Death of a Prototype
The Portrait
Published on 15. April 2017
240 pages
978-1-78308-706-8 (ISBN)
Description
This is the first work by Victor Beilis to make it into English since the single-volume publication in 2002 of a duo of novellas-"The Rehabilitation of Freud & Bakhtin and Others"(translated by Richard Grose). Much like the novellas that preceded it, "Death of a Prototype" is a hyper-allusive and self-consciously difficult work. Beilis engages closely with an entire spectrum of Russian and European cultural traditions, from classical antiquity to twentieth-century postmodernism. Structurally heterogeneous and fragmented with styles, genres and narrators succeeding one another at great speed, "Death of a Prototype" is also highly balanced and controlled, in some ways recalling a contrapuntal musical composition abounding in thematic echoes and correspondences. "Death of a Prototype" simultaneously challenges and rewards the reader, especially one attuned to fine-grain detail.
Reviews / Votes
Beilis's novel is demonically and tantalizingly allusive: it is a complex web of explicit and veiled quotation and stylization, parody, pastiche and paraphrase. Here is the gamut of Russian and Western European cultural traditions, from antiquity to postmodernism: Russian greats from Pushkin to Venedikt Erofeev, via Osip Mandelstam, Vladimir Nabokov and the illustrious House of Tolstoy; European literature from Ovid to Oscar Wilde via Rilke and Goethe; and the philosophical canon, embracing Vasily Rozanov, Sigmund Freud and Mikhail Bakhtin. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/victor-beilis/More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
File size
7,62 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-78308-706-8 (9781783087068)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
04/2017
Anthem Press
€21.00
Shipment within 10-15 days
Persons
Victor Beilis is a scholar of African folklore and author of numerous short stories and one novel.
Leo Shtutin is a translator of literary fiction from Russian.
Leo Shtutin is a translator of literary fiction from Russian.
Content
- Cover
- Front Matter
- Half-title
- Title page
- Copyright information
- Table of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Translator's introduction
- Part (1-3)
- Part One
- Notice
- Koretsky
- Adeles Major and Minor
- Kiryushin
- The Portrait
- Korzunov
- The Portrait (Continued)
- Kazarnovsky
- The Portrait (Continued)
- Kiryushin
- The Portrait (Continued)
- Edward
- The Portrait (Conclusion)
- The Artist
- Part Two
- Notice
- Adele
- Ada
- The Portrait (Abelone)
- Yadya
- The Portrait (Eros)
- Kozin (Symphonie fantastique, Fifth Movement)
- The Portrait (Big Brother)
- The Artist
- Part Three
- Notice
- First and Second
- Commentary
- The Letters
- 1. Little one
- 2. Madman!
- 3. Dear .
- 4. O, Delia .
- 5. Unaddressed
- 6. Dearest artist
- 7. Beloved
- Notes
- End Matter
- Appendix: The Portrait (1873)
- Translator's Afterword
- Explanatory Glosses and References
