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The Willow and Other Stories
Anton Chekhov; Translated by Stephen Pimenoff
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R276
R227
Discovery Miles 2 270
Save R49 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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Old Arkhip sits every day by the roots of a wizened, hunchbacked
willow, fishing and exchanging whispered stories with the ancient
tree. One of these takes Arkhip three decades back in time, to a
quiet day in early spring when a strange encounter shook him
momentarily from the rural bliss in which he lived, catapulting him
into a world of crime, corruption, violence and murder. A
quintessential example of Chekhov’s artistry, ‘The Willow’ is
here accompanied by thirty-two other short stories – some of them
never or rarely translated into English – which are
representative of the three main phases of the author’s career:
the short, light-hearted pieces of the late 1880s, the darker, more
pessimistic tales of his maturity and the psychologically nuanced
stories he wrote towards the end of his life. Taken together, this
collection is further proof of Chekhov’s unparalleled skills as a
practitioner of the short-story genre.
It is New Year's Eve, and Nellie, the pretty daughter of a
landowning general, is sitting in her room looking in the mirror.
Although she is tired and her eyes are half closed, she is
spellbound as the reflection in the looking glass dissolves into a
sea of grey mist, in which she starts to discern the beloved
features of her fiance. As in a diorama, the scene keeps changing,
and to the early snapshots of joyful marital life succeed other,
more sinister images of care, sickness and bereavement, casting a
long shadow onto the girl's future. With 'The Looking Glass'
Chekhov captured the very essence of the Russian soul. This short
story, along with the others included in this collection,
demonstrates why he is considered the absolute master of the genre.
Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, following the example
of the Brothers Grimm in Germany, Alexander Afanasyev embarked on
the ambitious task of sifting through the huge repository of tales
from Russian folklore and selecting the very best from written and
oral sources. The result, an eight-volume collection comprising
around 600 stories, is one of the most influential and enduringly
popular books in Russian literature. This large selection from
Afanasyev's work, presented in a new translation by Stephen
Pimenoff, will give English readers the opportunity to discover one
of the founding texts of the European folkloristic tradition.
Displaying a vast array of unforgettable characters, such as the
Baba-Yaga, Ivan the Fool, Vasilisa the Fair and the Firebird, these
tales - by turns adventurous, comical and downright madcap - will
enchant readers for their raw beauty and constant ability to
surprise and excite.
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Fables of Ivan Krylov (Paperback)
Ivan Andreyevich Krylov; Translated by Stephen Pimenoff
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R301
R269
Discovery Miles 2 690
Save R32 (11%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Universally acclaimed as the master of the short-story form, Anton
Chekhov begun his literary career as the author of brief tales and
vignettes of Russian life when he was still a young medical
student. Later rejected by the writer in the same self-effacing way
in which he repudiated some of his most celebrated works, the
stories in this collection are not only a testament to the early
promise of his genius, but deserve to be appreciated for their
lapidary vividness and their intrinsic stylistic quality. Mostly
dealing with the lives of downtrodden "little" men and low-ranking
civil servants as they steer their actions through the corruption
and malpractice of Russian public officials, this volume - here
presented in Stephen Pimenoff's lively new translation - bristles
with wit and humour, and is tinged by that understated note of
melancholy and lyricism that is a trademark of Chekhov's writing.
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