This is the first purely biographical study rather than literary
analysis of the life of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin since 1937. T
J Binyon has produced a vivid and scholarly portrait of a creative
genius who could write like a maniac when the mood was on him but
who was equally distracted by a dissolute existence in the whirling
vortex of imperial Russia. The book is beautifully illustrated with
family trees, maps and photographs, including a death mask of
Pushkin, and there are copious portrait sketches throughout by the
poet himself so that we can see his acquaintances, family and
friends exactly as he saw them. Meticulously researched details
ensure that we are scarcely aware of the biographer's voice but
seem to be actually in the room with Pushkin, looking over his
shoulder at the piles of manuscripts and the bitten and burnt quill
ends strewn about. Described as short, swarthy, ape-like and
tending towards belligerence, Pushkin would later sum up his own
character, rather unforgivingly, as 'changeable, jealous,
susceptible, violent and weak'. Although he was writing poetry by
the age of seven, his school career was undistinguished. Appointed
to the civil service, his attendance became desultory and his
diligence non-existent. Binyon underlines the many contradictions
that proliferated in the poet's make-up. A contemporary contrasted
Pushkin's social excesses with the 'transcendent superiority' of
his writing. He abandoned himself to debauchery, orgies and
gambling but he also displayed persistence and fortitude: Eugene
Onegin, his extraordinary novel in verse, took him exactly seven
years, four months and 17 days to complete. Unfortunately, his
first mature poem, 'Liberty: An Ode', was held to be subversive,
and he was expelled from the Civil Service and exiled to the
country. Bored in the Caucasus, he went out of his way to shock,
appearing at a dinner in transparent muslin trousers and no
underwear. After six years in what he called 'a provincial slough'
he was allowed to return to St Petersburg by Tsar Nicholas I and
slipped straight back into the frenetic rounds of gambling,
womanizing and aristocratic social life. He gave readings of his
play Boris Gudunov and eventually married the 19-year-old Natalya
Goncharova. Four children later, his wife was pursued by an
obsessed French nobleman called d'Anthes, an episode that would
tragically result in Pushkin's sudden death from a duel. Such is
the force of the poet's charismatic nature and the excitement of
his tumultuous adventures that we are quite stunned by this early
departure. But since Binyon made the excellent decision to use his
own translations throughout (enabling the poet to speak with a
uniform voice), the author's final achievement is to leave readers
inspired to further acquaint themselves with the splendour of
Pushkin's classic works. (Kirkus UK)
A major biography of one of literature's most romantic and
enigmatic figures, published in hardback to great acclaim: 'one of
the great biographies of recent times' (Sunday Telegraph).
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is indisputably Russia's greatest poet
- the nearest Russian equivalent to Shakespeare - and his brief
life was as turbulent and dramatic as anything in his work. T.J
Binyon's biography of this brilliant and rebellious figure is 'a
remarkable achievement' and its publication 'a real event'
(Catriona Kelly, Guardian). 'No other work on Pushkin on the same
scale, and with the same grasp of atmosphere and detail, exists in
English... And Pushkin is well worth writing about... he was a
remarkable man, a man of action as well as a poet, and he lived a
remarkable life, dying in a duel at the age of thirty-seven.' (John
Bayley, Literary Review) Among the delights of this beautifully
illustrated and lavishly produced book are the 'caricatures of
venal old men with popping eyes and side-whiskers, society beauties
with long necks and empire curls and, most touchingly, images of
his "cross-eyed madonna" Natalya' (Rachel Polonsky, Evening
Standard). Binyon 'knows almost everything there is to know about
Pushkin. He scrupulously chronicles his life in all its disorder,
from his years at the Lycee through exile in the Crimea, Bessarabia
and Odessa, for writing liberal verses, and on to the publication
of Eugene Onegin and, eventually, after much wrangling with the
censor, Boris Godunov' (Julian Evans, New Statesman) and in this,
'Binyon is unbeatable'(Clive James, TLS).
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