Pushkin Book

For the English-speaking reader, it's hard to comprehend the massive esteem in which Pushkin is held in his native Russia. While lip service is paid to his literary greatness on these shores, he is probably better known as the source of opera libretti (such as Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin) than for his actual writings, which is a great shame. TJ Binyon's remarkable Pushkin: A Biography should, hopefully, do something to redress the balance. This is a model of its kind: a biography that carefully and assiduously marshals the facts about its fascinating protagonist, but refuses to push the reader into easy judgments. It is a celebration of a remarkable man. From Pushkin's early days as a combative anti-establishment rebel to the heights of his fame and success, Binyon relates (in elegant and balanced prose) the crucial events that formed the writer's genius. The colourful era of Russia in the 19th century is, of course, brought to life with evocative detail (Binyon is a Russian specialist, and his authority in this field knows few peers). But the book is as much a biography of an era as it is of its charismatic subject. Pushkin's violent death was enshrouded in controversy (rather like that of Tchaikovsky, who famously set Pushkin's texts to music), and the cocktail of sex, jealousy and madness that precipitated his death from a bullet wound to the genitals is handled with trenchant skill. The final effect of all great biographies of writers should be to send the reader back to the work, and within the first few chapters of Binyon's sweeping and fastidious study, that is exactly the effect created here. --Barry ForshawRead More