Generations of Winter
New York, N.Y. Random House, 1994. First Edition, Stated. Hardcover. xi, [1], 592, [4] pages. Selective Glossary. Inscribed For Jim Trefil, phisicist, from V. A., lyricist; my best wishes. V. Aksyonov. Chapters are Scythian Helmets; The Kremlin and Its Neighborhood; First Intermission; Second Intermission; The Chopin Cure; The General Line; The Theatrical Avant-Garde; Trotsky's on the Wall; Third Intermission; Fourth Intermission; The Village of Gorelovo and the Luch Collective Farm; Bags of Oxygen; Keen Eyes, Doves, and Little Stars; Tennis, Surgery, and Defensive Measures; The Charlatan Organ Grinder; Life-Giving Bacilli; Firth Intermission, Sixth Intermission; Count Olsufiev's Mansion; Indestructible and Legendary; Come on, Girls, Lend a Hand, Beauties! Above the Eternal Rest; I Recommend That You Not Cry! "I Dream of Hunchbacked Tiflis"; Marble Steps; Seventh Intermission; and Eighth Intermission; Listen--the Thump of Boots; Fireworks by Night; Underground Bivouac, First Intermission, Second Intermission, Dry Rations, Le Bemol; The Poor Boys; The Special Strike Force, Third Intermission, Fourth Intermission; Professor and Student; Clouds in Blue; Guest of the Kremlin; The Master of the Kremlin; Firth Intermission; Sixth Intermission; Professor and Student; Clouds in Blue; Guest of the Kremlin; The Master of the Kremlin; Firth Intermission; Sixth Intermission; Summer, Youth; A Sentimental Direction; We'll Waltz in the Kremlin; Officers' Candidate School; Seventh Intermission; Eighth Intermission; A Concert for the Front; Vertuti Militari; Temptation by Word; The Ozone Layer; The Path of October; Ninth Intermission; and Tenth Intermission. James Stanley Trefil (born September 10, 1938) is an American physicist (Ph.D. in Physics at Stanford University in 1966) and author of nearly fifty books. Much of his published work focuses on science for the general audience. Since 1988 he served as Professor of Physics at the University of Virginia and as Robinson Professor of Physics at George Mason University. Among his books is Are We Unique?, an argument for human uniqueness in which he questions the comparisons between human intelligence and artificial intelligence.
Compared by critics across the country to War and Peace for its memorable characters and sweep, and to Dr. Zhivago for its portrayal of Stalin's Russia, Generations of Winter is the romantic saga of the Gradov family from 1925 to 1945. "A long, lavish plunge into another world."--USA Today. 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. "His first novel, Colleagues (1961), was based on his experiences as a doctor." "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 (minor wear to front flap noted).
Keywords: Soviet Union, Russian Literature, Fiction, Gradov, Red Army, Marxist, Joseph Stalin, Lavrenty Beria, Oppression, Tragedy, Heroism, Betrayal, Victory, Battlefield, Loss, Love, Ambition, Belief, Intrigue, Paranoia, Kremlin
ISBN: 039456961X
[Book #82381]
Price: $350.00