American library books Ā» Other Ā» Yama by Aleksandr Kuprin (best ereader for pdf TXT) šŸ“•

Read book online Ā«Yama by Aleksandr Kuprin (best ereader for pdf TXT) šŸ“•Ā».   Author   -   Aleksandr Kuprin



1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 128
Go to page:
Yama

By Aleksandr Kuprin.

Translated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Epigraph Authorā€™s Dedication Translatorā€™s Dedication Introduction Translatorā€™s Note Yama Part I I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII Part II I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII Part III I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX Authorā€™s Postscript Endnotes List of Illustrations Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.

This particular ebook is based on a transcription produced for Project Gutenberg and on digital scans available at the Internet Archive.

The writing and artwork within are believed to be in the U.S. public domain, and Standard Ebooks releases this ebook edition under the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the Uncopyright at the end of this ebook.

Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at standardebooks.org.

ā€œAll the horror is in just this, that there is no horrorā ā€Šā ā€¦ā€

Authorā€™s Dedication

I know that many will find this novel immoral and indecent; nevertheless, I dedicate it with all my heart to mothers and youths

A. K.

Translatorā€™s Dedication

I dedicate the labour of translation, in all humility and sincerity, to K. Andrae

B. G. G.

Introduction

ā€œWith us, you see,ā€ Kuprin makes the reporter Platonov, his mouthpiece, say in Yama, ā€œthey write about detectives, about lawyers, about inspectors of the revenue, about pedagogues, about attorneys, about the police, about officers, about sensual ladies, about engineers, about baritonesā ā€”and really, by God, altogether wellā ā€”cleverly, with finesse and talent. But, after all, all these people are rubbish, and their life is not life, but some sort of conjured up, spectral, unnecessary delirium of world culture. But there are two singular realitiesā ā€”ancient as humanity itself: the prostitute and the muzhik. And about them we know nothing, save some tinsel, gingerbread, debauched depictions in literatureā ā€Šā ā€¦ā€

Tinsel, gingerbread, debauched depictionsā ā€Šā ā€¦ Let us consider some of the ways in which this monstrous reality has been approached by various writers. There is, first, the purely sentimental: Prevostā€™s Manon Lescaut. Then there is the slobberingly sentimental: Dumasā€™ Dame aux CamĆ©lias. A third is the necrophilically romantic: Louysā€™ Aphrodite. The fertile Balzac has given us no less than two: the purely romantic, in his fascinating portraits of the Fair Imperia; and the romantically realistic, in his Splendeurs et MisĆØres des Courtisanes. Readeā€™s Peg Woffington may be called the literary parallel of the costume drama; Defoeā€™s Moll Flanders is honestly realistic; Zolaā€™s Nana is rabidly so.

There is one singular fact that must be noted in connection with the vast majority of such depictions. Punk or bona roba, lorette or drabā ā€”put her before an artist in letters, and, lo and behold ye! such is the strange allure emanating from the hussy, that the resultant portrait is either that of a martyred Magdalene, or, at the very least, has all the enigmatic piquancy of a Mona Lisaā ā€Šā ā€¦ Not a slut, but what is a hetaera; and not a hetaera, but what is well-nigh Kypris herself! I know of but one depiction in all literature that possesses the splendour of implacable veracity as well as undiminished artistry; where the portrait is that of a prostitute, despite all her tirings and trappings; a depiction truly deserving to be designated a portrait: the portrait supreme of the harlot eternalā ā€”Shakespeareā€™s Cleopatra.

Furthermore, it will be observed that such depictions, for the most part, are primarily portraits of prostitutes, and not pictures of prostitution. It is also a singular fact that war, another scourge, has met with similar treatment. We have the pretty, spotless grenadiers and cuirassiers of Meissonier in plenty; Vereshchagin is still alone in the grim starkness of his windswept, snow-covered battlefields, with black crows wheeling over the crumpled masses of grayā ā€Šā ā€¦

And, curiously enough, it is another great Russian, Kuprin, who is supremeā ā€”if not uniqueā ā€”as a painter of the universal scourge of prostitution, per se; and not as an incidental background for portraits. True, he may not have entirely escaped the strange allure, aforementioned, of the femininity he paints; for femininityā ā€”even though fallen, corrupt, abasedā ā€”is still femininity, one of the miracles of life, to Kuprin, the lover of life. But, even if he may be said to have used too much of the oil of sentimentality in mixing his colours for the portraits, his portraits are subordinate to the background; and there his eye is true and keen, his hand steady and unflinching, his colours and brushwork unimpeachable. Whether, like his own Platonovā ā€”who may be called to some extent an autobiographical figure, and many of whose experiences are Kuprinā€™s ownā ā€”ā€œcame upon the brothelā€ and gathered his material unconsciously, ā€œwithout any ulterior thoughts of writing,ā€ we do not know, nor need we rummage in his dirty linen, as he puts it. Suffice it to say hereā ā€”to cite but two instancesā ā€”that almost anyone acquainted with Russia will tell you the full name of the rich, gay, southern port city of Kā āøŗ; that any Odessite will tell you that Treppelā€™s is merely transplanted, for fictional reasons, from

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 128
Go to page:

Free e-book: Ā«Yama by Aleksandr Kuprin (best ereader for pdf TXT) šŸ“•Ā»   -   read online now on website american library books (americanlibrarybooks.com)

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment