Product Details

• Published on: 1992-11-19
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .74" h x 5.16" w x 7.73" l, .64 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 225 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In a lithe translation, Katz, a professor of Slavic languages at the University of Texas, recovers two novellas by Druzhinin, a prominent 19th-century Russian author. The first, told in letters, concerns a love triangle consisting of Polinka Saks, a rather mousy young woman; her husband Konstantin, who seeks to educate her in the arts and literature and bring her out of her shell; and the dashing Prince Galitsky, an army officer who had wooed Polinka before her marriage and still loves her. As their relationships evolve, the work becomes an interesting, if modest, study of the various meanings and dimensions of love. In the second novella, Druzhinin explores similar themes through the intense emotional bonds between Aleksei Dmitrich and an angelically beautiful young man, Kostya, and Kostya's equally lovely sister, Vera. Both works are curios, better read in light of the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky than for their own merits. Katz provides a useful introduction, ample footnotes and translations of French and German phrases sprinkled through the narratives.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.