[5Z2]⇒ Descargar Gratis The Village Oneworld Classics Ivan Bunin Hugh Aplin 9781847491046 Books

The Village Oneworld Classics Ivan Bunin Hugh Aplin 9781847491046 Books

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The Village Oneworld Classics Ivan Bunin Hugh Aplin 9781847491046 Books

Although only a short read (135 p.) I found it hard to plough through this one. There's no real plotline, rather it's a snapshot of brutal rural Russian life in the lead-up to the Revolution. The cold and the hunger; the ignorant and superstitious conversations of the peasants; the landowners starting to be afraid of their workers...

Certainly the descriptions bring this era to life:
'After the blizzards, harsh winds blew across the hardened, grey, icy crust on the fields and tore away the last brown leaves from the shelterless oak thickets in the gullies...icy, slippery mounds grew up around the ice holes; paths were trampled through the snowdrifts- and the humdrum life of winter set in. Epidemics began in the village: smallpox, fever, scarlatina...Around the ice holes from which the whole of Durnovka drank, above the stinking, dark, bottle-coloured water, peasant women stood for days on end, bent over and with their skirts tucked up above their grey-blue, bare knees...It was getting dark at three o'clock, and shaggy dogs sat on roofs that were almost the same level as the snowdrifts.'

Sometimes our lead characters -two brothers in their fifties- muse on the meaning of life:
'My life ought to be described. But what was there to describe? Nothing. Nothing or nothing worthwhile. After all, he himself remembered almost nothing of that life. He'd completely forgotten his childhood, for example; just from time to time some summer's day would come to him, some episode...Ask him now: do you remember your mother? - and he'd reply: I remember some bent old woman...she dried dung, stoked the stove, drank in secret, grumbled...And nothing more.'

Perhaps should be evaluated more as a piece of poetry in prose form than a narrative.


Tags : The Village (Oneworld Classics) [Ivan Bunin, Hugh Aplin] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV><P style= MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt >Set during the 1905 Revolution in southwest Russia, this is a bleak and uncompromising portrayal of the lives of two peasant brothers,Ivan Bunin, Hugh Aplin,The Village (Oneworld Classics),Oneworld Classics,1847491049,Classics,Classic fiction,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Classics,Fiction Literary,Literary,Literature: Classics

The Village Oneworld Classics Ivan Bunin Hugh Aplin 9781847491046 Books Reviews

Perhaps you have to be a Russian literature junkie like me to enjoy this book, but I think it is good literature, although not a masterpiece. It tells the story of the brothers Kuzma and Tikhon Ilich, who live in the village of Durnovka. It is a small and isolated village, where life is dull, sad and hard. Everyday is a struggle for survival in a hostile environment. As always in Russian literature, the characters are tormented people (is it the cold and the vastness, or what?), with tortured souls and a great difficulty to get along with their neighbors. Kuzma goes to Tikhon's farm, to manage it, but at some point he leaves. The best about it is Bunin's sensitiveness and beautiful wording.
Although only a short read (135 p.) I found it hard to plough through this one. There's no real plotline, rather it's a snapshot of brutal rural Russian life in the lead-up to the Revolution. The cold and the hunger; the ignorant and superstitious conversations of the peasants; the landowners starting to be afraid of their workers...

Certainly the descriptions bring this era to life
'After the blizzards, harsh winds blew across the hardened, grey, icy crust on the fields and tore away the last brown leaves from the shelterless oak thickets in the gullies...icy, slippery mounds grew up around the ice holes; paths were trampled through the snowdrifts- and the humdrum life of winter set in. Epidemics began in the village smallpox, fever, scarlatina...Around the ice holes from which the whole of Durnovka drank, above the stinking, dark, bottle-coloured water, peasant women stood for days on end, bent over and with their skirts tucked up above their grey-blue, bare knees...It was getting dark at three o'clock, and shaggy dogs sat on roofs that were almost the same level as the snowdrifts.'

Sometimes our lead characters -two brothers in their fifties- muse on the meaning of life
'My life ought to be described. But what was there to describe? Nothing. Nothing or nothing worthwhile. After all, he himself remembered almost nothing of that life. He'd completely forgotten his childhood, for example; just from time to time some summer's day would come to him, some episode...Ask him now do you remember your mother? - and he'd reply I remember some bent old woman...she dried dung, stoked the stove, drank in secret, grumbled...And nothing more.'

Perhaps should be evaluated more as a piece of poetry in prose form than a narrative.