Russian Literature Challenge 2017


Ok - I saw this challenge, hosted by Keely, and decided it was irresistible.  In 2014 I participated in o's Russian Literature challenge, which was awesome, so I'm more than ready for another Russian lit focus!

I'll be aiming for a large Level 2 "Chekhov"; these six books:

  1. Forever Flowing - Vasily Grossman.  I heard about Grossman from one of my favorite book bloggers, SRK, and this sounds like a really good novel.
  2. The Letter Killers Club - Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky.  I loved this author's writing style in Memories of the Future.  This book is about a club of story tellers who are committed to writing nothing down.  
  3. Cancer Ward - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  This book has been sitting on my shelf for a while, a Powell's splurge.  The Soviet era interests me, for academic and personal reasons, and I'm eager to read more by Solzhenitsyn, since he is one of the most famous Soviet authors.
  4. Five Plays - Anton Chekhov.  One by the man himself!  I haven't read any of these plays, just heard good things about them.
  5. Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin.  Onegin is one of my greatest favorite novels of all time (seriously).  I've read four English translations in the last several years; my personal goal is to read as many translations as I can find!
  6. ✓ We - Yevgeny Zamyatin.  My "read" list is woefully lacking most dystopian classics.  This one sounds very interesting, apparently a precursor to 1984.  
 Yes, I know...no Dostoyevsky.  He'll probably sabotage my list, though; he has a way of cutting in front of the line...

Comments

cleopatra said…
Oh, I'm so glad that you're joining too! I think I have Memories of the Future ..... I'd forgotten about it so I should dig it out.

Yes, Dostoyevsky tends to intrude even when you don't wish him to. I'm happy that I'm not the only person that he has that effect on ..... ;-)
December 17, 2016 at 5:03 PM
MH said…
It'll be super fun! Looks like we have a couple of overlaps (Chekov, We), so we must remember to compare notes. :)
December 17, 2016 at 7:35 PM
Ruth said…
Haha! That Dostoyevsky! He dominated my shelves; so I chose only one of his to read for this challenge, added two other Russian authors, and put the remaining Dostoyevsky to the side to give the others a chance. He can be so pushy sometimes.

You have a nice variety of Russian authors. That's what I tried to do, only w/ a shorter list.
December 17, 2016 at 9:56 PM
MH said…
Ah, you've got Gogol, too - I missed him! He's supposed to be another of the "founding fathers" of Russian lit, I think. Looking forward to your reviews!
December 18, 2016 at 2:47 PM
Carol said…
I love Solzhenitsyn & have had Cancer war sitting on my shelf for a while also. yesterday I found a secondhand copy of the Gulag Archipelago so want to re-read that as it's been a long time since I first read it. I'm in the process of getting my act together to decide what books I'll tackle next year... Great choices!
December 22, 2016 at 3:06 AM
o said…
I'm joining this too :) We have Chekhov's plays in common - thinking about reading those in the spring. Really looking forward to it!
December 29, 2016 at 12:12 PM
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