A Hunt for Optimism Contributor(s): Shklovsky, Viktor (Author), Avagyan, Shushan (Translator) |
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ISBN: 1564787907 ISBN-13: 9781564787903 Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press OUR PRICE: $14.40 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2013 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Russian & Former Soviet Union - Literary Collections | Russian & Former Soviet Union |
Dewey: 891.734 |
LCCN: 2012029207 |
Physical Information: 0.5" H x 5.5" W x 8" (0.50 lbs) 160 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Russia |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Begun in 1929 under the title "New Prose," and drastically revised after Vladimir Mayakovsky's sudden death, "A Hunt for Optimism" (1931) 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"--"Hunt" satirizes Soviet censorship and the ineptitude of Soviet leaders with acerbic panache. Despite criticism at the time that it lacked unity and was too "variegated" to be called a purely "Shklovskian book," "Hunt" is stylistically unpredictable, experimentally bold, and unapologetically ironic--making it one of the finest books in Shklovsky's body of work. |