Mud and Stars
Travels in Russia with Pushkin and Other Geniuses of the Golden Age
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
A wonderfully original book about contemporary Russia as seen on journeys in search of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Lermontov, Chekhov, Gogol and Turgenev.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANDFORD TRAVEL WRITING AWARD 2020
With the writers of the Golden Age as her guides – Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gogol and Turgenev, among others – Wheeler travels the length and breadth of Russia to make connections between then and now. On the Trans-Siberian railway, at sail on the Black Sea, or while watching television with her hosts in Soviet apartment blocks, Wheeler searches for a Russia not in the news – a Russia of humanity and daily struggles.
At a time of deteriorating relations between Russia and the West, Wheeler gives a voice to the 'ordinary' people of Russia and discovers how the writers of the past continue to represent their country today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wheeler (Chile: Travels in a Thin Country) mixes travelogue and literary history in an entertaining work centered on her fascination with the great Russian writers of the 19th century. Zigzagging across a vast landscape, Wheeler visits sites associated with Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, and Turgenev, as well as lesser lights, such as Tolstoy's writer friend Afanasy Fet. Amid accounts of these men's lives, Wheeler relates her own experiences in homestays, sleeper cars, and hotels, showing how the run-down, seedy, and kitschy live in tension against the beauties of landscape and architecture. To Wheeler, if a single characteristic unites Russia, it is misery, "before, during and after communism." At times, her tone toward the country and its people borders on mocking, as when noting the provincialism of her Russian language tutor, who "had once been to a conference in Greece, and spoke of the country like the Promised Land." Vivid details nevertheless propel the narrative, from Gogol's anorexia to "a tin-can shaded" lightbulb in far eastern Anadyr, where wages hover at just above $200 a month. Fans of Russian literature will find this survey simultaneously provoking and informative.
