Get Free eBook Sample
Sasha Sokolov is the author of the novels A School for Fools (1976), Between Dog and Wolf (1980), and Astrophobia (1985) and the essay collection In the House of the Hanged (2011).
Alexander Boguslawski is professor of Russian at Rollins College and the translator of Sasha Sokolov’s A School for Fools (2015) and In the House of the Hanged (2011).
Between Dog and Wolf
eBook
$11.49
$13.99
| Save 18%
-
ISBN-13:
9780231543729
- Publisher: Columbia University Press
- Publication date: 12/06/2016
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 224
- Sales rank: 178,865
- File size: 1 MB
Available on NOOK devices and apps
Want a NOOK? Explore Now
11.49
In Stock
Sasha Sokolov is one of few writers to have been praised by Vladimir Nabokov, who called his first novel, A School for Fools, “an enchanting, tragic, and touching book.” Sokolov’s second novel, Between Dog and Wolf, written in 1980, has long intimidated translators because of its complex puns, rhymes, and neologisms. Language rather than plot motivates the story—the novel is often compared to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake—and time, characters, and death all prove unstable. The one constant is the Russian landscape, where the Volga is a more-crossable River Styx, especially when it freezes in winter. Sokolov’s fiction has hugely influenced contemporary Russian writers. Now, thanks to Alexander Boguslawski’s bold and superb translation, English readers can access what many consider to be his best work.
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
-
- Acastos: Two Platonic…
- by Iris Murdoch
-
- Pariah: And Other Stories
- by Joan Williams
-
- Come Sunday
- by Bradford Morrow
-
- Difficult Loves
- by Italo CalvinoWilliam WeaverAnn Goldstein
-
- The Dance of the Demons: A…
- by Esther KreitmanIlan StavansAnita Norich
-
- Mikhail and Margarita
- by Vittorio Marinoni
-
- Black Flower: A Novel
- by Young-ha KimCharles La Shure
-
- The Gardens of Consolation
- by Parisa RezaAdriana Hunter
-
- The Convalescent
- by Jessica Anthony
-
- Wolves of the Crescent Moon
- by Yousef Al-mohaimeed
-
- A Quiet Life
- by Kenzaburo OeKunioki YanagishitaWilliam Wetherall
-
- Cosmos: A Novel
- by Witold GombrowiczDanuta Borchardt
Recently Viewed
Publishers Weekly
01/23/2017Sokolov’s language-driven novel, long considered untranslatable, finally makes it into English 36 years after its publication in Russia. Sokolov, best known for 1976’s A School for Fools, here adds narrative to his linguistic pyrotechnics and creates a unique, challenging read. The non-chronological action centers on the Volga River and is told in three forms. The lead, Ilya Petrikeich Zynzyrela, is a one-legged knife-sharpener whose chapters are told in colloquial, heavily accented dialect, in which Boguslawski departs from the original Russian, using his own puns and neologisms to varying effect. Ilya’s sections are contrasted by the overly erudite, floral chapters depicting the warden Yakov Ilyich Palamakhterov. Yakov’s poems, many of which are lovely, are interspersed throughout and expand on the book’s themes. The plot fluctuates, but some facts are clear: after a wake for a drowned man, Ilya kills the warden’s dog, thinking it’s a wolf. After Ilya’s crutches are stolen by the vengeful warden, the story heads toward an inevitable conclusion. There are occasional difficulties that feel like impositions: for example, readers will be confused by the decision to provide endnotes but not place endnote numerals within the text, especially because Sokolov uses unattributed quotes from over a dozen Russian authors. However, even at peak moments of inscrutability, one feels the caliber and creativity of the original. This is a riot of language, invaluable for scholars and fascinating to the curious. (Dec.)
Vanity Fair
Intricate and rewarding—a Russian Finnegans Wake.Russia Beyond the Headlines - Phoebe Taplin
A bold, lyrical English version of this challenging work, where plot, character and chronology dissolve in the flood of Sokolov’s rich prose and poetry, evoking an–often frozen–landscape.New York Magazine
Alexander Boguslawski's translation of Sokolov's 1980 Russian novel has achieved the near impossible by bringing the book to English audiences (for the first time) with its sardonic and punning soul intact.Lit All Over - Elisabeth Cook
How does one make the unknown, impossible transition from life to death? How does one make a decision based on appearances, limited information? What really happens in that in-between state? Between Dog and Wolf doesn’t just tackle these questions, it makes them sing.The Untranslated
In my view, since the beginning of the twentieth century there have been four great Russian wordsmiths, and Sasha Sokolov is certainly one of them. The other three are Andrei Bely, Vladimir Nabokov and Alexander Goldstein. These writers have shown that they could do with the language whatever they pleased, creating works of breathtaking stylistic complexity and sheer brilliance at the sentence level.David Remnick
Sokolov is one of those rare novelists whose primary concern is the praise and exploration of a language rather than the development of a position. In this, he is in the line of Gogol, Lermontov, Nabokov.Olga Matich
A masterful feat. Boguslawski has created a discourse, or literary style, that captures Sokolov's at once folksy and fanciful, verbally playful, punning speech and is remarkably faithful to the subtleties of Sokolov's language.Flavorwire
One of the great living Russian writers.Nariman Skakov
Sasha Sokolov's Between Dog and Wolf, delivered in Alexander Boguslawski's masterful translation, comprises a daring act of immersion into the depths of language that results in semantic spasms of the great Russian literary body. The highly experimental novel, which unquestionably belongs to the highest literary ranks, announces the twilight of the novelistic tradition, but already eagerly awaits its imminent dawn.