Viktor Borisovič Šklovskij

"While living in exile in Berlin, Viktor Shklovsky fell in love with Elsa Triolet (the "Alya" of this novel). Shklovsky was in the habit of sending Elsa several letters a day, a situation she accepted under one condition: he was forbidden to write about love. Zoo, or Letters Not about Love is an epistolary novel born of this constraint, and although the brilliant and playful letters contained here cover everything from observations about contemporary German and Russian life to theories of art and literature, nonetheless every one of them is indirectly dedicated to the one topic they are all required to avoid: their author's own unrequited love."--BOOK JACKET.

"Trudy Borisa Ignatʹevicha Arvatova (1896-1940), vydai︠u︡shchegosi︠a︡ russkogo avangardista, iskusstvoveda, khudozhestvennogo kritika, teoretika proizvodstvennogo iskusstva, proletkulʹtovt︠s︡a i lefovt︠s︡a, izvestny segodni︠a︡ kuda menʹshe, chem raboty Vladimira Mai︠a︡kovskogo ili Sergei︠a︡ Ėĭzenshteĭna, ego tovarishcheĭ i kolleg. Do nedavnego vremeni sochinenii︠a︡ Arvatova ne pereizdavalisʹ, a kolichestvo posvi︠a︡shchennykh emu issledovaniĭ vse eshche ostaetsi︠a︡ nevelikim. Bolʹshe togo: pochti vse svoi znachimye teksty on uspel opublikovatʹ pri zhizni, ne schitai︠a︡ odnogo -- rukopisi "O Mai︠a︡kovskom", na kotorui︠u︡ avtor, sudi︠a︡ po pisʹmam, vozlagal bolʹshie nadezhdy i do poslednikh svoikh dneĭ mechtal uvidetʹ knigu napechatannoĭ. Uvy, ona dobralasʹ do chitateli︠a︡ lishʹ seĭchas, spusti︠a︡ mnogo let i blagodari︠a︡ usilii︠a︡m italʹi︠a︡nskoĭ issledovatelʹnit︠s︡y Virdzhinii Pili, vzi︠a︡vsheĭ na sebi︠a︡ trud po podgotovke arkhivnoĭ rukopisi k pechati, a takzhe filologa Sergei︠a︡ Kima, kotoryĭ pomog s vychitkoĭ ėtogo slozhnogo teksta."--

Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984) was both patriarch and enfant terrible of Formalism, a literary and film scholar, a fiction writer and the protagonist of other people's novels, instructor of an armored division and professor at the Art History Institute, revolutionary and counterrevolutionary. His work was deeply informed by his long and eventful life. He wrote for over seventy years, both as a very young man in the wake of the Russian revolution and as a ninety-year old, never tiring of analyzing the workings of literature. Viktor Shklovsky : A Reader is the first book that collects crucial writings from across Shklovsky's career, serving as an entry point for first-time readers. It presents new translations of key texts, interspersed with excerpts from memoirs and letters, as well as important work that has not appeared in English before.

This book circles obsessively around a single scene of interrogation in which a writer is subjected to a show trial for his unorthodoxy. Using multiple perspectives, fragments, and aphorisms, and bearing the vulnerability of both the Russian Jewry and the anti-Bolshevik intelligentsia-who had unwittingly become the enemies of the people. This book satirizes Soviet censorship and the ineptitude of Soviet leaders with acerbic panache.

xi, 240 pages ; 22 cm