Преподаватель симметрии

by Andrei Bitov

One of Russia’s finest novelists and an heir to the literature of Gogol, Bulgakov, and Nabokov, Andrei Bitov has been widely hailed as a progenitor of the postmodern novel. The Teacher of Symmetry is his love letter to the art of storytelling. Layered with playful games between writer and reader, this delightful, challenging work explores the relationship between an author and his creations, and the sacrifices that a writer may make out of ardor for his art. Bitov tells us that The Teacher of Symmetry is the “echo” of a British novel that he once read and is now trying to reconstruct through the moth holes of memory and the fog of a foreign tongue. As the book proceeds, we encounter a series of curious episodes: A man meets the devil on a park bench and the devil shows him photographs of the fall of Troy, Shakespeare’s legs, and a terrible event that will take place in his future. A king who reigns over all possible worlds and uses his power to remove stars from the sky turns out to be the compiler of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Villagers squabble over a self-proclaimed space alien, and a literary society decides that it will accept only new members whose works are unwritten. Through it all, Bitov proceeds with the wit and mastery of a fabulist in perfect command of his fables.

Genres: Fiction, Russia, Books About Books, Literature, Contemporary, Russian Literature, Literary Fiction

429 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Andrei Georgiyevich Bitov is the author of Pushkin House, Captive of the Caucasus, and The Monkey Link, among other works. He is a cofounder of the Russian PEN club and has received numerous awards and honors, including being named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. He lives in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Have you ever observed how sunflowers remember the sun, so they won’t forget it before morning?”
The Symmetry Teacher is a metafiction – a book about books: written and unwritten; real, forgotten, obscure and hypothetical. It is a reminder not to forget a literary heritage – a wordy memento of literature.
“And now – my God, what a description! – the words swirl around, the ink smokes, the text into which he pours all his passion flows – but at the end of every line the text disappears.”
And in a way it happens with The Symmetry Teacher as well – often the flowery text tends to become stiltedly artificial and at times it just turns into an opaque verbiage like some of those books in The Library of Babel.
“Oh, how well I understand the alchemist! He wasn’t seeking profits from gold or the elixir of life but the very birth of the substance. For thought itself is a substance.”
And this also is the main principle Andrei Bitov used in writing his sometimes enigmatic, sometimes prolix and sometimes charming The Symmetry Teacher.

[Hendrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Der selbstgestrickten Legende zu Folge, handelt es sich bei dem eigentlichen Urheber von Der Symmetrielehrer, um einen unbekannten englischen Autor. Über dem englischen Titel The Teacher of Symmetry wird der Verfasser mit dem Namen A. Tired-Boffin genannt. Andrej Bitow will lediglich als Übersetzer fungiert haben, der das Werk ins Russische übertragen hat. Die Sache hat allerdings einen kleinen Haken. Das englische Original gilt als unauffindbar verschollen und Bitow musste den Text angeblich anhand einiger handschriftlicher Notizen und ansonsten frei aus dem Gedächtnis rekonstruieren. Leerstellen wurden von ihm kurzerhand mit eigenem Material ergänzt. Bei der von Rosemarie Tietze angefertigten deutschen Übersetzung, handelt es sich also um eine Übersetzung einer lückenhaften Übersetzung. Beide Übersetzer (Bitow und Tietze) treten dazu noch als kommentierende Instanzen in den Anmerkungen in Erscheinung. Um Verwechslungen zu vermeiden, als Anm.d.Ü und Anm.d.Ü.Ü. gekennzeichnet. Komplizierter geht es fast nicht mehr, wäre da nicht der Held der Geschichte, welcher ebenfalls Schriftsteller ist. Dieser Urbino Vanoski (später auch Ris Vokonabi) ist vor langer Zeit von der Bildfläche verschwunden, bis ihn ein Journalist in einem Hotel aufspürt, wo er mittlerweile als Liftführer arbeitet. Die Begegnung zwischen Vanoski und dem Journalisten bildet die Rahmenhandlung dessen, was man im weitesten Sinn als einen Roman bezeichnen könnte.

Tatsächlich besteht dieser Echoroman aus einzelnen, ineinander verschachtelten und miteinander verwobenen Erzählungen. Meist von eher skurrilem bis absurdem Charakter, die gut und gerne als eigenständige Geschichten gelesen werden können. Im Ganzen ergeben sie aber den eigentlichen Roman. Personen und einzelne Elemente einer Geschichte, tauchen dabei immer wieder (als Echo) in veränderter Form an anderen Stellen im Buch auf. Eine postmoderne Struktur, die allerdings in diesem Fall auf ein weit älteres Vorbild in der Literatur verweist. Im Grunde parodiert Bitow (oder Tired-Boffin) mit Der Symmetrielehrer nämlich Jan Potockis Die Handschrift von Saragossa. Ein Werk mit einer vergleichbar mystifizierten Überlieferungsgeschichte. Potocki hatte vor seinem Freitod 1815 ein vollständiges Manuskript zur Drucklegung nach Paris geschickt. Das ging unter ungeklärten Umständen verloren. Es heißt, sogar Puschkin höchstpersönlich hätte sich auf die Suche danach begeben. Leider ohne Erfolg. Das Buch musste nachträglich, aus einzelnen französischen und polnischen Quellen, wiederhergestellt werden. Bis heute sollen noch 15% des Originalmanuskripts fehlen.

Spontan kommt einem da das Spiel Stille Post in den Sinn, bei dem der Empfänger am Ende der Kette eine Nachricht mit komplett verändertem Inhalt erhält. Mit dem Symmetrielehrer verhält es sich wie gesagt ganz ähnlich. Der Roman stellt die Frage, welche Macht hat der Autor im Verhältnis zu seinen Lesern? Das berührt nicht allein den Bereich der Literatur, sondern auch zum Beispiel ganz allgemein unser Verständnis von historischen Ereignissen. Inwieweit ist den überlieferten Quellen zu trauen. Folgt man dem Roman, lautet die Antwort: am besten gar nicht. Denn alles unterliegt unserer eigenen Interpretation und Rekonstruktion von Sachverhalten. Als ehemaliger Sowjetbürger hat Bitow seine eigenen Erfahrungen mit der Wandelbarkeit von Geschichtsbildern gemacht. Auch seine Bücher hat er im Lauf der Jahre immer wieder umgearbeitet. Einige der Erzählungen im Symmetrielehrer entstanden bereits in den siebziger Jahren. Mir hat das Buch durchaus gefallen, wenn mir auch viele Details der Geschichten gleich wieder entfallen sind. Ein paar Anspielungen auf Literaturklassiker habe ich wiedererkannt, aber Bitow bezieht sich wohl auch auf seine eigenen Bücher. Deshalb beschleicht mich ein wenig das Gefühl, das mir doch etliches entgangen ist. Quasi lost in translation, oder anders gesagt, ich nur den dritten Nachhall des Echos gehört habe …

[Dovydas Pancerovas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rusų rašytojo Andrejaus Bitovo ligi šiol nežinojau. Ant „Simetrijos mokytojo“ viršelio parašyta, kad Bitovas yra postmodernizmo pradininkas rusų literatūroje. Kad ir ką tai reikštų, tikiu, kad „Simetrijos mokytoją“ galima vadinti postmodernistiniu kūriniu.

Tai pasakojimas apie genialų, bet pamirštą lenkų-britų rašytoją ir jo pamirštus kūrinius, kuriuos iš atminties užrašė vertėjas. Dalinuosi įspūdžiais, kuriuos užsirašiau vos perskaitęs:

– Patiko, kaip Bitovas naudoja rėminimo techniką: istorijoje pasakojama kita istorija, o joje dar kita, ir dar kita, ir galiausiai pasidedi knygą ant krūtinės ir imi galvoti, tai į kurią dimensiją buvai nukeltas. Tasai žaidimas prasideda vos atvertus viršelį. Šitai labai patiko ir, mano supratimu, atlikta gražiai.

– Patiko per romaną sklindantis aidas. Net ant viršelio parašyta, kad tai –„aidų romanas“. Šiek tiek baiminausi, ar nebus autorius nuėjęs paprasčiausiu keliu – skirtingose istorijose pakartojęs kokias nors siužeto detales. Bet ne. Bent jau aš Bitovo aidą supratau ne tik kaip siužeto detalių atsikartojimą, bet ir personažų būsenų ir minčių sklidimą per visą romaną. Visai įdomi ir intelektinių pastangų reikalaujanti idėja.

– Patiko, kaip autorius žaidžia su kalba, tiksliau – vertimais. Bitovas gražiai supynė angliškus ir rusiškus žodžius, jų reikšmei suteikdamas ir emocinio (net ideologinio) krūvio, padedančio pasakoti istorijas.

– Nepatiko, kad romanas nuobodokas. Perpratus žaidimo taisykles skaityti pasidaro nelabai įdomu. Tiesiog verti puslapius ir stebi, kaip rašytojas ant delnų varto kalbą ir savo žinias apie literatūrą. Tas pats kaip stebėti krepšininką, kuris demonstruoja savo driblingo techniką vien tam, kad pademonstruotų driblingo techniką, o į krepšį nemeta.

– Nepatiko personažai. Plokšti ir karikatūriški. Suprantu, kad tokiam eksperimentui karikatūriški personažai tinka (juolab, kad viena iš romano temų yra siužeto nebuvimas Rusijos istorijoje ir literatūroje), bet tokiu atveju mano skoniui jie buvo per mažai karikatūriški.

Apibendrintai, romaną rekomenduoju tiems, kam patinka eksperimentinė literatūrą. Skaitymo malonumo, kaip jau sakiau, mažokai.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

a book about a book about a remembered book. author obligingly includes a chart for the reader to keep track, if they wish. jerome k jerome attends a salon, but we find him not that funny. we re-visit the mandates of colonialism camouflaged as humanitarianism and their results. it's as if kracht has been tapped to write a chapter too Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas and perhaps lily king could do an appendix Euphoria and surely topor has something to do with this funny funny novel?
but bitov is his own writer, the lone writer fated to tell us his stories. see this much better review by jeremy for nice quotes and coherence to plain english https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jolanta · Rating 3 out of 5]

„Viskas aplink kažką priminė. Bandžiau prisiminti, bet neįstengiau. Bet kuris kažkas ėmė priminti kažinkokį ką nors: visas pasaulis buvo surimuotas ir daugybę kartų atspindėtas. Viskas kažką priminė – ir viskas buvo ne tai. Klaidžiojau kaip trumparegis be akinių, rūke ir miraže kaip aklas. Asfaltas prieš akis driekėsi kaip vandens plynė ir jos paviršiumi, tolyn nuo manęs ritosi bangos... Koks tai buvo denis ir kur aš plaukiau?

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

perhaps you're right, i'm - a writer... an unhappy creature! everyone thinks that choosing what to write about is the hardest thing. no, the hardest thing is to think up the one who's writing. all the writers we read and revere were able to summon up within themselves someone who writes for them. and who are they, then, besides the ones who write? it's horrifying to imagine this solitude. only other people are happy: they labor, love, give birth, die. those who write can't die, either. they aren't cut out for it. they are like actors, only they play one role their whole lives: themselves. for others. their lives don't belong to them. they are slaves of others, slaves of those who love them. they don't know how to love, just as monks don't know how to believe. if you love and believe, why write or pray? you love a living woman - and it's an image; you reach toward god - and it's words; you fall to earth - and it's your homeland. if you're a writer, the earth shoves you out, larger than life, like a monument, like relics, so that you don't linger on earth buy in your homeland, unburied after all...

the sixth of andrei bitov's works to be rendered into english, the symmetry teacher (prepodavatel' simmetrii) is a masterful, postmodern metafictional novel long on flair, but short on fervor. like the nesting dolls mentioned within, the symmetry teacher contains stories within a story within a story.

subtitled "a novel-echo," ("translated from a foreign tongue by andrei bitov, retranslated into english by polly gannon"), the novel begins with a note by bitov himself, recalling a book he had read many decades ago by an obscure english author named a. tired-boffin (an anagram for andrei bitoff). the book, the teacher of symmetry, despite bitov's exhaustive searchings, was never to be located again - thus he set out to retranslate it from memory. tired-boffin's the teacher of symmetry features as its protagonist an enigmatic author named urbino vanoski (whom, later in the novel, composes poetry under an anagrammatical pseudonym). portions of vanoski's novels are excerpted as chapters (with names altered by bitov - as outlined in an included chart relying on tired-boffin's curious propensity to name chapters in a categorical manner based on grammatical tenses) and compose the bulk of bitov's singular tale.

sound confusing? it's not. sound tedious? far from it. perhaps in the hands of a less talented writer, this construct would seem like mere affectation, but bitov's literary gifts are prodigious and nothing about the symmetry teacher comes off as contrived. if you like your fiction tidy, plot-driven, full of banal dialogue, and stuffed with artificial flavorings, however, this surely isn't the book for you.

an inability to judge is the benediction of love.

so many of bitov's (tired-boffin's [vanoski's]) stories - or novel excerpts, rather - are wonderfully imagined; ranging from a writing society that expels members upon completing a work, to a marooned poet enamored of a woman with transformative abilities, to a king who decides to pen an additional volume of the encylopedia brittanica (when not altering the composition of the night sky).

the symmetry teacher is bewitching, but never strays into the bewildering. the russian author's new novel is frequently humorous and wildly imaginative. neither a proper puzzle nor riddle to be solved, bitov's book instead invites readers to consider language and literary construct through the façade of playful fiction. if there's anything to be found lacking in the symmetry teacher, it's that while intellectually intoxicating, it has so little emotional effect. nonetheless, it contains some undeniably gorgeous writing and impressive feats of artistry.

we are capable of destroying a primitive ideal, but are not capable of erecting in its stead a more capacious one that would include what we have ruined. if a person were paid money for what is characteristic of him, and not for those distortions and aberrations by which he accommodates himself to success, the prime minister and great scholar would experience the comfort of their places, and so their happiness, like gummi out there chopping wood. if everyone, having discovered his inmost secret wish, could be allowed to engage in the simple pastime that made him happy, the world would descend into idiocy and a golden age would reign on earth. it is only due to the fear of loneliness that people are not all mad - and they are all mad because they accept the conventionality of social existence while failing to examine it in their minds. the therapy of real work is possible only in paradise.

*translated from the russian by polly gannon

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Еще один текст советского классика, полный павлиньего самолюбования. Рамочная фабула отзвучивает поисками Хэнком Джона Фанте, но ни того, ни другого Битов, конечно, не читал (иначе б не писал так скверно). Вообще в постмодернизме тема мертвого, но не умершего творческого отца торчит, конечно, зримо: от Бартелми до Данилевски и недавнего Кофмена.

Никакой стилизации под "перевод" там тоже, конечно, на наблюдается, я даже не знаю, кого этим можно было обмануть и зачем. Хотя корявые фразы, свойственные дурным переводам, конечно, присутствуют - но они есть в русской литературе везде, это просто свойство скверного и небрежного письма. ...Впрочем, нет, кажется, понимаю: это все та же мастурбационная фантазия, влажный сон о единстве русского совка со всем цивилизованным миром. Сделаем вид, что мы в Европе, а не парии всей планеты, совсем как в советских трэше и палпе 20х годов. Ключевая фраза тут: "Я много путешествовал". Так что преемственность прослеживается, и традиция жива - весь мир стремится к России как к центру притяжения, а особенно приехать в Ленинград, конечно. Перевод как форточка... даже нет, вентиляционное отверстие - к свободе. Слишком узко, корпулентному руспису в нее не пролезть, застревает, как это видно по Битому (эх, какая фамилия пропала...).

Подтверждается это и рассуждениями о свободе языка и литературы, в которых фигурируют запиканные точками слова, только подчеркивая нелепость и слабость авторской позиции. Интересно, понимал ли он сам, до чего глупо выглядит?

К тому ж понятно, что все персонажи, несмотря на декларируемую фантазийность, остаются неизбывно советскими, да еще и такими достаёвски извилистыми и натужными, что зубы ноют от тоски. Возможно, единственное исключение - "Гумми", который есть попытка привить к речевому аппарату Достоевского Фолкнерова дикаря, да еще и в контексте буддистской недуальности. К сожалению, поистине выйти за двойственность восприятия автору в силу его запрограммированности марксизмом-ленинизмом и отравленности материализмом (как будто это хорошо), так и не удалось. Это и не удивительно, ибо успех подрывал бы декларируемую художественно-идеологическую задачу: попытку изобразить "мир зарифмованный и многократно отраженный". Конечно, трогательно, но непонятно, зачем множить сущности. Все это лила и сансара, сплошь игры мары, пусть даже попытки вычленить "того, кто наблюдает" за этим миром, из собственно наблюдений за этим миром, или теория времени и его поршня и были бы вполне достойны Большой Умной Литературы. Однако еще ироничнее все окажется, если вспомнить, что "Человек, упавший на Землю" к моменту написания уже давно снят, и вот его-то наш модный автор запросто мог посмотеть с прищепкиной озвучкой.

Впрочем, будем благодарны за маленькие милости. На этом месте мог бы оказаться свинцовый соцреализм. А заканчивается все неинтересным и каким-то вымученным натужным сюрреализмом, да поминанием всуе имени Джойса, до которого Битому, будем честны, как до Китая раком.

Хуйня:
"крошечные японские садики, живые икебаны",
Джеймз Биллингтон, директор Библиотеки Конгресса США, с какого-то хуя у него вдруг "лорд",
"метр" Шарко,
в Тибете у него почему-то "монастырь Дарумы" (ааа?),
"чувство покинутости",
довольно безграмотный английский там, где он должен быть правильным, а не игровым,
глагол как член предложения,
bansai (?),
на верхушке мачты у него почему-то расположен мостик,
"раскуривают трубки, с портвейном и черри" (??), который дальше у него превращается в безграмотный шерри, конечно,
"игра в паззл",
"сикстет",
никто не объяснил автору, что inheritage - это не наследие,
"отбытие „Куин Элизабет“ из Сингапура" (автор, конечно, не в курсе, что КЭ была в этом порту ровно один раз - перевозила британские войска в 1940 году),
"оканчивал Оксфорд за Кембриджем" - глупость даже для риторики,
издания "Британники" 1911 года не существует (а не только ее тома на букву Ш),
шотландец Кэмпбелл,
Саутгемптон (но в той же строке почему-то правильный Хэмптон-Корт),
ленч,
"странное слово birdy" (в котором нет совершенно ничего странного)

[Valentina Vekovishcheva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Восхитительно прекрасная книга, в которой есть всё, что я люблю, но на последней главе я как-то резко от нее устала. Послесловию автора - отдельное восхищение.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

"My writing was good, but my ideas were even better"

Subtitled "A novel echo", the Symmetry Teacher is an elaborate post modern exploration of the nature of fiction, and of reality, that is at times a little too clever for it's own - or at least this reader's - good. I wanted to love this book, but I found myself admiring it more than fully appreciating it.

To summarise; we, the present day English-speaker, are reading a translation, published in 2014, by Polly Gannon of a novel written in Russian by Andrei Bitov, and published in 2008 although claiming to have been started in the 1970s.

Bitov's book is itself (or rather claims to be - from this point on we're in the world of fiction) the translation into Russian of a book called The Teacher of Symmetry by an "obscure English author", seemingly not a native speaker ("hence, certain linguistic quirks and a style that is somewhat recherche"); a book Bitov once possessed but can no longer trace and so is now recalling and translating from memory rather than the actual pages. Although Bitov's novel contains a mocked-up title page for the original novel, where the author's name is shown as "A Tired-Boffin" (an anagram of Andrei Bittoff) and a publication date of 1937, Bitov's own birth year.

And A Tired-Boffin's book itself tells the story of a British, albeit of exotic origins, character called Urbino Vanoski (a literary joke since it's an anagram for Sirin Nabokov - Sirin being Nabokov's pen name).

Vanoski "an obscure author from the 1930s, enjoyed a veritable boom at the end of the sixties", a boom that was thought by scholars to be posthumous, and Vanoski was believed to have spent his last days in poverty and ignorance of his own success. But Tired-Boffin, to his own surprise, tracks down Vanoski and finds him alive and well - and Tired-Boffin's book - of which we're reading a English translation of Bitov's Russian reinterpretation, tells Vanoski's story - and indeed contains large excerpts from Vanoski's work.

And in the very first episode, Vanoski claims to have met the devil, albeit in the guise of a portly balding man sitting on a park bench, who showed him a glimpse of a woman he would meet in his future. Vanoski becomes obsessed with finding this woman, but to conceal his obsessive search from his then current partner, Dika, he tells his own story to her as as if it is fictional, and he himself was not the protagonist but it is rather the basis for a novel he is planning:

"The ruse was that it was my creative quest, some grand conception, that gripped me, not I tormenting her. I told her everything, but not as the truth - rather, as the plot of a novel that was born in me suddenly when I chanced to come across that photograph of a cloud (which was now hanging over my bed). I told her about the quest of my protagonist, about his experiences, everything just as it was, except for one detail: my protagonist did not have a Dika. He was solitary, alone with the image he pursued. There was no betrayal. It would be a new tale of chivarly, I told Dika, like the Knight of the Mournful Countenance. Through his fidelity and love, this Knight triumphed over the devil who had tempted him with the image. The Knight overcame temptation by believing in it as the truth, not calling it into question. Dika was shattered each time I enriched the plot with some fresh detail, or unexpected but convincing twist. She disguised her jealousy with flights of rapture over my creative mastery, and found parallels in world literature through her philological erudition, thus refining and honing my methodology."

And to add to the meta-fictional nature, Gannon's translation of the novel is itself seemingly not totally faithful to the original, since the copyright pages refers to Bitov's novel 'as originally published in 2008 in Russian, in slightly different form'. Normally such a comment would raise my hackles, but here is seems wonderfully appropriate. And Polly Gannon is to be congratulated on her impressive efforts - particularly given that word play, always difficult to translate, is so integral to the novel.

And this is all in the first pages and a mere subset of the literary games played.

As for the novel itself, it has some wonderful Borgesian touches.

For example, the Devil shows Vanoski what he claims to be actual photos he has taken at key historical moments - except the photos themselves are not quite what one might expect. As the Devil says:

"What I mean is that these are all absolutely random shots. They mean nothing at all. This one, for example, is Shakespeare. And don't think it's the moment when he wrote his "To be or not to be" monologue. Nor it is a meeting with the Dark Lady, or with Francis Bacon. Here he is looking tired after a performance'. In the photograph was a faience basis with a broken rim, certainly outmoded in shape; but from it protruded two ordinary naked feet".

Bitov - and his narrators within the story - prefer writing about books than writing the books themselves, which gives the book we're reading a somewhat incomplete feel: "In science only the path is interesting, not the actual achievement" (a quote from Tishkin, an acquaintance of Anton, a friend of Vanoski, about whom A. Tired-Boffin wrote his book, which Bitov has translated from memory, and Gannon translated back into English)

Another Borgesian touch is the concept of the "Tristram club", named after Sterne's Mr Shandy of course. The club is open to unpublished authors with unfinished novels, and the clubs rules actually seem to encourage the authors to remain in that state:

"4. Difficulties in writing the text signify not laziness but the complexity of the task.

9 A member of the Club is permitted to publish a work only when all other members of the Club consider it to be finished.

10 Upon publication of a work, the author's membership in the Club is automatically annulled."

After all, one character explains, Sterne "never finished anything he wrote. He even succumbed to a self-induced illness and died, after demanding too much of himself, so as not to have to finish anything... So what is a finished work of art? was the question that gripped the collective conciousness of our club so tenaciously. The work of art is not that which already was - but that which is (both written, and unwritten)."

Borges of course wrote short stories, and didn't attempt to expand his ideas to novel length. Bitov tries, but the novel reads at times like a random collection of interesting ideas: there are parts where the progression of paragraphs seems almost random, and it's difficult to follow Bitov's thought processes or catch many of his allusions.

Bitov isn't unaware of the reader's difficulties. Indeed one of the planned novels by a putative Tristram club member is actually part of Bitov's novel (the 32 page chapter "The End of the Sentence"). His idea is rejected because it "was packed with detail - interesting primarily to the specialist - as well as with incomprehensible Russian Jokes. We dozed off" - which is painfully accurate.

Another obvious comparison to Bitov, with his literary puzzles, is Joyce, and A Tired-Boffin reports that "that puffed-up, unreadable Irishman irritated Urbino no end", which is implicitly self depreciation by Bitov for his attempts to follow the style. Although this reference itself is another literary game by Bitov - Urbino Vanoski is irritated specifically because he suspects Joyce of having stolen his razor: which the reader recognises as a nod to the opening lines of Ulysees.

Overall, certainly a book I'm glad I read and perhaps one I will return to, but as the quote from Vanoski that opens the review suggests, the ideas were better than the writing.

[HomeInMyShoes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Outside of the last thirty pages which I quite enjoyed this was a bit of a slog. Perhaps not the right book to pick up after a hiatus from reading.

[elderfoil...the whatever champion · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I've been here before...photographs taken seven years in the future, words that fall off the page when you read them, retelling stories from a book you can't find, etc. All the key players (hints, drops, tricks, maneuvers, spins, turns, etc.) come together in another post-modern display that seems to dissipate into thin air when I take off my coat and reach for tea. And not with a sizzle. The reader who can't get enough of this stuff might well enjoy it: Bitov is no slouch and one could do far worse in this codified game. On the other hand, one could also do better. Well, at least Bitov's always got words of praise for Fyodor, which is still more than we can say for the other fellow. But to the point, if you want the heart of Bitov, it's Pushkin House and/or The Monkey Link...both of which offered much more soul and magic than The Symmetry Teacher, and certainly without playing the usual deck of cards (at least as far as I recall).

[Jill · Rating 1 out of 5]

To be fair this is probably not the book I should have chosen to read while floating in a pool chair but regardless, Wow Was It Bad.

[Claire Binkley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very sceptical when I saw this author compared with the greats I struggled through the past seven years. This was just a random book I picked up from the front of the Library while I was waiting for a ride.
Could it really be all that good? (My bias is for older books, ones that have been on the shelf for at least half a century, though the thirteenth century stuff drives me crazy.)

As I discovered, to my delight, Bitov's writing warrants such lofty praise. He toys with your mind in such a bewildering manner! Normally I don't like books acknowledging they're "just" books, but Bitov's writing is what I think apt for this brief pre-NaNoWriMo stretch.

It DOES play with your head, though. I mean, maybe I'm just easily confused, what with the dozens of books I always have my nose in, and all of the other things I'm thinking about like the books I don't have mentioned on Goodreads for this or that reason (for example, the recent Greek myths book I've had for years but I just put it on since it was on a list I'd been voting around), or the "life" I'm maintaining outside of literature, but I don't think that's what happened to me, I think it's his style. The Russian преподавател style.
I feel just like when I poddled away from the professor whose office I essentially lived in my final two years of undergraduate study.

<>

[Алексей Шеремет · Rating 5 out of 5]

Андрей Битов – писатель великий и при этом совершенно не известный не то что широкой публике – а даже и публике читающей.

И наиболее неизвестная из всех книг Битова – конечно же, «Преподаватель симметрии», филигранная литературная мистификация, мимикрирующая под «перевод с иностранного», сперва публиковалась в журнале «Юность», позже вышла вместе с «Птицами» (первой частью ещё ненаписанных тогда «Оглашенных») в Московском рабочем. Происходило это в горбачёвские времена, когда стало можно – на краткий миг – публиковать вещи крамольные, и на их громком и будоражащем фоне книга оказалась абсолютно, катастрофически незамеченной.

Территориально «Преподаватель» находится где-то между Павичем и Борхесом (скорее всего, про первого на тот момент Битов и не слышал, но второго конечно же не читать не мог) – но самое главное в том, что в этой книге отсутствует (ну хорошо, почти отсутствует) сам Битов, по крайней мере Битов Пушкинского дома и Улетающего Монахова. Битов весь соткан из русского, из словаря Даля, но по условиям игры, по условиям добровольно наложенных вериг именно в этой книге Битов писал так, как будто это перевод, как будто воображённый им в красках Тэйрд-Боффин не читал не то что Даля, но и с великой русской литературой знаком весьма поверхностно. Правда, в последнем рассказе вериги истинно гудиниевским образом развеществляются, и Битов пишет о том, что любит более всего – разумеется, о Пушкине.

К прочтению (и перечтению) обязательно.

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 4 out of 5]

I fell in love with the first four novels a third of a century ago, and the sacramental "never go back to your old places" didn't work with them."Translator's Preface", "View of the sky of Troy", "Is O a number or a letter?" and "At the end of the sentence" are just as incredibly beautiful as in 1987, when I read them in "Youth" (in both senses). It's the same magical, mesmerizing, dreamy prose by Andrey Bitov, which made him one of the stars of my reading firmament for decades.

The infernal heat of passion for an unsuitable object, in the "View of the Sky of Troy", which I will identify after in the love of the knight Ruprecht for Renata in Bryusov's "Fiery Angel" and I will reread that book in a circle. And a much more mature living of a life not of one's own, imposed from the outside, in the same novel, which will still need to be understood. The detached "Translator's Preface", unbearably native Strugatsky echoes in this story of a man who occupies the leisure of a rough and meager life on an expedition by translating a random book by an unknown author. The eternal hypercompensation of the "mysterious Russian soul", coupled with the problems of semantics "At the end of a sentence". And the story of an idiot genius of unimaginable beauty, anticipating "Forrest Gump" - "O is a number or a letter".

And this masterpiece beginning, written three decades before the main body of the text of the "Teacher of Symmetry", makes up about a quarter of the total volume of the book. The other three quarters. about three hundred pages are filled with an unbearable pretentious muddle, causing the reader an ongoing attack of Spanish shame. The misogynous story of twins Lily and Marlene, with whom the hero sleeps on a tropical island. in A Couple of Coffins ("It's a pun," said the King and everyone laughed). The Dooms Day telemachie, monstrous in terms of erotic vulgarity, is not just bad, but bears a clear imprint of degradation, and besides, it is overflowing with self-conscious, self-satisfied racism.

The idea of combining such different things in terms of performance, depth and semantic content within one collection is completely a failure. But for the sake of the first four novels, let it be 8/10. Someone dissuade me.

Декаданс
И сном окружена вся наша маленькая жизнь.
Шекспир
Эта книга - еще один повод поблагодарить свою читательскую интуицию, державшую от нее на расстоянии многие годы. В первые четыре новеллы я влюбилась треть века назад и с ними сакраментальное: "никогда не возвращайся в прежние места" не сработало."Предисловие переводчика", "Вид неба Трои", "О – цифра или буква?" и "В конце предложения" так же немыслимо прекрасны, как в 1987, когда прочла их в "Юности" (в обоих смыслах). Все та же волшебная, завораживающая, сновидческая проза Андрея Битова, которая на десятилетия сделала его одной из звезд моего читательского небосклона.

Адский жар страсти к неподходящему предмету, в "Виде неба Трои", который опознаю после в любви рыцаря Рупрехта к Ренате в "Огненном ангеле" Брюсова и стану перечитывать ту книгу по кругу. И куда более зрелое проживание не своей, навязанной извне, жизни в той же новелле, до понимания которого еще нужно будет дойти. Отстраненное "Предисловие переводчика", невыносимо родные стругацкие отголоски в этой истории человека, занимающего досуг грубой и скудной жизни в экспедиции переводом случайной книги неизвестного автора. Вечная гиперкомпенсация "загадочной русской души" вкупе с проблемами семантики "В конце предложения". И немыслимой красоты история гения-идиота, предвосхитившая "Форрест Гамп" - "О - цифра или буква".

И это шедевральное начало, написанное за три десятка лет до основного массива текста "Преподавателя симметрии", составляет примерно четверть от общего объема книги. Остальные три четверти. примерно три сотни страниц, заполнены невыносимой претенциозной мутью, вызывающей у читателя непреходящий приступ испанского стыда. Мизогинная история близняшек Лили и Марлен, с которыми герой спит на тропическом острове. в A Couple of Coffins ("Это каламбур," - сказал Король и все рассмеялись (с)). Чудовищная по уровню эротоманской пошлости телемахиада Dooms Day не просто плоха, но несет явный отпечаток деградации, да к тому же переполнена не осознающим себя таковым, самодовольным расизмом.

Идея объединить такие разные по уровню исполнения, по глубине и смысловому наполнению вещи в пределах одного сборника, совершенно провальна. Но ради первых четырех новелл пусть будет 8/10. Разубедите меня кто-нибудь.

[Rasaxx · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5
Labai sunkiai prisijaukinama knyga. Kartais lyg ir aišku ką nori pasakyti, bet daugiau tai visiški vėjai. Tiksliai įvardyta - romanas aidas. Personažai lyg dingsta, lyg vėl atsiranda. Greičiau ne, negu taip. Visgi norėčiau dar ką nors iš Andrei Bitov knygų paskaityti.

[Tapani Aulu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarjassamme luin, nautin, en ymmärtänyt mitään. Eli laatukamaa.

[Ivana Širinić]

- na 146.str sam pocela preskakat poglavlja
- iskr jako tesko za citat, da bi se shvatila poanta treba bas previse koncentracije, plot je nezanimljiv
- sve se svodi na anagrame, word play, prevodjenje
- citala samo zbog Polly
- 257.str AARDVARK - contribution from Polly, in agreement with Bitov. Bitov slightly changes his stories when they go into translation, they are an ongoing work of art/new writing.

[Uintah Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a genre with Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, and Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars, The Symmetry Teacher, translated from Russian, is a treat, even if you can't make it through the whole book, which would truly be a feat. The challenge of following the nonsequetor nature of conversation and internal narrative that flow like an altered state flow of consciousness is rewarded not only by incremental if incomplete success, but by a liberal peppering of twisted but palpable humor. I'm enjoying it in small bites (laughing and struggling simultaneously), but intend to give it to someone else to finish.

In the end, after skipping my way through, I read the final Part III, and loved it. If I was not such a slow reader, I might have enjoyed reading the entire book.

[Konstantin R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

[rating = B-]
Though it took me quite some time to read, I rather enjoyed it! The novel reads more like shorts stories that, each, somehow connect to one another by some vague reference. Bitov can be very funny, and at times very philosophical. The middle section is the best, the beginning is the deepest, the end is the saddest. The story follows, loosely, Vanoski who is the "supposed-author" of the sections of this novel. He goes to islands to meet delusional twins, goes to France to write his encyclopedia, and he talks with the devil who starts him on his endless searchings. A single photo can do a lot; the power of small things indeed. The novel has elements of surrealism, as magic realism, making it a bit allusive but entrancing. One of the finest Russian authors at work today.

[!Tæmbuŝu]

KOBOBOOKS

Reviewed by The Complete Review

[Debbie]

I want to get back to this book, but it's work to read and I have too many other things that i have to read and I want to flit to.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a hard time getting in the swing of this despite some memorable sentences and enjoyable story fragments. Compared with Calvino, this is really hard to track.

[Benzilneurosurg · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't get past the first 100 pages hard as I tried. I don't mind modern (I don't think) it a challenge but found this not worth the sweat.

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

a 3.5, well written, sometimes obscure.