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A review by casparb
Petersburg by Andrei Bely
5.0
Even among those into Russian lit, Petersburg - Bely - appear to be swept under the rug. I've never read a Russian novel with such a strong sense of authorial voice. In fact, there's very few novels I can think of at all that entertain the notion of the living author so fully. I was told that this reads like a Modernist Anna Karenina, and I can see how one approaches this reading, but altogether Petersburg seems to me like a much more charismatic, modernist Crime and Punishment. Bely leaves Bulgakov in the dust. I can't emphasise enough the madness of this prose:
'There is an infinity of prospects racing in infinity with an infinity of intersecting shadows racing into infinity. All Petersburg is the infinity of a prospect raised to the power of N.
While beyond Petersburg there is - nothing.'
How often does an author describe the settling night as 'It was getting dark: it was getting dark blue'?
At one point, the narrative slips into real time - perhaps that sounds unremarkable, but I can't think of a novel that does this:
'The lackey was going up the staircase; he suffered from breathlessness, though we are not concerned with that now, but with ... the staircase: a beautiful staircase! And it has steps - as soft as the convolutions of the brain. But the author does not have time to describe to the reader that same staircase, up which ministers have climbed more than once (he will describe it later), because the lackey is already in the reception hall...'
The entire novel shatters itself temporally. To be clear, Petersburg was published in 1916, and at one point declares that Petersburg exists beyond three dimensions - that we must enter fourth-dimensional space.
Bely seems to call himself a Symbolist, but I'm more inclined to call this Russian high modernism. The Joycean comparison is present, but does a disservice to both Joyce and Bely. This novel was highly unexpected, and is at present highly underrated - perhaps it bears more similarity to Dostoevsky in terms of framing, but I wouldn't be ashamed to present Bely as the modernist answer to Tolstoy.
'There is an infinity of prospects racing in infinity with an infinity of intersecting shadows racing into infinity. All Petersburg is the infinity of a prospect raised to the power of N.
While beyond Petersburg there is - nothing.'
How often does an author describe the settling night as 'It was getting dark: it was getting dark blue'?
At one point, the narrative slips into real time - perhaps that sounds unremarkable, but I can't think of a novel that does this:
'The lackey was going up the staircase; he suffered from breathlessness, though we are not concerned with that now, but with ... the staircase: a beautiful staircase! And it has steps - as soft as the convolutions of the brain. But the author does not have time to describe to the reader that same staircase, up which ministers have climbed more than once (he will describe it later), because the lackey is already in the reception hall...'
The entire novel shatters itself temporally. To be clear, Petersburg was published in 1916, and at one point declares that Petersburg exists beyond three dimensions - that we must enter fourth-dimensional space.
Bely seems to call himself a Symbolist, but I'm more inclined to call this Russian high modernism. The Joycean comparison is present, but does a disservice to both Joyce and Bely. This novel was highly unexpected, and is at present highly underrated - perhaps it bears more similarity to Dostoevsky in terms of framing, but I wouldn't be ashamed to present Bely as the modernist answer to Tolstoy.