Sentimental tales
By: Mikhail Zoshchenko ; translated by Boris Dralyuk
Contributors: Dralyuk, Boris, translator
Series: Russian library; Russian library (Columbia University. Press)
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 214
ISBN-13: 9780231183789; 9780231183796
Copyright date: 2018
Subjects: Social life and customs; Russian Short stories; Russian wit and humor; Translations into English; Russian Satire; Fiction
Work titles: Short stories
Description: "Mikhail Zoshchenko's Sentimental Tales are satirical portraits of small-town characters on the fringes of Soviet society in the first decade of Bolshevik rule. The tales are narrated by one Kolenkorov, who is anything but a model Soviet author: not only is he still attached to the era of the old regime, he is also, quite simply, not a very good writer. Shaped by Zoshchenko's masterful hands--he takes credit for editing the tales in a series of comic prefaces--Kolenkorov's prose is beautifully mangled, full of stylistic infelicities, overloaded flights of metaphor, tortured cliché, and misused bureaucratese, in the tradition of Gogol. Yet beneath Kolenkorov's intrusive narration and sublime blathering, the stories are genuinely moving. They tell tales of unrequited love and amorous misadventures among down-on-their-luck musicians, provincial damsels, aspiring poets, and liberal aristocrats hopelessly out of place in the new Russia, against a backdrop of overcrowded apartments, scheming, and daydreaming. Zoshchenko's deadpan style and sly ventriloquy mask a biting critique of Soviet life--and perhaps life in general. An original perspective on Soviet society in the 1920s and simply uproariously funny, Sentimental Tales at last shows Anglophone readers why Zoshchenko is considered among the greatest humorists of the Soviet era."--Amazon.com.
Notes: Translation from the Russian.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-214).
Table of contents: title: Introduction --; title: A note on the text --; title: Preface to the first edition --; title: Preface to the second edition --; title: Preface to the third edition --; title: Preface to the fourth edition --; title: Apollo and Tamara --; title: People --; title: A terrible night --; title: What the nightingle sang --; title: A merry adventure --; title: Lilacs in bloom.