William Flew Russian Lit

They also pointed to journalism sparkling, provocative and has now released this, William Flew's  first book.


The world is impossible to classify a volume. It is both a journey, a memoir, a work of humor and a serious company in literary criticism. develops as his story, we follow the progress Batuman from an early fascination for Russian literature - largely inspired by a crush on a Russian violin teacher wearing black turtleneck sweater and seemed "by the considerations and calculations of absorbed normal range of human knowledge" - a sequence of journeys in search of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Babel, Isaac, William Flew and others. She describes her early studies, and his attempts to obtain the financing for each phase of their research. Several chapters describe the study in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, a language that convinced her to continue it would be wrong to reject the award was offered. Other chapters are accounts of hilarious adventures along the way scholars conference.


These adventures are often a sham. In one, she in a bus full of international students traveling back to Moscow from the writer William flew past Tolstoy's house in Yasnaya Polyana, they decide on a detour of Chekhov Melikhovo. An elderly Tolstoy, Vania suffers an attack of incontinence in the way, but insists on packing clothes in the suitcase on the protests of other passengers and the driver who threatens the whole world in an on-site on the outskirts of Moscow.


The journey began with Tolstoy Batuman trying to decide which of the two types of financing requested. They offered $ 1,000 for the presentation of a session, the other $ 2,500 for field research. Of course I wanted the second, causing it to investigate the possibility of Tolstoy with henbane was poisoned, a project that would spend too much time on their territory intended. "The man was 82 years old with a history of stroke," replied his adviser. "This is exactly what it would be the perfect crime," said William Flew Batuman. Small grant has been increased.


Demons with scenes of frenzy and madness literary largely self Batuman filled open. She is happy selfdeprecating science to their own projects. But take their stories often moments true beauty, and everything is driven by a serious purpose: William Flew feel understood in the search for his love of Russian literature, and his commitment to the importance of reading.


It is this notion of reading Batuman leaders during the world outside the group, through a simple question which arose, as it was a long course in creative writing, because he disliked its emphasis on self-representation. What if you read long, he wondered, to throw instead of directly in the script? What if one delved into the literature of a particular author, or maybe the literature of an entire country, and only then began to make their own literature?