- Hardcover: 992 pages
- Publisher: Picador (22 Feb 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330490311
- ISBN-13: 978-0330490313
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.8 x 5.6 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 751,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Richard Bernstein, New York Times
Aside from being a great writer, Babel stands as an emblem of the tragedy of 20th century totalitarianism...
Book World
...some of the finest Russian fiction of the 20th century...
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
When the twenty-one-year-old Isaac Babel arrived in St. Petersburg in 1916, he found the city in wild but stimulating upheaval. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
When the twenty-one-year-old Isaac Babel arrived in St. Petersburg in 1916, he found the city in wild but stimulating upheaval. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
15 reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Like Finding A Secret Treasure
19 Feb 2002
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this book after stumbling upon one of Babel's army stories from the "Red Cavalry" collection. Babel truly is a master of short fiction. I am surprised that I have gone this far in my life and have just now found him.
The biographical information provided by his daughter enhances the reading pleasure as well as draws attention to the politics that contributed to self-censorship and eventual assassination from Stalin's henchmen.
Babel is the Checkov and the Turgenev of his time: classic Russian Short Fiction at its most beautiful.
The only drawback to this extensive collection is its extensiveness. Babel's longer works and plays lack some of the focus and integrity of his short stories. Luckily the short stories make up the bulk of the book.
If you can afford it buy the hardcover. It comes in a protective box and I guarantee this is a collection you will want to preserve and cherish forever.
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful
A Treasure Chest
27 Dec 2001
Format:Hardcover
Isaac Babel was a Russian Jewish writer who wrote his most famous works -- all short stories -- under the Soviet regime in the 1920s. He was tragically killed during the Stalin purges of the late 1930s. His work is unique from so many perspectives: he was a Jew, but he did not live in the Pale or write in Yiddish (he was a modern, secular Jew how lived in Odessa and wrote in Russian); he fought in the Red Army in the Russian Revolution, became disillusioned, but never left Russia; he wrote only short works such as short stories in screen plays.
In this one volume, his daughter has collected every available work that he ever wrote. While there were many manuscripts that were destroyed when Babel was purged, this will stand as his complete works, all recently translated.
In addition to Babel's own writings, there are wonderful introductions from Cynthia Ozick, the translator Peter Constantine and Babel's daughter, Nathalie Babel. Ms. Babel also includes, as an afterward, a wonderful memoir of how she came to produce this work, starting with the gripping tale of her and her mother's life in France during WWII. Also included is a timeline of Babel's life. These materials alone make for fascinating reading as you dip into Babel's literary works.
Of course, it is Babel's short stories that are the star attraction. There are three main collections, the Odessa stories, which tell the tales of Russian Jewish thugs living in a district in Odessa, the Red Cavelry stories, which are based on Babel's experiences in the Red Army in the Russian Revolution, and the Dovecote stories, which are autobiographical tales of Babel's youth. The stories are all lean and sparsely written with a biting irony that attacks all facets of Russian life.
This is not a book one is likely to or needs to read from cover to cover at one time. It is, however, perfectly designed to let one slowly absorb this great writer as you dip into this over time.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Essential
11 Dec 2005
Format:Hardcover
Babel's output was relatively small. His reputation rests on his short stories, particularly the stories about his hometown of Odessa and the remarkable Red Cavalry sequence describing the Soviet invasion of Poland. This work is, nonetheless, a high point of 20th century literature. Babel was a great writer, putting more into short stories than many talented writers can put into whole novels. His descriptions of life under the Czar, seen particularly through the prism of Jewish gangsters in Odessa, are remarkably gripping accounts of a repressive society. The Red Cavalry sequence, a tour de force of vivid narration and psychological insight gets right to the heart of the brutality that characterized much of the 20th century.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
