In Search of Melancholy Baby;

New York, N.Y. Random House, 1987. First Edition [stated]. Hardcover. [8], 277, [5] pages. Illustrated chapter numbers. A few musical notes at the end. Includes Preface. This copy is inscribed on the fep to Jim Thifale [?]with very best wishes of V. Aksyonov. Here the acclaimed Russian emigre novelist Vassily Aksyonov offers an exuberant chronicle of his encounters with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as he makes the United States his home. One of the leading Soviet writers of his generation--and one of the most popular--Aksyonov captured the spirit of Russia's Western-oriented youth in the sixties and their celebration of American culture. In 1980, he was forced to emigrate when his masterwork, The Burn, was published in the West. Now he compares America in the flesh to the mythical America of the Russian imagination. He follows American politics, offering hilarious commentary on presidential campaigns, teaches Russian literature to "The children of suburbia," scorns the bohemian life in New York, becomes an avid Redskins fan, and relishes the European charm and pointed contradictions of life in the nation's capital, where he and his wife finally hang their hats. Most of all, however, Aksyonov celebrates the endless variety of American life, and through his eyes, even the "notoriously checked trousers and flower-laden hats" of the elderly become signs of vibrancy rather than bad taste. As Aksyonov is "sucked into the great big wonderful world of American provincialism," we learn a great deal about Russian preconceptions--and a great deal about ourselves. Vassily Pavlovich Aksyonov (August 20, 1932 – July 6, 2009) was a Soviet and Russian novelist. He became known in the West as the author of The Burn and of Generations of Winter, a family saga following three generations of the Gradov family between 1925 and 1953. In 1956, he was "discovered" and heralded by the Soviet writer Valentin Kataev for his first publication, in the liberal magazine Youth.[2] "His first novel, Colleagues (1961), was based on his experiences as a doctor."[2] "His second, Ticket to the Stars (1961), depicting the life of Soviet youthful hipsters, made him an overnight celebrity." In the 1960s Aksyonov was a frequent contributor to the popular Yunost ("Youth") magazine and eventually became a staff writer. Aksyonov thus reportedly became "a leading figure in the so-called "youth prose" movement and a darling of the Soviet liberal intelligentsia and their western supporters: his writings stood in marked contrast to the dreary, socialist-realist prose of the time." "When The Burn was published in Italy in 1980, Aksyonov accepted an invitation for him and his wife Maya to leave Russia for the US." "Soon afterwards, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship, regaining it only 10 years later during Gorbachev's perestroika." Aksyonov spent the next 24 years in Washington, D.C. and Virginia, where he taught Russian Literature at George Mason University. He [also] taught literature at a number of [other] American universities, including USC and Goucher College in Maryland... [and] worked as a journalist for Radio Liberty. [In 1994], he also won the Russian Booker Prize, Russia's top literary award, for his historical novel Voltairian Men and Women, about a meeting between the famous philosopher Voltaire and Empress Catherine II. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: A Soviet emigre novelist now living in Washington, D.C., Aksyonov describes here alienation from and gradual acceptance of his adopted homeland. The self-described "critically thinking Soviet'' tosses off a perceptive potpourri that is witty and affecting: on Russian anti- and pro-American sentiment; jazz; the benefits of Washington over New York; American Slavists; Soviet blacks; Russian Americans; American bureaucracy; an aunt who raised him after his parents were arrested in Stalin's purges. Musings on American provincialism, high rents and cockroaches, credit cards, homosexuals, etc., are presented. Sandwiched between the chapters of nonfiction, and also chronicling the emigre experience, are somewhat experimental and curious `Sketches for a Novel to Be'' to be named after the jazz song `Melancholy Baby''; these sketches, says the author, `may be considered commercial messages.'. Condition: Very good / Very good.

Keywords: Novels, Fiction, Russian Emigre, Emigre Writers, Russian Literature, American Perspectives, Immigration, Political Campaigns, Suburbia, Provincialism

ISBN: 0394543645

[Book #82335]

Price: $125.00