Immagine dell'autore.

Tatyana Tolstaya

Autore di The Slynx

50+ opere 1,788 membri 41 recensioni 3 preferito

Sull'Autore

Tatyana Tolstaya---"the most original, tactile, luminous voice in Russian prose today," according to Joseph Brodsky---worked at various publishing jobs after graduating from Leningrad University and appeared on the Moscow literary scene in 1983 with the favorably received story "Loves Me, Loves Me mostra altro Not." Her first collection, On the Golden Porch (1988), proved extremely popular. Soon afterward she came to the United States on the first of a series of visiting university appointments and has plunged actively into cultural life in this country: She writes for the New York Review of Books, the New Republic, The New Yorker, and other magazines, as well as for publications in Russia. Her forte is the short story, her writing distinguished by exuberance, a talent for description, a comic sensibility, and more than a touch of the surreal. For one reviewer, "the discrepancy between fondest desires and disappointing reality" lies at the core of her writing, which is "a fiction of vast possibility, propelled not by plot, but by a narrative voice that imaginatively conveys the ambiguities of her characters' inner lives" (Baltimore Morning Sun). Sleepwalker in a Fog (1991) is her second book. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno
Nota di disambiguazione:

(eng) Do not combine with LT entry for Leo Tolstoy's daughter, Tatyana Tolstoy.

Fonte dell'immagine: Yaffa Grinblatt / Whistling in the Dark

Opere di Tatyana Tolstaya

The Slynx (2000) 824 copie
Sotto il portico dorato (1987) 207 copie
Sleepwalker in a Fog (1990) 159 copie
Aetherial Worlds: Stories (2018) 93 copie
Anni con mio padre (1928) 49 copie
In vuur en vlam (1988) 15 copie
De verhalen (1994) 10 copie
Date with a Bird (1989) 6 copie
Изюм (2002) 4 copie

Opere correlate

The Big Book of Science Fiction (2016) — Collaboratore — 412 copie
The Fierce and Beautiful World (New York Review Books Classics) (1970) — Introduzione, alcune edizioni203 copie
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Third Annual Collection (1988) — Collaboratore — 184 copie
The Penguin Book of International Women's Stories (1996) — Collaboratore — 113 copie
The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (2020) — Collaboratore — 108 copie
A Virago Keepsake to Celebrate Twenty Years of Publishing (1993) — Collaboratore — 48 copie
The New Soviet Fiction: Sixteen Short Stories (1989) — Collaboratore — 33 copie
Balancing Acts (1989) — Collaboratore — 25 copie

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Nome canonico
Tolstaya, Tatyana
Altri nomi
Tolstaya, Tatiana Nikitishna
Data di nascita
1951-05-03
Sesso
female
Nazionalità
Russia
Luogo di nascita
Leningrad, Russia, USSR
Luogo di residenza
Leningrad, Russia
Moscow, Russia
Richmond, Virginia, USA
Istruzione
Leningrad State University (Classics)
Attività lavorative
novelist
television host
essayist
Relazioni
Tolstoy, Alexei (grandfather)
Tolstoy, Leo (great-grand uncle)
Nota di disambiguazione
Do not combine with LT entry for Leo Tolstoy's daughter, Tatyana Tolstoy.

Utenti

Recensioni

Do you like zany, hallucinatory prose? I don't, I'm a big partisan of Realism, Magical or straight up, but I read this novel anyway. Set hundreds of years after a nuclear holocaust in a village in a spot that used to be Moscow, people have built a social order based on mice and tyranny. Oldeners have survived the blast, which rendered them immune from natural death, but they do nothing useful, just wait around for society to evolve and engage in old arguments. People born since have a variety of radiation- related Consequences, and never understand what the Oldeners are talking about. Cultural memory has suffered a complete break.

Benedikt, our hero, is a simple Golubchik who has a fortuitous marriage into a powerful family and through this means comes into contact with books from the pre-nuclear blast. He falls head over heels for them and reads through the whole library of thousands of surviving volumes.

But lest you think all this reading elevates or improves Benedikt... no. Lacking all the cultural memory needed to place these works in context, they are just collections of words. There is no difference between a Brothers Karamazov and an issue of a knitting journal.

So it is clear then that books, ripped clear away from their cultural context, no longer function for the cause they originally sprung out of. Here I feel for Benedikt, as I think I as an American reader of Tolstaya's novel share a degree of trouble with him. The novel, in the midst of its inventive flights of prose, frequently references Russian poetry and touchstones I don't know, and the whole thing can be seen as a satire of Russian society from feudal through Soviet times, of which I only have the average piddling understanding of a member of the educated American masses. I no doubt missed a lot that an educated Russian wouldn't.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
lelandleslie | 26 altre recensioni | Feb 24, 2024 |
I find this almost impossible to review. Terrifying and humorous at the same time. A post apocalyptic Tsarist-Soviet fantasy. Pieces of Borges, Burgess, Gaiman, Hoban, and Walter Williams come to mind. I laughed my ass off at times.
 
Segnalato
Gumbywan | 26 altre recensioni | Jun 24, 2022 |
Written in a mixture of first, second, and third person, this novel about a post-Blast Moscow is a stinging commentary of the second half of the 20th century Russian politics. Everyone's a mutant, life is an abominable mess, and the people are fed selected bundles of art and literature by a familiar sounding State. Themes include the dangers and joys of art, man's vile and selfish nature, and those transcendental moments evoked by poetry and landscape. What, really, makes us civilized? Or, have we ever been?
My only qualm is that I don't know enough about Russian history and literature to understand the subtler intentions of the book. A , though, would read again. With Wikipedia close by.
… (altro)
 
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MaryJeanPhillips | 26 altre recensioni | Jun 22, 2022 |
Even though the book is announced as stories to me it sounded more like essays. I how far am I to think that Tolstaya is pretending to be a cynical as she comes across in places or does she really mean it. When she portrays people like Malevich and Swedenborg in a little bit a tongue in cheek tone, does she mean that she doesn't like them or that her narrator is just mocking them. It's confusing.
The author also refers to life after death in several "stories" but never really says if she believes in it or not. The same with other spiritual references.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
Marietje.Halbertsma | 2 altre recensioni | Jan 9, 2022 |

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Statistiche

Opere
50
Opere correlate
15
Utenti
1,788
Popolarità
#14,400
Voto
3.8
Recensioni
41
ISBN
102
Lingue
16
Preferito da
3

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