revolutions, wars and dictatorships.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Petersburg is a dream. If you have been to St. Petersburg in your dreams, you no doubt know the heavy entrance: there are oak doors with mirrored windows; these passers-by see glass; but behind these windows they never happen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is infinity in the infinity of running avenues with infinity in the infinity of running intersecting shadows. The whole of St. Petersburg is an infinity of a avenue built to a certain degree. There is nothing in Petersburg.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
St. Petersburg streets have an undoubted property: they turn into the shadows of passers-by; the shadows of St. Petersburg streets turn into people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If St. Petersburg is not the capital, then there is no St. Petersburg. It just seems to exist.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
St. Petersburg Street permeates the whole body in autumn: bone marrow freezes and a trembling spine tickles; but as soon as you get into a warm room from it, the St. Petersburg street flows in the veins with fever.

[Mat · Rating 3 out of 5]

بدون تردید پطرزبورگ از سخت خوان ترین کتابهایی بود که تا به حال خوندم. بعضی از شاهکارهای ادبیات جهان به علت  شاعرانگی لحن و نثر زبان نویسنده، تنها در زبان مرجع هست که ارزش و عیارشون مشخص میشه و نسخه های ترجمه شده نمیتونند حق مطلب رو به درستی بیان کنند.
با این وجود نمیشه از این کتاب به راحتی گذشت و کنارش گذاشت. روح خود شهر چنان در لابه لای صفحات کتاب زندست و مثل یک شخص حقیقی حضور داره که خواننده رو مجذوب میکنه.
داستان کتاب در مورد زندگی نیکلای آپلونویچ پسر سناتور معروف شهره و تنش ها و درگیرهای روحی که اون و اعضای خونوادش درگیرش اند. از اونجا که این کتاب از آثار سمبولیسته، بیش از روند داستان اصلی و داستانهای موازی اون، استعاره ها و نمادهایی که هر شخصیت نماینده اونه بیشتر اهمیت پیدا میکنه و همینطور تحلیل روانشناختی هر یک از افراد.
کتاب سخت خوانی بود که در نهایت از خوندنش پشیمون نیستم اما انتظارتم رو هم نتونست برآورده کنه.

[B. Faye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Σε μια εποχή που βράζει στην Πετρούπολη του 1905 όπου οι εξελίξεις τρέχουν με ιλιγγιώδη ταχύτητα ο Μπέλλυ ζωγραφίζει το μυθιστόρημα του σαν σε καμβά. Μας δείχνει μία Πετρούπολη αλλιώτικη σε ένα κείμενο με μουσικότητά, χρώματα και κινηματογραφικές σκηνές γεμάτο συμβολισμούς Πολύ καλή δουλειά από τις εκδόσεις κίχλη Έξτρα μπόνους το επίμετρο από τον ρώσο Όργουελ Γιεβγκένι Ζαμιάτιν
6/75 αδιάβαστα

[Hakan · Rating 5 out of 5]

yirmi dört saatte geçen, yirmi dört saatte rusya'nın ruhunu yakalayan bir büyük roman petersburg. yirmi dört saat 765 sayfa içinde olgularla hızlanıyor, insanların hissettikleriyle, düşündükleriyle, düşleriyle ağırlaşıyor. olguların zamanıyla hissedilen zamanın farkı. sonra yirmi dört saatte bir tarihe dokunuluyor, efsanelere, geçmişe ve geleceğe. bir şehrin, petersburg'un iklimini, dokusunu, kimliğini içine katarak büyüyor, genişliyor yirmi dört saat.

bu yirmi dört saatin içinde, olguların zamanında, hızlı, gerilimli bir hikaye var. yıl 1905 zira, devrim öncesi. bir oğul babasını öldürmek üzere. belıy ustaca bir kurguyla bu hikayeyi ilerletirken de suç ve ceza'sı ve karamazov kardeşler'iyle dostoyevski'yi, petersburg öyküleriyle gogol'ü ve şiirleriyle puşkin'i selamlayarak romanını geçmişe, geleneğe bağlıyor ve biz okurlarda süreklilik duygusu yaratıyor. 19. yüzyılın büyük rus romanlarını okuyanlar için bir şölen demek bu. geçmişini bildiğimiz insanları, bir zamanlar tanıdığımız, tanımakla da kalmayıp bulvarlarında yürüdüğümüz, köprülerinden geçtiğimiz, içinde sayısız anımız olan bir şehri başka bir ışık altında, başka renklerle görüyoruz sanki.

bu başka ışık, başka renkler, bu anlatıyı kuran bakışın, kavrayışın ve bize yansıtan dilin başkalığından kaynaklanıyor elbette. belıy bildik kalıplarla anlatmıyor. belki şairliğinden, belki ilgi alanlarının çeşitliliğinden romanını sıradanlığa hiç düşürmüyor. betimlemelerinden karakterlerinin iç dünyasına, küçük detaylardan, topluma dair düşüncelerine, seslerden cümle yapısına, noktalamaya kadar hep farklı ve aykırı belıy. bunlarla birlikte çağrışımlarla, göndermelerle sürekli besliyor, zenginleştiriyor anlatısını. haliyle anlaşılması güç bir tarafı var, sürekli bir çabayla birlikte, belli bir bilgi, birikim gerektiriyor. ama tam bir hakimiyetle olmasa da petersburg romanının içinde olmak, petersburg romanıyla 1905'in petersburg'una bakmak büyük bir okur mutluluğu demek.

[Maziar MHK]

توجه: نگارنده یِ ریویویِ حاضر، موفق به مطالعه کاملِ کتاب نشد فلذا ریویویِ من برای آشنایی&سنجشِ اولیه یِ رمان، چندان قابل اعتنا نیست

در پشت جلد ، به نقل از نابوکوف، این کتاب با در جست و جویِ زمانِ از دست رفته یِ پروست ، مسخِ کافکا و ...هم ردیف دانسته شده. اما برای شخصِ من، از ناروانیِ ترجمه یا بی حوصلگی اَم، این کتاب نَه در حدِ چنان شاهکارهائی می نمود. کوتاه سخن، هر چه بود، این بنده را چنین استنتاجی دست نداد

دو ناشرِ دیگر، "ثالث" و "مروارید"، همین کتاب را با ترجمه هائی از دو بانویِ مترجمِ کمتر شناخته شده، روانه یِ بازار کرده اَند که از دیدِ اهل فن، ترجمه یِ حاضر به روحِ رمان قریب تر ولی به سادگی و روانی یِ متن، غریب تر است. جالب توجه اینکه هر سه ترجمه فارسیِ این اثر سترگِ روسی، توسطِ مترجمِانی خانوم برگردان شده اند

نسخه چاپ شده توسطِ نشر مروارید، ترجمه از زبان مبدا -روسی- می باشد

[Zozetta]

Ξεκάθαρο δεκάρι!

[[P] · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a cliché that all drunk people think that they are wonderful company, that, in the moment, they see in their rambling, slurred, and often nonsensical conversation the brilliant holding forth of a world class orator. Unfortunately for me I have never suffered from this delusion. Whenever I get drunk I am fully aware of myself, fully conscious of the torrents of bullshit pouring from my mouth, I just don’t seem to be able to stop the flow. Something happens when I drink, some kind of mechanism in my brain gives way; and so the writhing mass of thoughts that harangue me when sober, the near unbearable, seemingly limitless, and constantly overlapping, multitude of thoughts, that I liken to a big tub of live eels, are given expression. I share…in the most baffling manner possible. Can you imagine what it is like to be on the receiving end of that? Well, you don’t have to. You can read Andrei Bely’s Petersburg instead.

“Petersburg does not exist. It merely seems to exist.”

It is often noted that Bely’s novel has not achieved the status that it deserves, that it is, to use a vulgar popular phrase, criminally underrated. There are, of course, numerous reasons for that. First of all, it is said that until very recently the book suffered, in English, from less than stellar translations, although that doesn’t appear to have done Dostoevsky’s reputation any harm. It is also the case, and I think this is far more pertinent, that it lacks a kind of universality; it is, at least in part, a paean to the city of Petersburg itself, and if you have never been, or have no real interest in the place, then a good part of the book’s charm will be lost on you. Likewise, there are references to historical events that are particular to Russia, and references and allusions are made, sometimes without any explanation, to famous Russian writers [Pushkin, for example] and works of literature. However, more than any of these things, the most alienating aspect of the work is the authorial voice.

Much like me when I’ve had too many cocktails, the narrator appears to be trying to talk about six subjects all at once; he is mentally unsettled, starting sentences and not finishing them, randomly throwing out jokes and puns [which are never very funny], repeating himself, and lapsing into poetic quotations and often complex but largely unintelligible philosophy and spiritualism. While many make comparisons to Gogol’s epically silly characters, I would say that if the authorial voice has a literary forebear it would be Rogozhin from The Idiot, a man suffering from a nervous ailment; indeed, it is as though he has seized control of Crime & Punishment and tried to rewrite it as a comedy. Of course, this voice, and by extension Petersburg itself, is occasionally tiresome. Sometimes the story just will not proceed; and I don’t, I must admit, exhibit a lot of tolerance where puns and wordplay are concerned. Yet, these minor quibbles aside, it’s a strangely beautiful and engrossing book, and certainly rewarding for a patient reader.

I don’t want to give the impression that Petersburg is a mess, not even a beautiful and engrossing mess, because there was obviously a precise method to Bely’s apparent madness [indeed, after the book’s first publication in 1913, he continued to revise it – so it is clear that he took it very seriously]. Take the repetition: it is not the recourse of an inarticulate writer, but, rather, it is frequently used for poetic effect. Bely was, I believe, a poet, and his circular prose, and the emphasis placed upon certain phrases, reminded me very much of Homer.

“O Russian people, Russian people! Do not let the the crowds of slippery shadows come over from the islands!” [p.30]

“O Russian people, Russian people!
Do not let the crowds of fitful shadows come over from the island.” [p.36]

Sometimes these phrases have a comic purpose, like when it is repeatedly said of Sergei Likhutin that “he was in charge of provisions somewhere out there.” Here Bely emphasises Sergei’s unimportance to his wife with the vague somewhere, as though it is Sofia, rather than the author, who doesn’t know, nor care, where he goes; at other times these phrases stress certain personal characteristics or states of mind. I mentioned Homer previously, but I was also strongly reminded, despite Bely writing much earlier than both, of Thomas Bernhard and Imre Kertesz, who I had previously thought of as being primarily influenced by Dostoevsky and Kafka and various philosophers, including Wittgenstein. Bernhard and Kertesz were/are quite open about their favourite writers and books, and I don’t recall either ever mentioning Bely, but the similarities are clear, especially in relation to Kertesz’s Fiasco and Kaddish for an Unborn Child and Bernhard’s Correction. In all of these novels there is a process of refining, or correcting of thought and idea taking place, whereby an idea, or phrase, is altered slightly with each subsequent appearance in the text [as the O Russian people quote above shows], and an obsessive attention to seemingly banal detail.

Furthermore, the chaotic, unstable authorial voice is, I’m sure, meant to reflect, to mirror, both the mind-set of his characters, and the nature of the times. The plot of the novel, at the most basic level, is that a young philosophy student, Nikolai Abluekhov, has been given a ticking bomb, and is tasked with assassinating a senior government official, who turns out to be his father. So there is, on a local level so to speak, obviously much emotional turmoil. Moreover, the novel is set in the year 1905, a time following the defeat in the Russo-Japanese war, and just before the Russian revolution. It was, historians tell me, a time of social and political unrest; for example, on the 9th of January 1905 a peaceful workers demonstration was fired upon by Cossack units and the police. The spooked and unhinged narrator is, then, in perfect harmony with his subject, the times and his characters; in fact, he acts almost as another character himself. Make no mistake, Petersburg is an almost unfathomably layered, complex piece of work – seemingly a mess, but actually perfectly ordered.


[Petersburg in the early 1900’s]

Most reviewers of Bely’s novel tend to refer to its reputation as a symbolist masterpiece, often throwing out this term symbolist and quickly moving on. Ah, I know your game, people! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sneering at anyone; I get you, I feel your pain. Symbolism is hard enough to decipher at the best of times, but when one is concerned with a Russian novel written 100 years ago, the task will be particularly difficult. As great as I undoubtedly am, even I cannot possibly pick up on, or explain, everything. There are, however, certain symbols that are more prominent than others and some that suggest more obvious interpretations. For example, I’ve already written about how chaos and order are important themes, and the text is strewn with references to zigzags and spheres; to my mind, the zigzags are disorder, and the spheres, it doesn’t seem a stretch to suppose, are order [amongst other things, I might add]. There are also repeated mentions of certain colours, particularly yellow, red, and grey. I’m not too sure about yellow and grey [although they may represent illness, perhaps] but red seems fairly clear, it being a colour that is popularly associated with Russia itself [the Russian word for red, красный, means beautiful, by the way], and is, of course, also the colour of blood.

It ought to be clear by now that there isn’t a great deal to get your teeth into on a human level. Certainly the characters aren’t alive in the way that Dostoevsky’s and Tolstoy’s are; I just cannot envisage anyone coming away from the book feeling as though they have made some kind of personal connection with, say, Nikolai or his father Apollon. It would, quite frankly, be absurd. However, there is some human interest. The father-son dynamic, the intellectual and emotional clashes between different generations, is one that the great Russians appeared to be particularly fond of, it having been explored, for example, in more than one of Dostoevsky’s novels and Turgenev’s Father & Sons. I don’t think Bely brings much to the table in this regard, certainly nothing that hadn’t been dealt with more successfully elsewhere, but it’s nice to have it, and, in any case, one gets the feeling that he was deliberately winking at those other novels, anyway; it was, I think, all part of his extraordinary game.

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Introduction

--Petersburg

Notes

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basit bir hikaye üstüne kurulmuş Petersburg; Çarlık Rusya’sında senatörlük yapan bir baba, onun arasının çok da iyi olmadığı devrimci oğlu ve baba-oğlu bağlayan elde gezdirilen bir bomba. Bu gerilim üzerinden metin katman katman ilerliyor; tekrarlar, renkler, simgeler derken şehir de bir karaktere dönüşüyor adeta. Ama ne dönüşmek! Sokak sokak, adım adım Petersburg’un ruh halinin nasıl da Çarlık Rusya’sının mikro bir özetine dönüştüğünü görüyoruz. Tüm çalkantılar, belirsizlikler bir bir önümüze seriliyor ve aslında kısıtlı sayılabilecek karakter ve olay örgüsüyle çok geniş bir resim çizmeyi başarıyor yazar. Böylece bürokrasi, paranoya ve kimlik meseleleri çok iyi ele alıyor Okuması kolay bir metin değil. Ritme, tarzına alışana kadar yer yer yoruyor. Başyapıt.

[Skorofido Skorofido · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ο Μπέλυ θεωρείται ο Ρώσος Τζέημς Τζόις και ξέρετε τι μπορεί να σημαίνει αυτό... πως όλοι τον ξέρουν, όλοι θα ήθελαν να τον έχουν διαβάσει αλλά κανείς δεν τον έχει διαβάσει, στην τελική. Εγώ πάλι τον Μπέλυ, δεν τον ήξερα (φαντάζομαι και οι περισσότεροι Έλληνες), ούτε κι ήταν το όνειρό μου να τον διαβάσω αλλά τον διάβασα. Και επειδή γενικώς οι Έλληνες είμαστε ως λαός υπερβολικοί τα μάλα, όλα αυτά τα χρόνια ο Μπέλυ δεν είχε μεταφραστεί στα ελληνικά αλλά τώρα μεταφράστηκε η «Πετρούπολη» (το ίδιο βιβλίο δηλαδή), ταυτοχρόνως από δύο διαφορετικούς εκδοτικούς οίκους. Βρέθηκα με την έκδοση της Κίχλης στα χέρια, όχι από πρόθεση αλλά από συγκυρία γιατί το βιβλιοπωλείο αυτήν είχε, αυτήν μου εμπιστεύτηκε.
Δεν ξέρω τι περίμενα να διαβάσω στην «Πετρούπολη». Προφανώς τίποτα και γι’αυτό ήμουν ανοιχτό σε όλα τα ενδεχόμενα. Οι κριτικές μιλούσαν για ένα opus magnum και ήμουν σκορόφιδο έτοιμο για όλα. Περίμενα ίσως να δω μια ιστορικο-πολιτικο-κοινωνικο-λογοτεχνική τοπιογραφία της πόλης με τους ήρωες και τα πάθη τους αλλά δεν… Δεν μου φάνηκε πως η πόλη παίζει τόσο σημαντικό ρόλο… Βασικοί ήρωες οι δύο Αμπλεούχοφ (πατέρας και υιός) και μέσα από τη σχέση τους και όχι μόνο παρουσιάζεται η ρωσική προεπαναστατική κοινωνία, οι σχέσεις των διάφορων τάξεων, ολίγον ψυχολογία, και εσάνς ρωσικής γραφειοκρατίας.
Λένε πως η γλώσσα του Μπέλυ είναι λυρική, παίζει με τις λέξεις, γεμάτη συμβολισμούς, ωστόσο δεν ξέρω αν φταίει η συγκεκριμένη μετάφραση ή το γεγονός πως κάποια πράγματα ‘χάνονται’ στη μετάφραση, το κείμενο εγώ το βρήκα ξύλινο και δεν με παρέσυρε ούτε για μια στιγμή…
Δεν μετανιώνω που το διάβασα αλλά σίγουρα δεν θα μου έλειπε και αν δεν το διάβαζα… είναι ίσως τόσο ρώσικο το βιβλίο που να μην κολλάει στο DNA μου… από την άλλη βέβαια ο Ντοστογιέφσκη και ο Τολστόη πώς μου κόλλησαν;
Τέλος πάντων, το βιβλίο μου πήγε αργά πολύ αργά, τόσο αργά που τις τελευταίες ογδόντα σελίδες τις διάβασα καταναγκαστικά και μόνο οι σοκολάτες που καταβρόχθιζα μπόρεσαν να πάνε την πίκρα της ανάγνωσης κάτω…
Ένα 6/10 (είμαι και μεγαλόκαρδον) γιατί ούτε με συνεπήρε, ούτε μου έμαθε κάτι περί της καταστάσεως προ της επαναστάσεως, ούτε η γλώσσα του με ταξίδεψε, ούτε μου έδωσε τροφή για σκέψη… απλώς θα κάνω φιγούρα στους φίλους μου πως κατάφερα και το διάβασα… ουφ!

[María Carpio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nabokov dijo que esta era una de las cuatro obras maestras del siglo XX. ¿Las otras tres? El Ulises de Joyce, La metamorfosis de Kafka y la primera mitad de En busca del tiempo perdido de Proust. Así que estamos hablando de las ligas mayores. Y de esta manera, Nabokov rescató a esta novela del olvido. Publicada en 1906, en plena Revolución Rusa de 1905, poco antes de la Revolución Bolchevique, esta novela tiene porsupuesto un contexto histórico coyuntural al que alude, pero al que a la vez sobrepasa. Y es que en su inmensa complejidad y en la cualidad multigénero que desarrolla, Petersburgo es una obra que va y ve más allá de su tiempo, hablando desde la forma, desde el cómo narrar los hechos ficcionales, eso que para Bely era la trama (para él, la fábula era el argumento llano). Y esa fábula es casi algo tan simple y a la vez complejo como la premisa de Los hermanos Karamázov (el parricidio). Pero con toda la genialidad y ruptura de límites narrativos y del lenguaje, Bely convierte la premisa en una anécdota disparatada, con un desarrollo entre surreal y simbólico, intertextual (Gogol, Dostoievski, Chéjov y toda la tradición literaria rusa) que, sin embargo, no es determinista, ya que el nivel interpretativo alegórico es bastante críptico y enrevesado, y tiene mucho que ver con lo que ebullía en la Rusia zarista a punto de caer de esos momentos, pero también con un sentido místico y metafísico relacionado con la ampliación de la conciencia y la ruptura tiempo-espacio y sobre todo, de lo físico y de la realidad. Esa especie de posesión de una extra-conciencia que el artista, que el escritor experimenta al elevarse sobre sí mismo y su tiempo, los hechos y todo el mundo que le rodea. Por eso Petersburgo es esa cuidad que representa/encarna esa noción de expansión constante, representada por la avenida Neva, que la atraviesa como aquello que atraviesa a sus propios personajes y que los hace estallar. En sueños o en su realidad fantástica. Porque aquí estallan. Y hay una bomba que hace tic-tac encerrada en una lata de sardinas. Nikolai Apolónovich, una especie de militante rebelde y pensador kantiano, estudioso de la Filosofía, recibe la orden de atentar con una bomba contra su propio padre, el senador zarista Apolón Apolónovich Ableújov. Esta mera anécdota que podría convertirse en un drama psicológico si fuera Dostoievski, se convierte en una especie de sátira de lo desconocido, lo irreal y lo absurdo. Un adelanto a Joyce y a Faulkner, narrativamente hablando. Un enorme abrebocas de lo que vendría después en la literatura mundial. Bely es la ruptura de los límites de la ficción y de los alcances del lenguaje. Pero también del pensamiento. Si le he puesto cuatro estrellas es porque no he logrado descifrar muchas partes de ella y me ha confundido y sorprendido en partes iguales. Un lenguaje exquisito por un lado, y por otro, detalles fascinantes y desternillantes como la vuelta que da el personaje de Nikolai para terminar vestido de dominó rojo con una careta, que termina siendo una especie de fábula publicada en los periódicos. Todo por un mínimo encuentro fogoso absurdo en el que Sofía (uno de los personajes) le suelta un "payaso rojo" (por su cara y su gesto de rana tan bien descritas). No tiene mucho sentido contarlo así, pero tenía que hacerlo. Porque es un humor que produce extrañamiento y confusión, pero se intuye que hay algo más y esto quizás sea una predicción del futuro inmediato y no tan inmediato, traspasado por ese halo de muerte, de sensación y búsqueda de muerte que hay en toda la novela. Entonces esa cualidad "profética" de esta novela no sólo tendría nivel simbolico dentro de la propia literatura (la muerte de la narración tradicional y el nacimiento de las vanguardias literarias) sino una proyección misma del futuro de la propia Rusia y la muerte (que vendría a diestra y siniestra) como símbolo de esa revolución.

[Makis Dionis · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Η κουβέντα για τον Κοέν ήταν εντελώς ουδέτερη, με αυτήν αποφεύγονταν άλλες κουβέντες και μια εξήγηση αναβαλλοταν. Εκτός τούτου, η συνήθεια για διδακτικές συζητήσεις διατηρούνταν στην ψυχή του Νικολάι Απολλωνοβιτς από τότε που ήταν ακόμα παιδί."

Η μανιέρα του Μπελυ που πρέπει να έχει ο καθένας που πιάνει την Πετρούπολη στα χέρια του. Άλλα σκέφτομαι, άλλα λέω κ άλλα θα ήθελα να πω. Συνειδητή προσπάθεια χαμαιλεονταρισμου της κοινωνίας, δωσμενη σχεδόν κορακιστικα, και σε ρυθμο που αν τον αφήσεις σε πετάει στις ξέρες

"Πετρούπολη, Πετρούπολη!

Έτρεχα στις φρικτές λεωφόρους σου και, με την φορά που έπαιρνα, έβγαινα σ'εκείνη την λαμπερή γέφυρα

Ω μεγάλη γέφυρα, που αστραφτεις από το ηλεκτρικό φως!
Ω πράσινα, γεμάτα βακιλους νερά!

Θυμάμαι μια μοιραία στιγμή. Πάνω από τα υγρά σου κιγκλιδώματα, έσκυψα μια νύχτα του Σεπτέμβρη, μια στιγμή ακόμα και το κορμί μου θα χανόταν στην καταχνιά."

Μια μόνιμη κίνηση με τα πόδια σε δύο βάρκες. Λατρεία κ χλεύη.
Λάμψη και σαπιλα . Φως και καταχνιά

Ο Μπελυ μας μιλά για μια Πετρούπολη που υπάρχει για τους πολίτες της, για μια Πετρούπολη ανεξάρτητη από αυτούς, μας προβάλλει αυτοεπινοημενες ιδέες και μεις από απόσταση προσπαθούμε να αντιληφθούμε το μέγεθος της διάνοιας του

[Demet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dostoyevski Tolstoy ikilisinden Tolstoy’cu olan Nabokov Petersburg’u zamanımızın en büyük üç ya da dört romanından biri olarak anıyor. Bu referans Dostoyevskici şahsımı biraz düşündürse de, şu zamana kadar okuduğum en iyi romanlardan biri olduğunu ben de söyleyebilirim, yine de Nabokov benden daha iyi bir referanstır haddimi bileyim:)

Bir romanı büyük roman yapan nedir sorusu mühim bir soru. Petersburg özelinde, dil ve biçim kullanımı olarak bambaşka perspektifler açan, katman üstüne katmanları olan, güçlü Rus edebiyatı geleneğinden aldığı tüm kökenler, tarihsel arka plan, kitabın tüm akışında hissedilen farklı faklı çatışmalar ve dahası ne olsun diyeyim. Petersburg tüm bunları fazlasıyla içeren, okuyucuyu canlı tutan ve okuması pek keyifli bir roman. Zorlu denmesine bakmayın, zira Ulysses de zorlu bir roman değildir, Petersburg da değil :)

Kitabın baş kahramanı olan Petersburg’un 1905’e kadar ve o zamanlardaki değişiminin dönüşümünün kaynamasının nasıl 1917 devrimine doğru yol aldığımızı roman boyunca izleyebiliyoruz. Roman boyunca dediğime bakmayın roman 1 günde geçiyor ama cidden izleyebiliyoruz. Odağındaki baba-oğul çatışmasını bir çok farklı açılımla okunabilir, ki bir romanda en sevdiğim özelliklerden biri bu farklı okumalara yol açmasıdır. Doğu Batı çatışması, Avrupa Asya çatışması, devlet entellektüel çatışması olarak en kaba şekilde okunabilecek bu çatışma çerçevesinde kuruluyor bu bombalı kurgu.

Puşkin, Gogol, Dostoyevski, Turgenyev göndermelerini ve romana sızışlarını anmadan geçmeyeyim. Tavan arasını, pis ve karanlık apartman boşluklarını, iç hesaplaşmasına şahit oluğumuz devrimcimiz, ah Kant, bürokrasinin temsili ve dahası. Romanın zirvesi benim için devrimcinin tavan arasına onunla birlikte gittiğimiz, hezeyanlarına çok yakından şahit olduğumuz 6. Bölüm oldu. Başka da bir şey demeyeyim.

Son not olarak ben ettim siz etmeyin diye söylüyorum, sevgili çevirmenizin önsözünü sona bırakın. Sona bırakın ki tüm zevki önce siz yaşayın sonra Sabri Gürses’in önsözünde göremediklerimize vay be diyebilelim :)

Şu bahtsız 2020 yılını okuduğum birbirinden iyi kitaplarla hatırlayacağım, teşekkürler edebiyat!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a result in part of it's history, going many years without publication outside of the U.S.S.R., Andrei Bely's Petersburg (first written in 1913, and not translated to English until 1959) is woefully under-read. It is, perhaps, most often read nowadays for the praise it received of Vladimir Nabokov, who ranked it among Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, Joyce's Ulysses, and Kafka's Metamorphosis as the twentieth century's greatest novels. It is deserving of significant praise, though it's ranking of top-four for the century bears it tough competition from Woolf, James, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and Nabokov's own Lolita. Despite this considerable competition, it belongs on far more "Top 100" lists than I have seen it on (none), and for that reason, I feel compelled to review it on here, to perhaps win over some unbeknownst-to-themselves Bely fans. Perambulatory fiction, a tradition which symmetrically begins with Homer's Odyssey and comes to fruition in Joyce's Ulysses (and Dubliners) and Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, has become almost a characteristic of "modernist" literature, though of course it is quite timeless. Through literary walks, cities unfold: Joyce's Dublin, Dickins's London, Balzac's Paris and Proust's Combray (though partially fictional), but among these literary vistas ranks the superb portrayal of Bely's Petersburg.

Petersburg, Petersburg!
Sediment of mist, you have pursued me too with idle cerebral play: you are a cruel-hearted tormenter; you are a restless ghost; for years you used to assail me; I would run along your terrible Prospects and my impetus would carry me up on to that cast-iron bridge which starts from the edge of the world and leads to the limitless distance; beyond the Neva, in the green distance of the other world—the ghosts of islands and houses rose, seducing me with the vain hope that that land was real and not—a howling endlessness that drives the pale smoke of clouds out on to the Petersburg streets.

Hearkening back to epic poets, Bely often invokes his muse, the very Petersburg of which he writes - but she is a shadowy muse, the penumbral underside of Enlightenment, the sinister apparition of revolution and dischord. Also like The Odyssey, and other Greek and Roman epics, Petersburg utilizes repetitions and distinguishing personal epithets to both set the recursive staging of daily routine in the city, and also to establish the unconcern of the city, Petersburg, with the goings-on of its characters and drama. Through even the greatest of human follies, the city remains immutably remote while also disturbingly human, chillingly reactive. In addition to the literal characterization of Petersburg, there is another remote actor upon the proscenium of Petersburg, which is Bely himself, or an authorial fiction unto himself. Often the story is interjected with an almost post-modern self-awareness as a novel, one which follows the tradition of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, which both assures us of the veracity of the story, but also draws our attention to its existence as an artifice or work of art.

What might surprise many a reader of modernist fiction is that the story is quite plotted, the pace is quite quick. We follow the guilt-tormented revolutionary Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukov, a senator's son, in his mad walks along the Neva, in his masquerading as a red domino to terrorize his abandoned love, Sofya, in his sub rosa dealings with shadowy spectors, Dudkin and Lippanchenko. The tick-tock-tick of the sardine can bomb, which he has agreed to set in his father's room, a patricide-promise which he is loath to keep, but feels he cannot escape. But throughout this political intrigue and near-parody of Crime and Punishment, we are gifted with the little cerebral plays of, particularly, the father and son Ableukovs: the father ever musing on the limits of his mental geometry, and the son ever thinking about his hero, Kant. The novel reads as a intermingling of the creative consciousnesses of father, son, and authorial ghost:

This shadow arose by chance in Senator Ableukhov’s consciousness, receiving there its ephemeral existence; but Apollon Apollonovisch’s consciousness is a shadow consciousness, because he too is possessed of ephemeral existence, being the product of the author’s imagination: needless, idle cerebral play.

And Petersburg is no too-serious text, the parallels between Bely and Dostoyevsky's respective novels are done so to parodic effect. While Raskolnikov is a thinker, his crime is only vaguely planned, and the the murder of Lizaveta surprises even himself; Nikolai's crime is yet to be committed, he has killed no one, but is burdened with an almost absurd guilt, a guilt for uncommitted crime which remains avoidable by simple inaction. Further parody is drawn from the too-obvious parody on Freud's Oedipus Complex. Frued, a contemporary of Bely, published his Three Essays on Sexuality, wherein he laid down much of the foundation for his Oedipal theory, in 1905 - curiously the same year which begins Petersburg. The geographically-distant mother whom Nikolai seems to worship, the emotionally-distant father whom Nikolai seems to hate, and Nikolai's apparent love-aversion and coy-distancing tactics in his relationship with Sofya are laughable, and make our guilt-racked protagonist the very red domino (clown) as which he disguises himself.

The language in Petersburg is painted with a Joycean ardor, a mélange of the unrestrained logophilia and wordplay of Ulysses and the aesthetic precision and accessibility of Dubliners. There is a rhythmic cadence to Bely's novel which is pleasant to the ear and has a distinctly auricular pleasure to it, of which I draw no comparison but to poetry - a sound distinctly of it's own. The novel strikes the perfect tempo, both fast paced but also solemn in its comedy and insightful in its absurdity. Despite the wordplay, and the punning-jokes of Senator Apollon Apollonovich, we are warned early on that "cerebral play is only a mask; beneath this mask proceeds the invasion of the brain by forces unknown to us" - what on the surface may appear to be farce, is a mask for something deeper, something serious, something worth read: truth, which is a "force unknown" which covertly invades our brains when we participate in literature.

It was easy to get lost in Petersburg - not confused, but lost in the very prospects and alley ways, diffused into the very city, into the very text. Bely's is a powerful text, which utilizes the over-said or obvious as a medium of almost extreme subtlety. What does it mean to be included? Included in a group, in a family, in one's own thoughts or in the thoughts of another? Nikolai is torn between the desperate need for inclusion, but his methods, his feverish acceptance of a revolutionary patricide, could only achieve him one tenuous inclusion while exiling him from the possibility of many others. His relationship with his father is distant, and though it manifests itself in apparent disdain there is an element of suppressed tenderness, of a desire for love which Nikolai and Apollon cannot verbalize, and instead retreat into their "idle cerebral play." That love which reconciles them is the mutual love for Nikolai's absent mother, Anna Petrovna, who returns and with her return an unnatural staging of familial happiness. Though this contentment remains only a semblance, it serves as a final straw for Nikolai, who feverishly relents his acceptance of the bomb, but no matter the extent of his rummaging search for it, he cannot find it. Does "love conquer all"? That is neither here nor there in the novel, as love is noted mostly by its absence. What can be said is that the lack thereof disrupts all, denatures the mind, and brings reality tumbling through the chaotic abyss of the absurd.