- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Serpent's Tail; New Ed edition (13 Nov 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 185242480X
- ISBN-13: 978-1852424800
- Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 13 x 1.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 424,807 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Review
"'Luminous fragments of the avant-garde' Times Literary Supplement '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 'Just one tip: Don't read this book if you're normal - you won't like it. Honestly. If you drive a Volvo, watch Eastenders, listen to Jamie Cullum or shop at Debenhams, you'll be baffled by this book. You stick to John Grisham; you'll be safe with him' Amazon.co.uk customer review"
Product Description
This wonderfully inventive collection of stories presents the writing of Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms at its vibrant, perplexing best. The book is composed of short miniatures: strange, funny, dream-like fragments ? many of which the author called ?incidents? ? that tend to feature accidents, falling, chance violence and sudden death. An outlaw classic banned by Soviet censors until the 1980s, Incidences vividly conveys the precarious nature of life in Stalin?s Russia. Writing in the 1920s as one of a group called the Society for Real Art, Kharms was first arrested in 1931, and told that he could only publish writing for children. Irrepressible, he was sent to the gulag in 1941 and died of starvation in a prison hospital a year later. With this new edition of Incidences we can rediscover a Russian writer whose bold writing and tragic death are an urgent reminder of the deranged spirit of his times.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
peculiarly poignant,
This review is from: Incidences (Paperback)
Taken individually these short - some extremely short - stories may seem little short of childishly gruesome, trivial, and banal; you may, if unfamiliar with Daniil Kharms (and especially with the IDEA of Daniil Kharms which seems to count for more), wonder why he should possibly be so celebrated for, say, a tale of old women falling out of a window, and who abruptly ends his stories by claiming, for instance, that he's going to stop writing because he's lost his ink pot or has fallen off his chair. Yet you don't stop reading. It's this triviality, and this banality of his writing which draws you in, it's the casual simplicity of his narration which makes you want to read more, until you find you've devoured the whole book and only then realise the insidious effect these pieces have.
Kharms ought, however, to be read with a degree of knowledge of his life, for knowledge of the Stalinist Russia in which he lived (and died) lends an even eerier quality to the work; my only qualm with this volume is that there isn't a more of a biographical introduction. Neil Cornwell's end essay would have been more happily placed at the beginning of the book. Simon McBurney (presumably he of the Theatre de Complicite) writes more about Simon McBurney than he does about Daniil Kharms in his introduction in a style where he tries - too hard, I think - to imitate the pithy, gnomic style of the author but doesn't quite make it. Indeed, one gets the feeling that this introduction to the new edition has been hastily tacked on. (The proof reader - if there even was one - failed to notice that the author's name was misspelled "Danill" on the head of each page of the intro - not a good start, that.) However, it's fantastic that the book should be reprinted at all so it isn't really fair to quibble about such things.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One for Python fans,
By Jonathan (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Incidences (Paperback)
I have read this book many times over the years but need to keep re-ordering due to friends repeated borrowing.
Still one of the freshest, most inspirational pieces of writing around. If you enjoy Monty Python and that irreverent brand of surrealist humour, Kharms has no equal. Enjoy!
12 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
World Gone Wrong,
By
This review is from: Incidences (Extraordinary Classics) (Paperback)
Pretty strange stuff. Loved it, though. Just one tip: Don't read this book if you're normal - you won't like it. Honestly. If you drive a Volvo, watch Eastenders, listen to Jamie Cullum or shop at Debenhams, you'll be baffled by this book. You stick to John Grisham; you'll be safe with him.
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