Московский чудак (Модное чт )

by Andrei Bely

This newly rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia’s finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century. And reviewers have hailed the translation as "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement."An absent-minded professor and a glamorous yet bumbling spy struggle over a powerful secret formula in this tale filled with eccentric personalities, wild dialogue, improbable sounds, bristling images and vivid colors.In The Moscow Eccentric, Andrei Bely challenges readers not only with his ideas, but by presenting them in a what he called an “epic poem in prose format.” Built on a rhythmic backbone of metered prose that supports a wondrous array of literary devices, both poetic and prosaic, Bely’s language play is breathtaking. He is as brilliant on a huge canvas depicting spectacular swaths of city life as he is in detailing the patterns of snow on a small stretch of sidewalk. He surprises and thrills readers with constant tonal and stylistic variation, moving effortlessly from lyrical descriptions of nature to slapstick physical and verbal parody of Russia’s social milieu.Brought into English for the first time by award-winning translator Brendan Kiernan, and peppered with original illustrations by Katya Korobkina, this is a stunning, poetic, and powerful novel by the author of Petersburg, which Vladimir Nabokov called one of the four best novels of the twentieth century.

Genres: Russia

276 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1926

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]

The Moscow Eccentric is the first novel in the Moscow trilogy. The trilogy is the most complex, innovative and recondite of Andrei Bely’s works. And the novel is utterly experimental from the first word to the last.

Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir!
The stinging flies swarmed every August; their bellies were broader; they’d hatch, and as soon as their wings went to work they would fly with no sound; they were wiley: oh no, they’d not land on your skin, as a rule, but your clothes and crawl over quite slowly: then ow!
Yes, Ivan Ivanovich Korobkin waged war on those flies; while they warred on his nose; so, as soon as he got into bed and protected himself from his head to his toes with a blanket (brick apples on black), just the tip of his haphazard nose and a wisp of his beard sticking out, a small way from his nose on the pillow a fly would be waiting; and watching Ivan Ivanovich; and, Ivan Ivanovich, the fly; and the question was who would trick whom?

So it is with hunters and their game. So it is with spies and their objects. And there is a spy who hunts for the professor’s great mysterious scientific discovery.
Ideas won’t wait, they may occur any time…

The professor stopped walking: from under the stripes on his hat he jutted suspiciously, angrily, dull-eyed, at some new idea; in his mind, a small whirl of a formula hung: and some formulae rang in his head, which allowed him to scribble them down; then, a black square just appeared right in front of his nose and obstructed his view of the columned Manezh.
The same square appeared near the sidewalk, presenting itself in a way he found tempting:
“I’d sure like to scribble some numbers on that!”
The professor was tempted; a small piece of chalk in his pocket, he almost knocked over a passer-by, and almost tripped over a bollard, then quickly and rashly jumped down off the sidewalk: he stood near the square; with the chalk in his hand he wrote out a long ribbon of formulae; most interesting!
Solved.

Thus he writes his magical formula on the back of a coach and the carriage is gone…
Not beauty, eccentricity will save the world… Eccentrics are those who stand at the base of any fundamental discovery and they are the foundation of all the future progress.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 5 out of 5]

How come Andrei Bely isn't better known? This playful book is full of wordplay (with copious helpful (short) footnotes from translator Brendan Kieran) was good fun.

Set in early 20th century Moscow it's the story of an absent-minded professor of Maths and his adversary, a wealthy business magnate (although the blurb calls him a spy).

Apparently it was part of a trilogy but the other 2 parts don't appear to have been translated into English.

[Eric Phetteplace · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting novel that tackles Moscow in same way as Bely's masterwork did Petersburg, down to a similar sort of spy novel intrigue. There are lots of sonic devices at play in the translators attempt to capture Bely's "poem in prose" style. Numerous footnotes explain linguistic choices and cultural references that are lost on modern American readers. I highlighted many wonderful, imagistic lines and enjoyed the use of recurring symbols and colors to identify characters and themes. That said, it's a goofy and heavy-handed book. The eccentric professor and his dog both get hit by carriages and we are repeatedly reminded of how alike the two are. The novel's climactic scene ends with him putting a cat on his head instead of a hat. Soviet censorship must have affected Bely's artistry somewhat, from his tepid intro page justifying the work in Marxist terms to the over-the-top caricatures. The bad guy didn't need to be incestuous for us to understand he's evil. The novel's subtlety comes from fragmented dialog and quick changes of scenery, but not nuanced characters or moral dilemmas. Petersburg is a far superior work, but I liked this one, and I hope the next book in the series is translated someday.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Moscow at the time of WWII (just prior to the 1917 Revolution), with many of the symbolist/surreal/avant garde devices of his famous PETERSBURG, set on the eve of the 1905 Revolution. Its fragmented plot structure and time sequence, narrated more by visual imagery, sonic devices and descriptions of the characters’ consciousness than by a sequence of events,
are like the verbal equivalent of a modernist painting. The translator brilliantly handles the
extremely difficult issue of Bely’s highly inventive and playful neologisms by creating his own original English equivalents, drawing on archaisms, graphically running separate English words into one (to reproduce the single Russian word they are translating), and puns.