Brian Boeck
Auteur van Stalin's Scribe: Literature, Ambition, and Survival: The Life of Mikhail Sholokhov
Over de Auteur
Werken van Brian Boeck
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Geboortedatum
- 1971-08-08
- Geslacht
- male
- Nationaliteit
- USA
- Opleiding
- Harvard University
- Beroepen
- assistant professor of history
- Organisaties
- DePaul University
Leden
Besprekingen
Prijzen
Statistieken
- Werken
- 2
- Leden
- 45
- Populariteit
- #340,917
- Waardering
- 4.0
- Besprekingen
- 1
- ISBNs
- 11
Boeck returns multiple times to the accusations of plagiarism made against Sholokhov throughout his life, including accusations made by Solzhynitzyn. He grants Sholokhov a pass for parts of Quiet Don which the author may have taken from anonymous sources. It was Sholokhov’s skill as a writer that molded any lifted sections of other works into a literary narrative, Boeck tells us.
One problem I had with an otherwise good recommendation was Brian J. Boeck’s description of collectivization, 1932-24, which included Ukraine as well as the Don region. Boeck’s description of collectivization reads like a detached technical manual. Primo Levi was able to describe his year at Auschwitz with the detachment of the chemist because he was a prisoner there! In Levi’s hand, such a detached style intensified the horror. Boeck cannot be given the same dispensation, not when one of the greatest genocides by a leader against his own people was being perpetrated. Boeck's detached style in this section of the book calls attention to the author, pushing us outside the narrative -- something no author wants to invite.
Boeck, a scholar, has indexed his book thoroughly -- his footnotes number 41 pages. It takes some skill to bring such a well-researched book to the public free of the caveat that it can be a slog. Boeck's book is hardly that. Note: the library book in my possession spells the author's name, Boeck, not h. Correction of above.… (meer)