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Incidences (Extraordinary Classics)

Incidences (Extraordinary Classics)

by NeilCornwell (Translator), Daniil Kharms (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 1993

    $68.96
Synopsis

This collection of stories is composed of short miniatures, many of which the author called 'incidents.' By featuring so prominently in his writing sudden death, falling, accidents, chance violence, Kharms conveys more vividly than any other writer the precarious nature of life in Stalin's Russia. ?Luminous fragments of the avant-garde? TLS ?A puzzlingly beautiful monument to a minor master? Booklist ?With remarkable precision and fluid language, the stories capture everyday tension in a land where an innocent knock on the door might mean entrapment in a bureaucratic maze or even death at the hands of the military? New York Times Book Review

$68.96

Quantity

2 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 224
 Edition: Reissue
 Publisher: Serpent's Tail
Published: 15 Oct 1993
ISBN 10: 1852423064
ISBN 13: 9781852423063

Media Reviews
?Luminous fragments of the avant-garde? TLS ?Brilliant, paranoid parables of the Stalin regime? Guardian ?Very short, often hilariously funny but dark and seemingly illogical stories? Very little of his work ever made it into print; the fact that enough of it survived either by word of mouth or in carefully guarded manuscripts makes this wonderful collection something of a miracle? Think of Beckett, only with sharper humour? Or, the best of Kafka distilled into the smallest possible space? Independent ?Kharms? prose miniatures are of the highest quality and offer despairing commentary on Soviet life? Scotland on Sunday ?A Shape-shifting collection of stories and fragments? Kharms? dislocated hallucinatory vision of a St Petersburg where the fantastical sits side by side with the mudane is an evocative response to a totalitarian state, yet it also recalls Gogol?s equally contorted, agonised view of his native city ? and, like the latter, is steeped in a rich, uncanny humour? Metro ?The only way to survive in this world is to laugh. The worse it gets, the more you laugh. Kharms is the master of dark laughter, of the laughter of relief as you realise the events he describes can?t possibly be true? a celebration of meaninglessness? Marina Lewycka, Daily Telegraph
Author Bio
Daniil Kharms was born in 1906. His name, a pseudonym, reflects his love for Sherlock Holmes. Kharms was arrested in 1931 for 'deflecting the people from the building of socialism by means of trans-verse verses' and told that he could only publish writing for children. By the end of the decade, even his writing for children was considered unfit for publication and in 1941 Kharms was re-arrested and sent to the gulag. He died of starvation in a prison hospital in 1942.