Andrei Bitov
The Ecology of Inspiration

The first book-length study of Andrei Bitov, one of contemporary Russia's most original writers.

Ellen Chances (Author)

9780521025270, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 March 2006

352 pages, 11 b/w illus.
21.8 x 14.1 x 2.2 cm, 0.459 kg

'A fine, impressive work … a very intelligent and sensitive analysis.' George Gibian, Cornell University

This is the first book on Andrei Bitov, one of contemporary Russia's most original writers. It plots his evolution from his early publications of the post-Stalin years to his mature masterpieces of the glasnost era. Ellen Chances assesses his place both in the Russian literary tradition from Pushkin onwards, and as part of a broader, international cultural heritage including Dickens, Fellini, and Proust. She explores his themes, from the psychological effects of Stalin on Soviet society to universal questions such as the human being's relationship with nature, history and culture, and discovers in his deeply philosophical and intensely psychological writings an innovative methodology, 'ecological prose', that goes beyond modernist and post-modernist fragmentation in search of the wholeness of life.

Acknowledgments
1. Andrei Bitov's ecological prose
2. The Big Balloon: terrestrial and celestial spheres
3. Such a long Childhood: growing pains
4. Dacha District: automatic pilot living and creative living
5. Apothecary Island: 'I-lands' of existence
6. Image of Life: life and images of life
7. Seven Journeys: journeys to the other and journey to the self
8. The Days of Man: roles and themes
9. Metropol: Bitov's stories about Life and Death
10. Sunday: more 'I-lands' and journeys
11. Pushkin House: the riddles of life and literature
12. Bitov's post-Pushkin House prose, or life in the images of life
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]