The Master of Petersburg Paperback - 1995
by J. M. Coetzee
The acclaimed author of Waiting for the Barbarians and Life & Times of Michael K enters the world and mind of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Set in 1869, when Dostoevsky was summoned from Germany back to St. Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, this book is at once a compelling mystery and a brilliant and courageous meditation on authority and rebellion, art and imagination.
Summary
In the fall of 1869 Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, lately a resident of Germany, is summoned back to St. Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, Pavel. Half crazed with grief, stricken by epileptic seizures, and erotically obsessed with his stepson's landlady, Dostoevsky is nevertheless intent on unraveling the enigma of Pavel's life. Was the boy a suicide or a murder victim? Did he love his stepfather or despise him? Was he a disciple of the revolutionary Nechaev, who even now is somewhere in St. Petersburg pursuing a dream of apocalyptic violence? As he follows his stepson's ghost—and becomes enmeshed in the same demonic conspiracies that claimed the boy—Dostoevsky emerges as a figure of unfathomable contradictions: naive and calculating, compassionate and cruel, pious and unspeakably perverse.
First line
A droshky passes slowly down a street in the Haymarket district of St Petersburg.
Details
- Title The Master of Petersburg
- Author J. M. Coetzee
- Binding Paperback
- Edition Reprint
- Pages 256
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Penguin Books, New York
- Date November 1, 1995
- ISBN 9780140238105 / 0140238107
- Weight 0.5 lbs (0.23 kg)
- Dimensions 7.77 x 5.08 x 0.68 in (19.74 x 12.90 x 1.73 cm)
- Ages 18 to UP years
- Grade levels 13 - UP
- Library of Congress subjects Russia - Social life and customs - 1533-1917, Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 94009947
- Dewey Decimal Code FIC
Media reviews
"A dark and beautifully imagined novel. Coetzee draws a brilliant portrait of an era of desperation, obsession, and hope." —Elle
"A fascinating study of the dark mysteries of creativity, grief, relationships between fathers and sons, and of the great Russian themes of love and death." —The Wall Street Journal
"South Africa's most brilliant novelist...challenges us to doubt our preconceived notions not only of love but of truth itself." —The Seattle Times
Citations
- New York Times, 12/03/1995, Page 88
- NY Times Notable Bks of Year, 01/01/1995, Page 88
- Publishers Weekly, 10/02/1995, Page 0
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