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Bezig met laden... Stalin’s Scribe: Literature, Ambition, and Survival; The Life of Mikhail Sholokhov (editie 2019)door Brian J. Boeck (Auteur), Stefan Rudnicki (Verteller), Inc. Blackstone Audio (Publisher)
Informatie over het werkStalin's Scribe: Literature, Ambition, and Survival: The Life of Mikhail Sholokhov door Brian Boeck
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A masterful and definitive biography of one of the most misunderstood and controversial writers in Russian literature. Mikhail Sholokhov is arguable one of the most contentious recipients of the Nobel Prize in Literature. As a young man, Sholokhov's epic novel, Quiet Don, became an unprecedented overnight success. Stalin's Scribe is the first biography of a man who was once one of the Soviet Union's most prominent political figures. Thanks to the opening of Russia's archives, Brian Boeck discovers that Sholokhov's official Soviet biography is actually a tangled web of legends, half-truths, and contradictions. Boeck examines the complex connection between an author and a dictator, revealing how a Stalinist courtier became an ideological acrobat and consummate politician in order to stay in favor and remain relevant after the dictator's death. Stalin's Scribe is a remarkable biography that both reinforces and clashes with our understanding of the Soviet system. It reveals a Sholokhov who is bold, uncompromising, and sympathetic--and reconciles him with the vindictive and mean-spirited man described in so many accounts of late Soviet history. Shockingly, at the height of the terror, which claimed over a million lives, Sholokhov became a member of the most minuscule subset of the Soviet Union's population--the handful of individuals whom Stalin personally intervened to save. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)891.7342Literature Literature of other languages Literature of east Indo-European and Celtic languages Russian and East Slavic languages Russian fiction USSR 1917–1991 Early 20th century 1917–1945LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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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. ( )