Book Description
A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL
One of the delights of Russian literature, a tour de force that has been compared to the best of Nabokov and Bulgakov, Yuri Olesha's novella Envy brings together cutting social satire, slapstick humor, and a wild visionary streak. Andrei is a model Soviet citizen, a swaggeringly self-satisfied mogul of the food industry who intends to revolutionize modern life with mass-produced sausage. Nikolai is a loser. Finding him drunk in the gutter, Andrei gives him a bed for the night and a job as a gofer. Nikolai takes what he can, but that doesn't mean he's grateful. Griping, sulking, grovelingly abject, he despises everything Andrei believes in, even if he envies him his every breath.
Producer and sponger, insider and outcast, master and man fight back and forth in the pages of Olesha's anarchic comedy. It is a contest of wills in which nothing is sure except the incorrigible human heart.
Marian Schwartz's new English translation of Envy brilliantly captures the energy of Olesha's masterpiece.
Customer Reviews:
A small gem from a Russian writer, Envy was published when literary expression earned the writer government censorship or death.......2006-11-09
I had difficulty reading the first few pages simply because I didn't catch on that the first person narrator--who is derisively observing his roommate's bathroom routine--is to some degree emotionally destabilized by his own hard life as well as misplaced perceptions. I usually prefer lyrically-written work with sentences that flow beautifully, however, while reading Olesha's Envy, I realize just how much the novels I prefer are the way they are because the writer lives in an environment that enables some hope. As harsh as the environment is, Olesha's novel is peppered throughout with charming phrases which disarm the critical reader: Valya was "lighter than a shadow. The lightest of shadows--the shadow of falling snow--might have envied her" (54).
The novel's Introduction, by Ken Kalfus, is informative. Envy was published in 1927 when some form of satirical protest against the Soviet government was still possible; Lenin had died in 1925 and Stalin had ousted Trotsky, and it wasn't much longer--in about 1934--that it was no longer possible for a writer or journalist to speak and write freely. Olesha's work was suppressed and not re-printed until after Stalin's death in 1956. At only 152 pages, this novel is ideal for high school students wanting something more than routine American literature; honors students can definitely handle comparing the fictional treatment of social conditions. Also college freshman in Comparative Literature or fiction writing can study how a writer's environment conditions the craft of fiction.
To go into more detail, if the world of Envy feels claustrophobic, there are good reasons: Yuri Olesha's narrator, or main character, is responding to a society in which the rich and poor are increasingly polarized. People in control seem to dominate the powerless, and those in control are absolutely stupid and boring people. The conditions Olesha wrote about also indicate that most people have diminishing expectations for the future, and to want change seems futile because change is impossible. (Sorry if this situation sounds familiar in 2006.) To create a novel out of this sort of human dilemma, conditions which were escalating in 1920's Russia, the author had to position himself somewhere between the two poles of rich and poor, of government official and social outcast. To do so, Olesha created the character Nikolai Kavalerov, a sort of slacker or lay-about whose vague or shapeless revolt against his conditions engages the reader's attention. The novelist's craft must give the characters energy so that the plot moves forward to some resolution; to do that, Olesha gives Kavalerov a kind of offensive honesty, a raw self-expression. One-third of the way through the novel, Kavalerov writes a cathartic letter to Comrade Babichev declaring, "Actually, I have just one feeling: hatred. . . . And like all officials, you're a petty tyrant." To understand this eruption as refreshing or humorous, one must read carefully. Read and find out if Kavalerov actually delivers the letter.
Not to be overlooked.......2004-02-20
Olesha is on par with Gogol, Dostoevsky, Voinovitch or Bulgakov, but he never gets treated that way. The first part of this is brilliant. Possibly meant to be a condemnation of Kavalerov, instead this wicked, jealous, indecent, and meek man is real and quite sympathetic.
The second part is not nearly as good, but still worth it. Some argue that this was pro-Soviet, some anti-Soviet, I think it's somewhere in the middle: an ingenious juxtaposition that forces one to reflect on life and the nature of consciousness, be it a burden or not.
Olesha's Envy.......2001-10-13
I love this book. Olesha is a masterful artist and his descriptions of the world are strange and wonderful. He is my favorite Russian author save Gogol.
As Wild and Doped Up As Hamlet's Ophelia.......2001-05-10
This book is magical! (Wink, Wink) You start off reading from the first person perspective; but before you realize it, you are reading from a third person point of view. From first to third, you will be stratching your head and asking yourself, "The main character, what's up with him? Is he on [drugs]? Is Ophelia really alive?" And the comments you make to yourself. "I didn't know they had minage a tois back then" or "Wow...people can people really get excited about sausages." Of course, if you are reading this book for a class, you might want to ask yourself: "Am I reading an anti-socialist criticism of the Bolsheviks or the proproganda of poletariats? Is this an examination of values between two different generations?"
But for what ever reason you pick up this book to read, it is going to be like Dostoevsky's "The Double" or Mandelstam's "The Eyptian Stamp" all over again, but only this time you feel as if you are high [or something].
Unknown piece of genius writing.......1999-12-17
If you can scare up a copy, do it. This book has a dreamy, insane, "Russian" quality I haven't come across in anything else except Gogol and Dostoyevsky. The book was written shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, during a brief period when artists still had a fair amount of freedom in Russia. It's a haunting book about dehumanization and insanity.
Book Description
This collection includes three of Louise Bagshawe's bestsellers in one volume. In Venus Envy, Alex Wilde is 27, single, bored at work, and surrounded by flatmates that would make a glitterball feel square. Her little sister Gail is pretty, waif-like, and irritating. Femme fatale Keisha is flying up the ladder of success at work. It's time for Alex to get out and strut her stuff. In A Kept Woman, Diana Foxton has it all. Between hosting the most talked about parties in Manhattan, Diana makes being the perfect wife an art form. Then she discovers her husband is having an affair, and finds herself broke and alone, shunned by the glittering society that once embraced her. Can she make it on her own? In When She Was Bad, Lita and Rebecca are worlds apart. From the tough streets of the Bronx, Lita is determined to succeed—whatever the cost. When privileged Rebecca inherits an estate in England, it's just the start of a whole new life. Linked by betrayal, Rebecca and Lita are set against each other. Until they discover just how sweet vengeance can be.
Average customer rating:
- Then Came Jennifer
- Too Thoughtful For Three Stars
- Like nothing she's written before.
- The Danger of Too Much Therapy
- An urban psychiatrist with too many problems of his own.
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Envy: A Novel
Kathryn Harrison
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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ASIN: 0812973763
Release Date: 2006-07-11 |
Book Description
"Kathryn Harrison is a wonderful writer…Spellbinding."
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The New York Times Book Review
"A juicy story of psychosexual suspence"
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The Wall Street Journal
"Shockingly complex and compulsively readable."
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O, The Oprah Magazine
"[Envy] has to be considered another succcess for one of the most interesting writers of her generation."
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St. Louis Post Dispatch
"Complex and disturbing… Envy is a masterfully constructed, insightful novel of psychosexual suspense that explores the destructive power of loss, betrayal, guilt and envy…an engaging, beautifully written story."
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The Boston Globe
“A compelling, beautifully written, well-constructed look at family problems that initially might seem insurmountable….Harrison is a truly gifted writer.”
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Deseret Morning News
"The characters, their conflicts and their conversations do seem real, and their story, however improbable, will keep you turning the pages."
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Newsday
“Her ability to train an unflinching eye on some of the more frightening aspects of eroticism and the human psyche, combined with her uncommon wisdom, distinguishes her as one of the finest and most fearless storytellers writing today.”
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BookForum
“Envy is full of Harrison’s astute, often mordant powers of physical and psychological observation…the fact is that Kathryn Harrison is one of our more earnestly impassioned and intellectually engaging players. Long may she run.”
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Elle magazine
Will has a good sex life–with the woman he married. So why then is he increasingly plagued by violent erotic fantasies that, were they to break out of his imagination and into the real world, have the power to destroy not only his family but his career? He’s about to lose his grip when he attends a college reunion and there discovers evidence of a past sexual betrayal, one serious enough that it threatens to overpower the present, even as it offers a key to Will’s dangerous obsessions.
Hypnotic, beautifully written, this mesmerizing novel by “an extremely gifted writer” (San Francisco Chronicle) explores the corrosive effect of evil–and how painful psychological truths long buried within a family can corrupt the present and, through courage and understanding, lead to healing and renewal. “Like Scheherezade in the grip of a fever dream, Kathryn Harrison . . . has written one of those rare books, in language of unparalleled beauty, that affirm the holiness of life,” said Shirley Ann Grau, about Poison. And the same can be said about
Envy.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Then Came Jennifer.......2006-09-09
Kathryn Harrison's bewitching "Envy," with its opening scene set at a college reunion, begins as a novel of manners but, after a surprising and upsetting conversation at that reunion, it quickly cascades into a novel of dysfunction.
Will, a psychoanalyst, and his wife, Carole, are having marital difficulties caused by the depth of their grief over the death of their young son in a boating accident. Their sex life becomes problematic, and Will begins having sexual fantasies about his female patients.
By now, maybe you're thnking, "we've seen all this before." Well, no, you haven't. Ms. Harrison flips you a surprise in every chapter, and she plays around with gender roles, too. The men are chatty and emotional; the women stolid or domineering.
And then enters the carniverous sociopath, Jennifer. Pierced, tatooed, with studs in her nose, she's unabashedly predatory. She appears only in two scenes, but they're at the heart of the novel. She's what you'll remember when you've forgotten everything else about this superior effort by a slashingly effective author. But it will probably be quite some time before that happens.
Notes and asides. If you have preteens in your household, do not leave this book lying around in plain sight.
Too Thoughtful For Three Stars.......2006-04-02
Harrison has written a crackling soap opera of pain and dysfunction in the marital relationship. The main character in the story, Will, is a psychoanalyst whose life never recovers after the death of his 10-year-old son in a boating accident.
His and his wife's inability to come to terms with such a tragic accident eventually corrodes their relationship, leaving our psychoanalyst vulnerable to making serious professional and personal mistakes. Will has an identical twin brother, Mitch, who complicates an already sad and sordid tale.
This novel explores interesting territory about the psychology of twins. There is, as many reviewers have said, way too much psychobabble--but Harrison isn't trying to show off! She's in deep with her word processor trying to help us grasp the lengths to which someone like Will would go to understand his personality.
The characters find a way to sort things out in a satisfactory way, and Will and his wife find a way to talk through the pain they've kept from each other. It's not perfect, but I would definitely consider reading another of Kathryn Harrison's novels.
Like nothing she's written before........2006-03-15
Having read all of Harrison's books, I can't recall her ever being overly worried about plot. But "Envy" is stacked with it. It brims over with shocking and explosive twists that fulminate like psychological bombs. This is a very talky novel, and it's true (as others have noted) that it sometimes runs over with therapy talk, but Harrison's characters are so precisely realized and her insights are so sharp you tend to forgive her this minor flaw. There are two characters -- the main character's brother and a young patient of his -- who absolutely deserve their own books. I would personally love to see through their eyes. One is fascinatingly and purely evil and the other has mommy/daddy issues (and maybe just mental-health issues) so astounding she is a spectacular train wreck.
This is not Harrison's best book. It's not nearly as tight as, say, "The Seal Wife" or "Exposure." But it's something different and often amazing (and a knowledge of the author's past makes the whole thing run even deeper).
The Danger of Too Much Therapy.......2006-03-07
I am a big fan of Kathryn Harrison. I've voraciously read Exposure and Poison and recommended them to everyone I know. And that's why I'm particularly disappointed in her latest novel.
Who doesn't know about Ms. Harrison's memoir -- The Kiss -- a true-life recollection of her incestuous relationship with her father? The author is a veteran of therapy. And here, therapy-talk takes over. None of it, however, rings particularly true. For example, here's an excerpt of Will, talking to his 70ish father, whom he recently discovered was having an affair:
"Dad? When you're working -- do you ever feel something being revealed to you? That your consciousness is heightened -- augmented, maybe -- by a force outside of your own intellect?"
Who TALKS like this? The book is filled with sentences that sound, not like the characters, but like the author. Here's another, from a patient (Will is a psychoanalyst): "(He's) very old-school, very houndstooth tweedy. He's so central casting that it's actually cute in a kind of avuncular way." What twenty-something do you know who would describe someone in that way?
The characters don't ring true. They never come to life on their own. The psychoanalysis is very "pop" variety -- a real surprise since Ms. Harrison knows the subject so well. I felt irritated as I read along...especially knowing this talented writer is capable of so much more.
An urban psychiatrist with too many problems of his own........2005-11-14
I've read several books by Kathryn Harrison and enjoyed all of them. That's why I was anxious to read this latest one. It's different in many ways although the sharp perceptions that characterize her work are surely there.
The setting is urban modern. The main character is a psychiatrist with problems of his own. Sometimes I thought he analyzed everything too much and his constant angst was off-putting. Other times I felt his inner pain. Mostly though, I just wanted to shake him and tell him to get on with his life.
And yet the story was interesting and I kept reading just to see what would happen. I read this book differently than I read her other books though. I found myself lightly skimming the passages where he went on and on in self analysis.
In the story, he's just gone to a 25th college reunion and discovered a startling secret. And he hasn't seen his twin brother in 15 years. And although he and his wife have a seemingly happy marriage, they just can't get over the loss of their young son who died in a tragic accident three years before. Stuff happens. Stuff that is interesting to read about. But I just couldn't really care about the characters.
Yes, the plot did hold my interest. But I really need more than plot to recommend a book. I need something more, something that Ms. Harrison displayed in "Poison", "The Binding Chair" and "Seal Wife". Therefore, although her fans might think she can do no wrong and love this book, I found it just didn't measure up to the standards she had already set for herself.
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Test Tube Envy: Science And Power In Argentine Narrative (The Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory)
J. Andrew Brown
Manufacturer: Bucknell University Press
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Envy the Frightened
Manufacturer: Dell
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ASIN: B000DZTAP8 |
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Powerful novel of Israel in peace and war written by the daughter of Moshe Dayan.
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Nina (Kostuchenko E. Literary Version)
Manufacturer: Publishing House, Geleos
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ASIN: 5818902625 |
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. , , ... . B . , , . ! - ! , .
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Olesha's "Envy": A Critical Companion (AATSEEL)
Rimgaila Salys
Manufacturer: Northwestern University Press
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ASIN: 0810113120 |
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- The Bewitched Viking
- One of the best of the Viking Series
- part 4 of the series.
- sandra does it again and again
- When you just want to feel good
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The Bewitched Viking (Wink & a Kiss, 1)
Sandra Hill
Manufacturer: Love Spell
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( H ) | Authors, A-Z | Romance | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books | Henley, Virginia | Howard, Linda | Howell, Hannah
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A Tale of Two Vikings
ASIN: 0505523116 |
Book Description
THE BEWITCHED VIKING is the story of an outrageous Viking, Tykir Thorksson, and a presumed Saxon witch who put a kink in the King of Norway's male parts. Picture this: If a fierce Viking warrior beckons a fair maiden with his forefinger, does she succumb, or run for the castle, her sheep in hot pursuit? If a Saxon "witch" curses a Viking king, causing his manpart to take a right turn, should the Norseman capture the lady and risk falling under her erotic spell? Lady Alinor and Tykir Thorksson...the Saxon witch and the Viking troll. Even the gods are laughing.
Customer Reviews:
The Bewitched Viking.......2007-01-09
A Great Story and a great writter. Bought all the books in this series and I really enjoyed them
One of the best of the Viking Series.......2005-02-08
I love the way Sandra Hill can make the characters laugh at themselves...I think Tykir is my favorite of the Viking characters and I like that he could fall in love with a less than beautiful woman. She is hilarious and so is he. That's one reason why I love Sandra Hill. The scene where the heroine puts an eel in the back of her dress to make it look like a tail just so she can torment Tykir's friend who is convinced she is a witch is just hilarious.
part 4 of the series........2002-04-02
I really enjoy Sandra Hill's books and this one was no exception. This is the story of Tykir, who is Thork's son from The Reluctant Viking" and younger brother to Eirik and Rain. This book is filled with wonderful characters that show up in previous and later books. The humor was wonderful and the passion was hot! I like the way that Sandra Hill makes the hero and heroine more true to life. The hero has a bad leg and the heroine, Ailnor, has freckles and she is not terribly busty and not super young either.
Alinor is sort of taken captive by Tykir because she is supposedly a witch who has put a curse on King Anlaf's privates. He is commanded to take her to the King to remove the curse/spell. She is very reluctant to go and fights but then soon realizes that time spent with Tykir is better than time spent with her brothers who are always marrying her off . She is a widow three times over and really would like for all men to leave her alone.
Tykir at first doesn't think she is attractive at all and can't hardly stand to be near her but he soon finds that he likes freckles and her hair drives him wild. Their passion soon flares and turns both of their worlds upside down.
The reader is not sure what is going to happen next and it was really hard to put this book down to go back to work after my breaks. I am now going back to read the Outlaw Viking which is Selik's story.
sandra does it again and again.......2001-11-20
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the "Bewitched Viking" I have read just about all of Ms Hills " Viking " novels. The "Bewitched Viking" certainly holds up to the other books in this series. I recently read Eirik and Eadyth's story and Ruriks. I have to say my all time favorite (of all romance stories ever written) is "The Reluctant Viking" starring Ruby and Thork, the one that started it all. It's nice to see that Thork and Ruby's family lives on. I've also just finished Selik and Raines story. Dont let these works of literary art pass you by. Sandra Hill is very gifted at making the reader feel. She makes you laugh out loud, cry silent tears and holds you spellbound with something as simple and powerful as words. Bravo, Ms Hill. I'm a fan for life.
When you just want to feel good.......2001-07-08
Poor Tykir Thorksson. His king has sent him off to capture the witch that put a spell on the king's manhood. He was prepared for danger, but he wasn't prepared for the hot-tempered red-head, her tiresome, bumbling brothers and her sheep! And to make matters worse, he's burdened with a crew of superstitious Vikings and a skald who composes some of the worst sagas ever sung. It's hard to know which is worse, being immortalized in sagas with titles like "Tykir the Great and the Flame-Haired Witch," or finding that he isn't immune to the witch's flaming hair and freckles after all.
Much as I love a good laugh, I'm always a little skeptical of novel-length humor because it's just so hard to do. To keep your reader smiling for 300-400 pages, much less laughing is one of the most difficult tasks a writer can undertake. Or as someone once said: "Dying is easy; comedy is hard." Sandra Hill provides enough good humor to keep her readers feeling good for almost four hundred pages and for that alone I have to give her high marks.
Sandra Hill knows her stuff. She knows how to keep a narrative moving, how to create believable characters, and how to make her readers smile, if not laugh out loud. Though I found myself a little uncomfortable with the opening chapter in which she seemed to be trying a little too hard to win her readers over, I did find that once the narrative settled down, it was a pleasure to read. The writing is crisp, humorous and well-balanced and the problematic elements such verbal anachronisms (The anal retentive need not apply; this book will make you nuts if you pick at it.) and a tendency to make the dark ages seem like a time when it wasn't any big deal to hop on a ship to go visit cousin Sven who has settled in Sussex with his Saxon wife and their sixteen children really don't detract from the story, in my opinion. The thing with humor, at least for me, is that all can be forgiven if the author can make me laugh.
There isn't much about this plot that we haven't seen a million times. There's a dark age version of the "meet cute" that involves sheep, but you pretty much know that the two main characters have to start out hating each other so that they can have the Big Revelation later on. Hill handles it deftly enough, never descending into bathos which would have been too easy given the backgrounds she's created for Tykir and Alinor. They never pity themselves and we're never asked to pity them either. And Hill never relies on the "idiot plot" in which two grown people can't seem to share enough information to avoid huge, painful misunderstandings that threaten to destroy their relationship at least a dozen times during the course of the story. Yes, it's hard for these two to show their feelings for each other, but Hill never takes this to the extremes that make this reviewer want to fling a book across the room.
It's actually pretty hard to feel sorry for Tykir when you consider that the man has rank, money and women falling at his feet. So when he butts heads with Lady Alinor, who keeps insisting that she's not a witch (the difference between cursing someone and putting a curse on him seems to escape the Vikings who have come to haul her off to Norway to fix the king's...problem.) it is rather amusing to watch his sense of self get rearranged. It's also hard to feel sorry for Alinor for all that she's been married three times to rich, repulsive old men for the benefit of her horrible brothers. She's tough, she's mouthy, and she is not perfect - alleluia! She makes mistakes, has bad days, feels sorry for herself occasionally, and despite all her best intentions, she finds herself responding in a very basic way to Tykir's very basic attractions. From the beginning you really have to like these two because you know that for all that they're going to irritate each other half to death, they're also really well-suited to each other. Both are smart and funny, and both are almost obsessively self-reliant.
There's not a lot of tension inherent in this particular treatment, and that's not a bad thing for humor which can be so easily damaged by too much seriousness. We're led to feel a certain amount of concern for Alinor's fate and for the fate of their relationship, but never enough to put a frown on our faces instead of a smile. The love scene - there's one rather long one - is charming, and just explicit enough to let us know what's happening without being graphic. And with the lead-in Hill gives us, the length of the scene isn't a problem; it fits nicely into the narrative without being in any way intrusive. I, for one, enjoyed the heck out of it!
Hill's characters are vivid and honest; they have weaknesses, they do silly things. Sometimes they laugh at themselves, but more often they laugh at each other. They don't change dramatically; they don't have epiphanies which turn them from sinners to saints. They simply are what they are and it's a mark of Hill's humanity as well as her skill that we do care about what happens to them. They work within the context of the story, and even the secondary characters are not only memorable but quite real.
On the whole I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys humor. This isn't a book you read when you need a good weep, but rather when you want to feel good, when you want to believe that the world is actually a fairly amusing place, and that nice things can happen if you're open to them.
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The Bewitched Viking
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1145005993 |
Product Description
Publisher: Edition: 1999
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- Green Lantern: Hero's Quest (Justice League of America)
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