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S'està carregant… The Archivist's Story (2007)de Travis Holland
S'està carregant…
Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. I tried it! I made it about 60 pages and completely lost interest. I hope others enjoy it. ( ) Audio version Pavel is an archivist at the notorious Lubyanka prison, a former school teacher who left his former position in some disgrace (which you do not know why until later in the book). Set in the months leading up to WW2 we see Pavel at work, notably dealing with the records of Isaac Babel a writer who he admires and respects but who is in the prison. Pavel commits a small but significant act by saving some of Babel’s work from the eventual furnace that is the fate of all the works in the archive. The book is an unremitting depressive understated tale in which we contemplate what it would be like to live in constant fear of faceless men in dark cars taking you off to prison for, essentially, thought crimes. The author also asks us to imagine being a lover of literature being forced to catalogue the stories, poems and sketches of “dissdents” and taking them once they are no longer needed to be burned. I think I may have been too depressed to continue with this book if it wasn’t for the excellent vocal talents of Nick Rawlinson who narrated and brought the book alive. Overall - Stalin’s Russia is brought depressingly to life in this tale which is shot through with many shades of grey and redolent of decay.
“The Archivist’s Story” is, quite obviously, Holland’s tribute to Babel. He too is rescuing the Russian master by making him come alive in a historical novel. Yet his intense attachment to Babel can be detrimental to his own fiction. He seems to be writing in a self-imposed shadow of Babel’s genius, peppering the novel with quotes from Babel and his contemporaries and never taking off with the kind of freedom a very talented young novelist should take for granted. Pertany a aquestes col·leccions editorials
Moscow, 1939. In the recesses of the infamous Lubyanka prison, a young archivist is sent to verify the authorship of an unfinished story, confiscated from one of the many political prisoners there. The writer is Isaac Babel. The great author of Red Cavalry is spending his last days forbidden to write, his final works consigned to the archivist, Pavel Dubrov - who will ultimately be charged with destroying them. Pavel, a former schoolmaster and lover of literature, a reluctant minion in Stalin's system, makes a reckless decision- he will save the last stories of the writer he admires; whatever the cost. Pavel's daring in the face of a vast bureaucracy of evil invigorates a life that had slowly lost its meaning, even as it guarantees his almost certain undoing. A story of suspicion, courage and unexpected grace, The Archivist's Story is ultimately a tribute to the enduring power of the written word. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
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