A tantalising mystery... a mesmerising work of literature'Antony Beevor'Truly troubling,a weird meditation on death,war and sex'Paris ReviewA superb early postmodern classic by one of Nabokov's fellow émigré writers,rediscovered after more than half a centuryA man comes across a short story which recounts in minute detail his killing of a soldier,long ago - from the victim's point of view. It's a story that should not exist,and whose author can only be a dead man.So begins the strange quest for its elusive writer:'Alexander Wolf'.A singular classic,The Spectre of Alexander Wolf is a psychological thriller and existential inquiry into guilt and redemption,coincidence and fate,love and death.Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature,hand-picked from around the globeTranslated by Bryan KaretnykGaito Gazdanov (1903-1971) joined the White Army aged just sixteen and fought in the Russian Civil War. Exiled in Paris from the 1920s onwards,he eventually became a nocturnal taxi-driver and quickly gained prominence on the literary scene as a novelist,essayist,critic and short-story writer,and was greatly acclaimed by Maxim Gorky,among others.
MEDIA REVIEWS
Publisher: Pushkin PressISBN: 9781805330233Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
A work of great potency...it punches very much above its weight,and I have a hunch that what's in it will stay with you for the rest of your lifeThis is an original at work,that originality perceived as it were through a veil,as an intrigue,an enigma... offering a perception of reality,of death and guilt and the effects of bothQuick-paced,taut prose...rendered beautifully in Karetnyk's accomplished new translationElegantly eerie...devastatingly atmospheric...cool,wonderfully fraughtA tantalising mystery. Much more than a period piece,it is a mesmerising work of literatureIt's as if the roman policier has been filtered through Dostoevsky... a finely wrought novel,tense and enigmatic,just waiting to be discovered by a filmmaker...The narrator relates his tale in gorgeously cadenced long sentences...like those of Proust...Gazdanov owes a debt from the grave to his translator Bryan KaretnykTruly troubling,a weird meditation on death,war,and sex... Bryan Karetnyk's new translation makes you believe in the power of the originalQuick,taut prose... rendered beautifully in Karetnyk's accomplished new translationExtraordinarily goodA compulsive read,playful yet sinister,meandering yet impressively trim,old-world and modern. It is to Pushkin Press's great credit that this gorgeously restored relic... has been revived from untimely oblivionSplendidly translated... a mini-masterpieceGazdanov's work is the perfect fusion of the Russian tradition and French innovationThere are hints of Sartre's nihilism,flashes of Nabokov's émigré restlessness and several narrative tricks,which seem to prefigure postmodernism... those interested in questioning the hidden and often incomprehensible connections between human beings will savor this intriguing taleCoincidence,fate,guilt,redemption,love,death and melodrama are thrillingly interwoven with irresistible style and eleganceThis new translation of his most popular and accomplished novel reveals Gadzanov's masterful command of criminal plots and the psychological nuances of his characters,coupled with evocative descriptions of shifting moods and urban landscapes... Karetnyk's prose is surgically precise and elegantly taut... A literary masterpieceGazdanov is a modernist masterGazdanov's name remains too little mentioned by English-language readers - a problem for which Bryan Karetnyk's new translation... provides a partial solution... Like Nabokov at his best,Gazdanov teases his reader to trace the sometimes parallel yet often intersecting narrative layers,reminding us again that to read literature means,in many ways,to lose one's mindDancing between themes,Gazdanov's plain and poised sentences proceed always at their own unhurried pace... Bryan Karetnyk's translation makes this English prose sound... like the cool musicianship of vintage jazz. Something shines through it.Elegantly craftedA detective story that falls within a particular Russian literary lineage
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