Author: Maxim Gorky Publisher: ISBN: 9781589635050 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 628
Book Description
Maxim Gorky, like Leo Tolstoy, was primarily an autobiographical author, and the material here is considered amongst the greatest of his writings. Not only do they give the astonishingly varied life of Gorky from childhood through youth, but they also provide us with an unforgettable picture of one of the most crucial generations in Russian life and history --the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The autobiography begins at the age of five and ends with Gorky secure in his position as one of the leading Russian writers. From the beginning, the story is organized as a quest for knowledge and understanding, of oneself and the world one lives in. This quest brings Gorky into contact with the harsh realities of life in late 19th century Russia -the life that was to constitute his "universities". We follow him as he turns from one job to another in an effort to make a living for himself - rag picker, errand and stock boy, junior clerk, bird catcher, cabin boy on a Volga steamer, apprentice in an icon factory, baker, watchman and freight handler at railroad stations. We move with Gorky in his life of wandering from one part of Russia to the next, and, in the course of the journey, we meet some of the most extraordinary characters in literature. The people that crowd the pages of his life history are as interesting as they are varied. Peasants, artisans, scholars, writers, teachers, policemen and government officials -they passed in and out of Gorky?s strange, sad life, leaving each one of them a vivid imprint on his keen mind. Through them he learned to build for himself a philosophy of life, and with the memory of them he painted for us those stark, vital pictures which make the unforgettable character of his book.Each character is sharply individualized, mountingly alive, fascinating. There is Gorky?s grandmother with her strength, her idealism, her superstition, her sympathy. Herself a folk bard, she passed on to Gorky the impulse to hearten others and a rich store of folk song and folk story. There is Smoury, the chef of the Volga steamer, whom Gorky was later to call one of his outstanding teachers. There is also Olga, the woman with whom Gorky had his first love affair; eccentric, irresponsible, flirtatious, but charming and kind. In his portrait of these and many other fascinating characters in the book, Gorky has given us his greatest - and one of the greatest life stories in literature
Author: Maksim Gorky Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation ISBN: Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 428
Book Description
Maxim Gorky continues to be regarded as the greatest literary representative of revolutionary Russia. Born of the people, and having experienced in his own person their sufferings and their misery, he was enabled by his extraordinary genius to voice their grievances and their aspirations for a better life as no academic could. His international fame rests on a tremendous literary output, including the powerful play "The Lower Depths", the monumental novel of the 1905 Russian Revolution, "Mother", his vital Autobiography and, of course, his short stories. This edition of "The Collected Short Stories of Maxim Gorky" includes his benchmark masterpieces "Creatures That Once Were Men" and "Twenty-Six Men and a Girl" as well as "Chelkash and My Fellow-Traveller" among many others. The collection represents the very best of Gorky's genius. For this edition the renowned scholar and author Frederic Ewen has written a penetrating new introduction evaluating Gorky's place in the world's literary pantheon.
Author: Maksim Gorky Publisher: Good Press ISBN: Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
"In the World" by Maksim Gorky (translated by Gertrude M. Foakes). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
Author: Maksim Gorky Publisher: ISBN: 9780898751178 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
"Two beings dwelt within me: one of them, having seen too much of filth and loathsomeness, had become chastened. Life?s dreadful humdrum had made him skeptical and suspicious, and he looked with helpless compassion upon all people, including himself. This individual longed to lead a quiet, retired life far away from cities and people. He dreamed of going to Persia, of entering a monastery, of living in a forester?s hut or the lodge of a railway guard, or becoming a night watchman somewhere on the outskirts of town. The fewer the people and the more remote, the better." The other individual, baptized by the holy spirit of wise and truthful books, realized that life?s dreadful humdrum exerted a ruthless power which might easily lop off his head or crush him under a grimy heel. And so he summoned all his strength in self- defense, baring his teeth, clenching his fists, ever ready for a fight or an argument."In My Apprenticeship, Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) gives an exact account of his own adolescence. After the death of his mother, fourteen-year-old Alexei Peshkov ( Gorky ) sets out to earn his own living. First he is the errand boy in a shoe shop; then, in turn, a draughtsman?s apprentice, a dishwasher on a Volga steamboat, and an apprentice in a studio where icons are painted. Repulsed by the ugly mediocrity of middle-class life, by the "senseless, stupid animosity poisoning the life around him," he constantly searches for something better. My Apprenticeship (1916) is the second book of Gorky?s autobiographical trilogy, each book of which represents and independent work.
Author: Maksim Gorky Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300111665 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 316
Book Description
Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) enjoyed worldwide fame of a kind unmatched by that of any other writer in the first half of the twentieth century. Prodigiously gifted and prolific, riddled with contradictions, praised increasingly for political rather than literary reasons, he left a vast body of writing that contains acknowledged masterpieces alongside many currently neglected works that still await impartial assessment. Taken together, the pieces in this book (many of them based on fuller texts than those of previously published translations) present a surprising and unfamiliar Gorky--a figure who, once the clichés are stripped away from him, becomes ever more fascinating and enigmatic as man, as writer, and as historical figure. Among the volume's selections are portraits of Gorky by four particularly astute observers: poet Vladislav Khodasevich, critics Boris Eikhenbaum and Georgy Adamovich, and novelist Evgeny Zamiatin. Fanger's generous annotations and brilliant introduction will make this book indispensable to every reader with an interest in Tolstoy, Gorky, modern Russian literature and politics, or the art of the memoir.
Author: Nina Berberova Publisher: New York Review of Books ISBN: 9781590171370 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 404
Book Description
Baroness Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya Benckendorff Budberg hailed from the Russian aristocracy and lived in the lap of luxury—until the Bolshevik Revolution forced her to live by her wits. Thereafter her existence was a story of connivance and stratagem, a succession of unlikely twists and turns. Intimately involved in the mysterious Lockhart affair, a conspiracy which almost brought down the fledgling Soviet state, mistress to Maxim Gorky and then to H.G. Wells, Moura was a woman of enormous energy, intelligence, and charm whose deepest passion was undoubtedly the mythologization of her own life. Recognized as one of the great masters of Russian twentieth-century fiction, Nina Berberova here proves again that she is the unsurpassed chronicler of the lives of Soviet émigrés. In Moura Budberg, a woman who shrouded the facts of her life in fiction, Berberova finds the ideal material from which to craft a triumph of literary portraiture, a book as engaging and as full of life and incident as any one of her celebrated novels.
Author: Maxim Gorky
Author: Maksim Gorky
Author: Maksim Gorky
Author: Maksim Gorky
Author: Максим Горький
Author: Maksim Gorky
Author: Maksim Gorky
Author: Maksim Gorky
Author: Maksim Gorky
Author: Nina Berberova