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Loading... The Matiushin Case (edition 2014)30 | None | 790,981 |
(3.38) | 1 | Fiction.
Literature.
HTML: The Matiushin Case is one of the darkest and most powerful works of fiction to appear in Russian in the last twenty years. Deriving, like Captain of the Steppe (2013, And Other Stories), from Oleg Pavlov's own traumatic experience as a conscript in the last years of the Soviet Union, it follows the ordeals of Matiushin, a sensitive, disoriented young man, damaged by brutality first within his family and then in the army. Indebted to the 'labour camp writing' traditions pioneered by Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov, the novel is much more than an exposé of society's ills. Its greatest achievement lies in the tension between the horrific realities of conscript life and the uniquely dreamlike, timeless style through which Pavlov portrays them. Matiushin's 'crime and punishment' emerge from this tension with compelling inevitability; the victim turns killer. The hell that Pavlov describes is real and societal, but above all psychological, and, as such, no less universal than that described by Dante or Dostoevsky. … (more) |
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'Am I my brother's keeper?'
The Book of Genesis | |
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It was as if all his life he had known in advance that what had already happened in it would happen again, so the memory of the past was more acutely felt -- but the most memorable thing of all was childhood, although all that roaming round the garrisons after his father, the dreary rootlessness of father and son, the muteness and lovelessness, like an eternal lump in his throat, could simply have devastated him. | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources. Wikipedia in EnglishNone ▾Book descriptions Fiction.
Literature.
HTML: The Matiushin Case is one of the darkest and most powerful works of fiction to appear in Russian in the last twenty years. Deriving, like Captain of the Steppe (2013, And Other Stories), from Oleg Pavlov's own traumatic experience as a conscript in the last years of the Soviet Union, it follows the ordeals of Matiushin, a sensitive, disoriented young man, damaged by brutality first within his family and then in the army. Indebted to the 'labour camp writing' traditions pioneered by Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov, the novel is much more than an exposé of society's ills. Its greatest achievement lies in the tension between the horrific realities of conscript life and the uniquely dreamlike, timeless style through which Pavlov portrays them. Matiushin's 'crime and punishment' emerge from this tension with compelling inevitability; the victim turns killer. The hell that Pavlov describes is real and societal, but above all psychological, and, as such, no less universal than that described by Dante or Dostoevsky. ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description
Book description |
The Matiushin Case is one of the darkest and most powerful works of fiction to appear in Russian in the last twenty years. Deriving, like Captain of the Steppe (And Other Stories, 2013), from the author's own traumatic experience as a conscript in the last years of the Soviet Union, it follows the experience of Matiushin, a young, sensitive, disoriented man, damaged first by violence in his family then by the brutality of army life in Central Asia. Indebted to the different traditions of 'labour camp prose' pioneered by Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov, the novel is, however, much more than an expose of societal ills, shocking enough though these are. Its literary achievement lies elsewhere: in the way that the horrific realities of conscript life are steeped in the unique mood of dreaminess and timelessness created by the setting and by Pavlov's prose-style and in the unique type of tension that this mood creates. Matiushin's 'crime and punishment' emerge from this tension with compelling inevitability; the victim turns killer. The hell that Oleg Pavlov describes is physical and societal, but above all psychological, and, as such, no less universal than that described by Dante or Dostoevsky. [Amazon.co.uk] | |
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