Description
Book SynopsisSimon Karlinsky (1924-2009) was a prolific, provocative, and controversial scholar of modern Russian literature, of sexual politics, and of music. He held advanced degrees from Harvard University (MA, 1961); and the University of California, Berkeley (PhD, 1964), where he taught in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures from 1964 to 1991. Among his path-breaking publications were two studies of the life and works of Marina Tsvetaeva (in 1966 and 1985),
The Sexual Labyrinth of Nikolai Gogol (1976),
Russian Drama from Its Beginnings to the Age of Pushkin (1985), and editions of the letters of Anton Chekhov (1973), as well as the letters of Russian emigre writers and the correspondence between Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson (1979; 2001). He was a frequent contributor to the
New York Times Book Review, the
Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, and a wide range of professional journals.
Trade Review“All of the essays have been lovingly and intelligently edited by Robert P. Hughes, Thomas A. Koster and Richard Taruskin. Not only do their commentaries situate Karlinsky’s work in the context of both his life and the field at the time. . . they also attest to the impact that Karlinsky had on them as a human being, a teacher and a scholar. . . Reading these incisive and invigorating essays, one encounters an individual unforgiving of crassness, stupidity and carelessness, yet appreciative of the creative potential of those who live their humanity fully and authentically.” —Philip Ross Bullock (Wadham College, University of Oxford), in the Slavonic & East European Review Vol. 92, No. 2, April 2014
