Tales of Belkin

By Alexander Pushkin and Josh Billings

Ivan Petrovich Belkin left behind a great number of manuscripts.... Most of them, as Ivan Petrovich told me, were true stories heard from various people.

First published anonymously in 1830, Alexander Pushkin’s Tales of Belkin contains his first prose works. It is comprised of an introductory note and five linked stories, ostensibly collected by the scholar Ivan Belkin. The stories center variously around military figures, the wealthy, and businessmen; this beautiful novella gives a vivid portrait of nineteenth century Russian life.

It has become, as well, one of the most beloved books in Russian literary history, and symbolic of the popularity of the novella form in Russia. In fact, it has become the namesake for Russia’s most prestigious annual literary prize, the Belkin Prize, given each year to a book voted by judges to be the best novella of the year.

It is presented here in a sparkling new translation by Josh Billings. Tales of Belkin also highlights the nature of our ongoing Art of the Novella Series—that is, that it specializes in important although albeit lesser-known works by major writers, often in new tranlsations.

The Art of The Novella Series

Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781612190815

Reviews for Tales of Belkin

[alexdaw · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Imagine my delight when I received this slim volume published by Hesperus. Hesperus is, according to their blog, "a small London based independent publisher committed to their motto ET REMOTISSIMA PROPE - or bringing near what is far. That is to say, introducing to the English speaking world authors who have been unjustly neglected or inaccessible. They seem to specialise in short classic works - no more than 100 pages. Adam Thirlwell - named by Granta magazine in 2003 as one of Britain's twenty best young novelists - provides a Foreword to this edition and Hugh Aplin provides the Introduction. Aplin studied Russian at the University of East Anglia and is now the Head of Russian at Westminster School, London. He has translated Chekhov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgeneve and Zamyatin for Hesperus previously.I have not read Pushkin to date, I am ashamed to say. He is described on the inside back flap as Russia's greatest poet. (Note to self....put Eugene Onegin on the TBR pile.) The Tales of Belkin is, however, prose and Pushkin wrote them in 1830 just before he got married. This was his first work of prose fiction and he published it anonymously the following year. Verse was more prestigious in those days apparently. Pushkin's goals with prose fiction were "Precision and brevity..." But more importantly he wanted to challenge notions about fiction. The Tales of Belkin was originally published with an introduction by the Publisher, known only as A.P. attributing the tales to Ivan Petrovich Belkin. The introduction includes a letter from a neighbour in response to a request for a biography of Belkin from the Publisher. Belkin is described by the neighbour as inexperienced, soft-hearted, weak and perniciously remiss when it came to managing his estate. He also described him as leading a moderate life - avoiding excess and when it came to women, exhibiting a bashfulness that was "truly maidenly". And so we are presented with The Tales of Belkin - five short stories and two other small pieces - The History of the village of Goryukhino and A Fragment. Does our reading of them change if we don't know Pushkin is writing them? How much of our reading is informed by what we think we know of the author? The tales seem simple enough - stories of thwarted love or deceived maidens. I found myself checking the notes which are by and large very helpful. However in the process I smiled wryly to myself that I was probably doing exactly what Pushkin was rebelling against most - checking for authenticity/scholarship. What makes a good story? Or indeed a good storyteller? Is there such a thing as a new story or are there only a certain number of stories in this world and it depends on the storyteller and how well they tell them? What does the reader bring to a story? His or her own experience is as important as the storyteller in determining what they find in the story. For my money, and let's be honest - the book cost me nothing but this review - I enjoyed the story of The Undertaker the most. This story was written nearly 200 years ago and yet nothing changes about the world and the characters we find therein.....An Undertaker moves house and is surprised when he is not as happy as he thought he might be if he changed location. He drinks cups of tea endlessly and is morose as befits "his sombre trade". His neighbour, the cobbler, comes over with an invitation to dinner the next day. They chew the fat - "How's business?" ....."Can't complain..." and so on. The dinner is a great success - many toasts are proposed - to the health of the hosts, to the health of the guests, to the health of Moscow, to the health of the guilds, to the health of the masters, to the health of the apprentices and finally to the health of the customers....and this is when things turn sour for the undertaker. Everyone finds this intensely amusing in his case but he feels insulted and goes home cranky...."In what way is my trade more dishonourable than others?.... Is the undertaker a pantomime clown?" he bleats as his domestic helps him get ready for bed. He declares to the Universe that rather than invite his neighbours to a housewarming, he invites the Orthodox dead and then falls into bed in a drunken stupor. You'll have to read the rest...but I can guarantee, it's most entertaining. Thanks Hesperus for an informative and delightful introduction to Pushkin.

[varske · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The other reviews here describe the stories, so I won't bother much. Suffice it to say I have long been lectured by my Russian friends that it was time I read Pushkin, for as people say about Shakespeare "all human life is here". The friends could quote long chunks of his poetry by heart at the drop of a hat. Who can do that anymore? Not being a great fan of poetry it took me time to discover Pushkin's poetry but when I did, I read and reread it and even in translation I loved it.After that I don't know what took me so long to get to Pushkin's prose. Anyway when this book arrived in the post, it seemed so slight compared with the usual Russian novel, I wasn't sure what I would find. But I read it and marvelled. It's a long time since I read many short stories (probably my teens with Maupassant and Maugham) but these "new" stories rekindled my interest in the form. It's understandable that they changed the face of fiction because they are rather down to earth and humorous. Each story has its own suspense and a fantastic coincidence. I spent a long time pondering about the end of "The Blizzard".I think I enjoyed "The History of the Village of Goryukhino" most. Pushkin's at first mocking attempt to make a history out of a village with no significant "historical" events, shows that even with uninspiring material, a great story can emerge about "ordinary" life.

[sneuper_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This edition of the Tales of Belkin has been a great pleasure to read. Not only because of the story themselves - which are timeless little masterpieces - but also because of the insightful foreword by Adam Thirlwell. He puts Pushkin's work in an interesting perspective (both in the history of Russian literature and among Pushkin's other work) and this made me read the stories in a different manner than the last time I read the book. It definitely added to the joy of reading. I'm not sure which story is my favourite - but I especially liked "The Shot" because it reminded me of other Russian prose, only with the typical Pushkin tone added to it. Definitely a world classic!

[drfp_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wow, so many Early Reviewers putting forth their extremely positive viewpoints here! 4.38 average rating! Have these freebies clouded their judgement? Forgive me the accusation. I mention it only because these tales, whilst charming, are so very slight. Each story is very nicely written and comes with its own slight twist at the end, but there's nothing heavyweight here. Fine tales, each and every one. But insightful or particularly moving? No, they weren't. This isn't Dubliners or Turgenev's Sketches. A respectable, but average, three stars is all I can say Tales of Belkin are worth.

[davidw_121768 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What more can I say that hasn't already been covered by other reviewers? Not a lot... Coincidentally I received this book from the Early Reviewers giveaway in the same week as I was reading Eugene Onegin, so it was nice to read something a little different by him alongside it. Very enjoyable, and the Hesperus edition is lovely (as usual).

[nperrin_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When Alexander Pushkin wrote The Tales of Belkin, verse still made up the bulk of serious Russian literature, and this marked Pushkin's first prose fiction publication. According to translator Hugh Aplin's introduction to the Hesperus Press edition of the Tales, Pushkin didn't think much of many of his prose predecessors, and he put his criticism—in favor of "[p]recision and brevity”—into action here. "What seemed to the vast majority of Pushkin's critical contemporaries to be mere bagatelles, presaging the waning of the great poet's powers, were arguably a crucial turning-point in Russian letters, when a verse-dominated literary world was shown ways it could develop the prose fiction that was to make it so influential over the subsequent century and more," he explains.Superficially, it's easy to see the Tales as bagatelles, and they are certainly charming. They consist of six stories ostensibly written by the late I.P. Belkin, who heard them from various individuals he met. His collection, where names have been changed to protect the innocent, but places have not, "solely through a lack of imagination," has been published posthumously along with a description of the author by an anonymous former neighbor. That's at least three layers of remove for each story: the fictional publisher, the fictional author, and the fictional author's acquaintance. And of course many of those acquaintances had the stories told to them as well.Pushkin uses as many interpositions of fiction as possible to make these seem like true stories, and each interposition leaves its own residue. Each story has its own voice as it has its own original "teller," but Belkin is always there as well. In "Mistress Peasant," the story of a Russian Romeo and Juliet, it is only he who can be addressing "[t]hose of my readers who have never lived in the country." What about earlier, describing our Juliet's father, who "was, withal, considered a man not stupid, for he was the first landowner of his province to have the sense to mortgage his estate with the Board of Trustees, a move which at the time seemed extremely complex and bold"? The irony could be Belkin's, but seems more likely Pushkin's own. On the other hand, what of the totally false suspense in "The Blizzard," which deliberately withholds information known to all three narrators? Here, is it Belkin, presenting the story in its most exciting light, or was that how it was related to him by some other talented storyteller?Ultimately, Pushkin is behind it all and is well in control. He gives us more of Belkin in "The History of the Village of Goryukhino," published later. That a man whose only reading material is an old letter-writer should be credited with these half-dozen delicious stories!The FTC, deeming a subjective evaluation of a work of art an endorsement, compels me to disclose that Hesperus Press gave me a copy of their new edition of The Tales of Belkin.

[josephcamilleri-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Meta-literature", "parody and pastiche", "genre-bending", "narrative experiment"... sounds like a brainstorming session for a class about postmodernist literature - except that these are all terms which could fit Pushkin's "The Tales of Belkin". Written in the autumn of 1830, this is a collection of short tales supposedly collected by the recently-deceased Belkin, whose sketchy biography is provided in an introductory letter by an anonymous friend of the late author. The stories parody various genres - ranging from the supernatural/Gothic (The Undertaker) to the sentimental (The Mistress Peasant) - and show Pushkin's mastery of each.

This handsome Hesperus Classics edition also contains "A History of the Village of Goryukhino”, another witty pastiche, this time of the high-flown style adopted by 18th and 19th Century Russian historians. It is complemented by a two-and-a-half page "Fragment" in which the narrator describes the life of a friend of his who happens to be a poet. We eventually learn that the narrator is himself the "friend" of whom he is speaking - our expectations are then further dashed in a final paragraph in which the supposed "editors" of the text inform us that this is an introduction to an incomplete work. In this collection, "style becomes content" - but isn't that what postmodern literature is supposed to be about?

The fluent and idiomatic translation is by Hugh Aplin, who also provides an introduction about the circumstances in which the works were written. Adam Thirwell's foreword gives some interesting insights into Pushkin's playful use of parody and pastiche.