Petersburg (novel)
Petersburg (, "Peterbúrg") is a novel by Russian writer Andrei Bely. A Symbolist work, it has been compared to other "city novels" like "Ulysses" and "Berlin Alexanderplatz". The first edition was completed in November 1913 and published serially from October 1913 to March 1914 (and later reissued as a book in 1916). It received little attention and was not translated into English until 1959 by John Cournos, over 45 years after it was written. Today the book is generally considered Bely's masterpiece; Vladimir Nabokov ranked it one of the four greatest "masterpieces of twentieth century prose", after "Ulysses  and The Metamorphosis", and before "the first half" of "In Search of Lost Time". In 1922 Bely published in Berlin a revised edition which was shorter by a third than the first one. As Bely noted, "the new edition is a completely new book for the readers of the first edition". As critics note, in the Berlin version Bely has changed the foot of his rhythmic prose from anapaest to amphibrach and removed ironical passages related to the revolutionary movent. The second version is usually considered as inferior to the first one. The novel is the second part of Bely 's unfinished trilogy "East or West", while "The Silver Dove" is the first one. Plot summary. Just after the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukov is given the task of assassinating his bureaucrat father, Apollon Apollonovich, using a time bomb supplied to him by a fellow radical, Alexander Ivanovich Dudkin. Nikolai Apollonovich spends much of his time dressing himself in a red domino costume with a black domino mask, making a fool of himself in front of Sofya Petrovna Likhutina, a woman who has rebuked his flirtations in the past. Instead of focusing on the  immense task he has agreed to undertake he gets himself into the newspaper's gossip columns with his antics and attends a party. His father notices these exploits and decides that his son is a scoundrel. Dudkin himself answers to a higher power, a man named Lippanchenko who is the leader of their radical group. Eventually both Nikolai Apollonovich and Dudkin experience a change of heart about their mission, however there is much to detain Nikolai Apollonovich on his way to throw the bomb into the river. Analysis. Bely drew his characters from historical models: Apollon Apollonovich shares many characteristics  with Procurator of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Dudkin resembles the revolutionary terrorist Boris Savinkov, Lippanchenko shares many characteristics with the infamous double agent Yevno Azef. There are many similarities with Joyce's "Ulysses": the linguistic rhythms and wordplay, the Symbolism and subtle political concerns which structure the themes of the novel, the setting of the action in a capital city that is itself a character, the use of humor. The differences are also notable: the English translation of Bely remains more accessible, his work is based on complex rhythm of patterns, and, according to scholarly opinion, does not use  such a wide variety of innovations. But these innovations, which subvert commonplace literary rhetoric, are necessary to conveying Petersburg at such a tumultuous time. The comparison of "Petersburg" to "Ulysses" has been made for both its symbolist style and for the centrality of the city within the narrative. There are many allusions within the novel to the city's history going back to its founding by Peter the Great, and it incorporates a number of literary allusions to literature set in Petersburg (especially "The Bronze Horseman") as well as Russian literature in general. The characters such as Apollon Apollonovich and  Alexander Ivanovich often merge with their environments, while the city itself forms a significant role in the story's unfolding. The book was informed by many of the philosophies Bely and others of his time were concerned with, both political and spiritual. One of the major influences on the somewhat mystical tone of the book was Bely's experience with Rudolf Steiner and his philosophy of anthroposophy. The characters undergo various transcendent states, and these are generally drawn from Bely's spiritual studies. There are also discussions of Marxism and Nietzsche's ideas, and though the book revolves around a  political action, much of it is concerned with spiritual states. Translations. There have been four major translations of the novel into English: In a review of all the existing English translations, Professor Michael R. Katz writes " . . . if someone wants to read Bely's masterpiece and to understand "most" of it, then learn Russian and read it in the original; if he/she wants to understand "some" of it, then read Maguire and Malmstad's magisterial annotated, introduced, and reasonably well-translated scholarly edition; and if someone wants just to say that he/she has read Bely's "Petersburg" for the  sake of adding one notch to his cultural gun . . . then go read Elsworth's version." In the "Times Literary Supplement", Thomas Karshan noted that "Elsworth's version conveys little of Bely's sonic patterning" and that "McDuff's distinguished 1995 version does a good job of approximating the music of Bely's Symbolist prose poetry".