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Night of Denial Stories and Novellas European Classics Ivan Bunin Robert Bowie 9780810114036 Books

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Night of Denial Stories and Novellas European Classics Ivan Bunin Robert Bowie 9780810114036 Books

Talented both in poetry and prose, Ivan Bunin (1870-1953) - author of "Night of Denial" - was the first Russian to be awarded a Nobel Prize for literature.
Described as an "archaist innovator" (by scholar Oleg Mikhaylov), Bunin carried on the classical Russian traditions, with a language - sometimes referred to as the "Bunin brocade" - that is very rich in verbal expression. His literary style forms a link between the realistic approach of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) and Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), and the modern form of Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977).
Along with the autobiographical novel "The Life of Arseniev", Bunin is best known for his short stories, 40 of which - written largely between 1900 and 1945 - are collected in "Night of Denial". The stories vary in length from two to over seventy pages, the longer ones - for example, Drydale, The Gentleman from San Francisco and The Consecration of Love - being comparable to actual independent novels. The stories are all dated, but not presented in accurate chronological order. The title - "Night of Denial" - is also the title of the last short story.
In addition to the stories, also included at the end of the book are: Notes, providing interesting details and other information on the stories themselves; an extended Afterword (sic), including abundant data on the author and his work; a section On Translating Bunin and the Acknowledgements, all by the translator Robert Bowie.
Very attractive, in the stories, and usually bright, are the descriptions of nature, which extend from the fine details of a small flower to the vast spectacular extensions of the Russian landscape. Skillfully presented are the sudden explosions of leaves and flowers, many varieties of flowers, ushering in the spring season.
Interestingly enough, the beauty of nature, fades in the background, when the author moves on to the descriptions of men and women: there is no beauty or joy in Bunin's human beings, only the negative aspects of their condition. For example, there is:
Loneliness and isolation, particularly where women are involved. In "An Unknown Friend", the main character continues to write to some prominent personality whom she greatly admires, although she never met him, nor received one single reply from him. In "Somber Pathways", two former lovers meet after many years, and discover that he has moved on with his life, is married with a child, and hardly remembers what was to him just another brief affair. She never got over the encounter. She is not married and still in love with her first and possibly only real love.
Violence. Some of the descriptions are unusually raw and suggest a heartless disposition (unexpected, after reading the depictions of nature), a quality that may be present, but is not as predominant in other Russian authors, such as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. In the "The Calf's Head", the author is not satisfied with describing the severed head of an innocent little calf - as seen through the eyes of a young child - he then has the butcher cut that head in half "with a single masterful stroke of .........his ax"!!!! In "The Idol", the "muzhik" - "an effeminate, beardless savage" - sits in the snow and eats raw horse flesh after dipping it in black blood, during a busy day at the Moscow Zoological Gardens. To the passersby, the image of such an unusual individual seems like little more than an oddity, perhaps another noticeable specimen, among the other residents of the zoo.
Even love - including first love - does not appear to awaken the exhilarating feelings that most of us experience when meeting that very special person for the first time. The ending of "The Consecration of Love" is entirely unexpected, given the title. (No details. The readers will want to discover this for themselves). In "Light Breathing", love does not help the smitten school boy grow and mature, rather gives him thoughts of suicide. In "First Love", the stormy spring landscape changes almost instantaneously from gray and gloomy to sunny and bright, yet the human atmosphere remains gloomy, at least for the adolescent boy's contained tears in response to the beautiful girl's charm, "a girl who may be very young, but is already fully aware of the effect that she has on the opposite sex".
The translation is good, if we keep in mind the difficulties, when trying to convey the meaning of a language - and culture - so entirely different from ours. Commendable is the translator's decision to leave some of the words in the original language (then to describe them in the Notes at the end of the book). In this context, the Notes might have probably been more helpful immediately following the story itself, or as footnotes on the same page. The translation of the language of the serfs and other people from the lower classes might have had a stronger impact if left in regular English: the serfs speak a language that is real in the original Russian version of the book. It feels artificial in the translation, as the translator uses the language of a certain class of people who live in the Western world and who may not necessarily express themselves in the same manner as the Russian serfs. Still, this is only a minor flaw, particularly if we consider that serfs are not usually main characters in the stories.

A very good book that deserves its four stars.


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Night of Denial Stories and Novellas European Classics Ivan Bunin Robert Bowie 9780810114036 Books Reviews

Ivan Bunin, who is an important member of the literary pantheon in Russia, has, for some unknown reason, never been quite discovered in the West. But here we have in English translation the largest selection of his works ever published in one volume, plus extensive notes on each story and a long critical article at the end.

After he was established as a writer in English, Vladimir Nabokov went out of his way to disparage Bunin, but a reader of this volume can’t help noticing that Bunin was a major influence on the early Nabokov. Just read “The Gentleman from San Francisco,” and there you have it what Nabokov once called Bunin’s “parchovaja proza” (brocaded prose) is the literary progenitor of Nabokov’s own stylistic brocade.

Bunin is a masterful teller of the short tale, but I am especially impressed by two of the longer stories (call them novellas if you wish) published here in Bowie’s excellent translations “The Case of Cornet Elagin” and “Drydale.” A true classic of Russian literature, “Drydale” stands proudly beside the best of other works in this genre Tolstoy’s “Death of Ivan Ilich,” Dostoevsky’s “Notes from the Underground,” Turgenev’s “First Love,” Nabokov’s “The Eye,” Olesha’s “Envy.”

The translator Robert Bowie, who must have worked for years over this labor of love, should be congratulated for bringing Bunin in out of the shadows. In addition to his published translations, Bowie has a fascinating blog on Russian literature at http//classical-russian-literature.blogspot.com/

Bowie himself is a writer of quality creative fiction, some of it directly connected to the tradition of Russian literature. His latest publication is a collection of short stories, Anyway, Anyways, available for sale on

http//www./Anyway-Anyways-Short-Stories-Collected/dp/150297522X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416773544&sr=1-1&keywords=u.r.+Bowie%2C+%22Anyway%2C+Anyways%22.
There is a wealth of good fiction in this big book. Then again, you also get the translator’s detailed notes on the stories (100 pages worth) and his critical afterword, one of the most insightful and longest pieces ever written about Bunin in English. “The Gentleman from San Francisco” is my favorite in this collection. It remains Bunin’s best-known story in the West. I heard that when John Updike read it he was immediately reminded of the writer he considered the best American writer of his time, Vladimir Nabokov. The translator, Robert Bowie, who writes fiction under the name U.R. Bowie, has posted on his blog Updike’s post card to him—in which Updike mentions “The Gent,” Bunin and Nabokov. The blog is “U.R. Bowie on Russian Literature.”
I had never heard of Bunin before I stumbled across this book, but Bunin is a major find - kind of a bridge between Chekhov and Nabokov (whom he obviously influenced), but with a sensibility all his own. The Consecration of Love is one of the best evocations of first love's irrational, insatiable, jealous nature I've ever come across. It's written in the kind of ornate, painterly language that will drive some crazy, but will make other fellow writers jealous. There are a number of gems here, including Drydale and The Gentleman from San Francisco. But it is in The Consecration of Love that Bunin and his translator reach their artistic peak. Robert Bowie's translations are impeccable as careful and gorgeous as Dmitri Nabokov's of his father Vladimir's work. That is, they are some of the finest things ever written in the English language.
Talented both in poetry and prose, Ivan Bunin (1870-1953) - author of "Night of Denial" - was the first Russian to be awarded a Nobel Prize for literature.
Described as an "archaist innovator" (by scholar Oleg Mikhaylov), Bunin carried on the classical Russian traditions, with a language - sometimes referred to as the "Bunin brocade" - that is very rich in verbal expression. His literary style forms a link between the realistic approach of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) and Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), and the modern form of Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977).
Along with the autobiographical novel "The Life of Arseniev", Bunin is best known for his short stories, 40 of which - written largely between 1900 and 1945 - are collected in "Night of Denial". The stories vary in length from two to over seventy pages, the longer ones - for example, Drydale, The Gentleman from San Francisco and The Consecration of Love - being comparable to actual independent novels. The stories are all dated, but not presented in accurate chronological order. The title - "Night of Denial" - is also the title of the last short story.
In addition to the stories, also included at the end of the book are Notes, providing interesting details and other information on the stories themselves; an extended Afterword (sic), including abundant data on the author and his work; a section On Translating Bunin and the Acknowledgements, all by the translator Robert Bowie.
Very attractive, in the stories, and usually bright, are the descriptions of nature, which extend from the fine details of a small flower to the vast spectacular extensions of the Russian landscape. Skillfully presented are the sudden explosions of leaves and flowers, many varieties of flowers, ushering in the spring season.
Interestingly enough, the beauty of nature, fades in the background, when the author moves on to the descriptions of men and women there is no beauty or joy in Bunin's human beings, only the negative aspects of their condition. For example, there is
Loneliness and isolation, particularly where women are involved. In "An Unknown Friend", the main character continues to write to some prominent personality whom she greatly admires, although she never met him, nor received one single reply from him. In "Somber Pathways", two former lovers meet after many years, and discover that he has moved on with his life, is married with a child, and hardly remembers what was to him just another brief affair. She never got over the encounter. She is not married and still in love with her first and possibly only real love.
Violence. Some of the descriptions are unusually raw and suggest a heartless disposition (unexpected, after reading the depictions of nature), a quality that may be present, but is not as predominant in other Russian authors, such as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. In the "The Calf's Head", the author is not satisfied with describing the severed head of an innocent little calf - as seen through the eyes of a young child - he then has the butcher cut that head in half "with a single masterful stroke of .........his ax"!!!! In "The Idol", the "muzhik" - "an effeminate, beardless savage" - sits in the snow and eats raw horse flesh after dipping it in black blood, during a busy day at the Moscow Zoological Gardens. To the passersby, the image of such an unusual individual seems like little more than an oddity, perhaps another noticeable specimen, among the other residents of the zoo.
Even love - including first love - does not appear to awaken the exhilarating feelings that most of us experience when meeting that very special person for the first time. The ending of "The Consecration of Love" is entirely unexpected, given the title. (No details. The readers will want to discover this for themselves). In "Light Breathing", love does not help the smitten school boy grow and mature, rather gives him thoughts of suicide. In "First Love", the stormy spring landscape changes almost instantaneously from gray and gloomy to sunny and bright, yet the human atmosphere remains gloomy, at least for the adolescent boy's contained tears in response to the beautiful girl's charm, "a girl who may be very young, but is already fully aware of the effect that she has on the opposite sex".
The translation is good, if we keep in mind the difficulties, when trying to convey the meaning of a language - and culture - so entirely different from ours. Commendable is the translator's decision to leave some of the words in the original language (then to describe them in the Notes at the end of the book). In this context, the Notes might have probably been more helpful immediately following the story itself, or as footnotes on the same page. The translation of the language of the serfs and other people from the lower classes might have had a stronger impact if left in regular English the serfs speak a language that is real in the original Russian version of the book. It feels artificial in the translation, as the translator uses the language of a certain class of people who live in the Western world and who may not necessarily express themselves in the same manner as the Russian serfs. Still, this is only a minor flaw, particularly if we consider that serfs are not usually main characters in the stories.

A very good book that deserves its four stars.