From United Kingdom to U.S.A. About this Item: Northwestern University Press, United States, 1992. Condition: New. Translated ed. Language: English. Brand New Book. In this classic of Russian humor and social commentary, a fired cable fitter goes on a binge and hopes a train to Petushki (where his most beloved of trollops awaits).

On the way he bestows upon angels, fellow passengers, and the world at large a magnificent monologue on alcohol, politics, society, alcohol, philosophy, the pains of love, and, of course, alcohol. Seller Inventory # AAC001 6. From United Kingdom to U.S.A. About this Item: Northwestern University Press, United States, 1992.

Condition: New. Translated ed. Language: English. Brand New Book.

Moscow-Petushki, also published as Moscow to the End of the Line, Moscow Stations, and Moscow Circles, is a pseudo-autobiographical postmodernist prose poem. Browse and Read Moscow To The End Of The Line By Venedikt Erofeev Moscow To The End Of The Line By. PDF File: Moscow To The End Of The Line By Venedikt Erofeev.

In this classic of Russian humor and social commentary, a fired cable fitter goes on a binge and hopes a train to Petushki (where his most beloved of trollops awaits). On the way he bestows upon angels, fellow passengers, and the world at large a magnificent monologue on alcohol, politics, society, alcohol, philosophy, the pains of love, and, of course, alcohol. Seller Inventory # AAC001 11.

Maybe the best book about Brezhnev's Russia imaginable. If you are the kind of person who has ever got drunk with friends, stormed a police station and then declared war on Norway then you will find much here that is familiar.

It's a book rich in allusion starting from the title (Moscow to Petushki) and structure, which is reminiscent of Radishchev's,whose description of the country landed the author in a certain secure facility at the pleasure of her Imperial Maybe the best book about Brezhnev's Russia imaginable. If you are the kind of person who has ever got drunk with friends, stormed a police station and then declared war on Norway then you will find much here that is familiar. It's a book rich in allusion starting from the title (Moscow to Petushki) and structure, which is reminiscent of Radishchev's,whose description of the country landed the author in a certain secure facility at the pleasure of her Imperial Highness Catherine II - it doesn't pay always to be too truthful about the homeland, but also in cocktail recipes (all of which are firmly in the 'do not try at home' category).

My father once working with a pair of alcoholics asked them how do you know when you've become an alcoholic and got past the probationary period of merely being a heavy drinker, said the first: when you find yourself straining metal polish. To which the second said: Nah, nah, you know that you're an alcoholic when you drink your metal polish neat [ this unoriginal anecdote is by no means is intended as a substitute for professional medical advice ]. And the cocktail recipes are much of that kind combining eye watering products such as Soviet medicated shampoos, the spiritual states that one finds ones self in after drinking are thoroughly detailed for the readers enlightenment. It's a drunken, tragic, comic book with some beautiful graphs plotting the daily drinking of a small team of theoretical cable layers who due to the drinking never seem to reach the phase of practical application. These graphs cost the narrator his job. That's the kind of story this is. In other words it is a story about Breshnev's Russia in which opting out is achieved curtsey of our old friend intoxicating liquor.

But in a sense I've started this review from the bottom of the wrong glass. The narrator is on a train to visit his sweetheart, guarded by angels, with a bottle or two of spirits in his case in the event of the angels not being quite up to the job.

He once worked laying cables in the vicinity of the Kremlin - a building he tells us repeatedly that he's never seen. The work is reflective of Breshnev's Russia, they do a day's work in good weather, then rain obliges them to shelter in their rest hut with a bottle of the good stuff. Rain ruins cable, requiring them to relay cable in good weather.

Anyway a degree of freedom is achieved through enslavement to the bottle. If dialectical materialism were turned on its head, something like angels would probably fall out. If you got drunk enough to cross Moscow a thousand times without ever seeing the Kremlin, something like freedom would happen, despite the State. If poky old Petushki became Eden, just because you loved and it was there, materialism would be turned right side up again, but with the angels left in. That’s Erofeev, whose incredibly Russian cocktail of sadness & joy, shame, spirituality, and sensu If dialectical materialism were turned on its head, something like angels would probably fall out.

If you got drunk enough to cross Moscow a thousand times without ever seeing the Kremlin, something like freedom would happen, despite the State. If poky old Petushki became Eden, just because you loved and it was there, materialism would be turned right side up again, but with the angels left in. That’s Erofeev, whose incredibly Russian cocktail of sadness & joy, shame, spirituality, and sensual skewering of Lenin is Marxism’s inadvertent glory & a gorgeous f-you to Kremlins everywhere. Oh, crap, another Russian writer without a beard! It always makes me so sad.

Like seeing a squirrel without a tail. It seems unnatural, unfair. I'm impressed by his attempt at a Clark Gable 'stache though. So in the little bit of research I did on this book I found that it's considered a 'postmodernist prose poem' which I didn't necessarily pick up on while I was reading it. (The 'poem' bit, I mean - the 'postmodernist' part was quite evident.) Now I'm not sure what to think. I feel like Oh, crap, another Russian writer without a beard! It always makes me so sad.

Frequenzweiche Berechnen Software Engineering. Like seeing a squirrel without a tail. It seems unnatural, unfair. I'm impressed by his attempt at a Clark Gable 'stache though. So in the little bit of research I did on this book I found that it's considered a 'postmodernist prose poem' which I didn't necessarily pick up on while I was reading it.

(The 'poem' bit, I mean - the 'postmodernist' part was quite evident.) Now I'm not sure what to think. I feel like I should re-read it in light of the whole 'prose poem' thing, but no - Proust is waiting for me patiently at the bedside table and there's that whole book I'm reading for my real-life Pretentious Bookclub, so there's just no time for a re-read of this. So let it be known that it's a 'prose poem'. Maybe that will help you going into your own reading of it and then you won't have your world turned upside down like mine was. Even though Erofeev didn't sport the Russian-classic (ie, beard), he did write about an alcoholic, so he gets to keep his Russian literary citizenship for that at least.

Supposedly pseudo-autobiographical it follows the story of Venichka who has just lost his job as a cable fitter for charting how much alcohol he and his coworkers drank. The majority of the story takes place on a train from Moscow to Petushki and involves the various discussions that take place between Venichka and his other travelers. Alcohol is consumed. Petushki is where Venya's lover and child await him, it is his 'salvation and joy'; unlike Moscow which obviously is meant to be all about restriction, destruction, and everything else bad about Russia in 1968 when Erofeev wrote the story.

One thing I love about the Russians is their veiled references to their oppressive society - being a postmodern work it probably goes without saying that I missed more than I should have because I suck at reading postmodern works sometimes. I should be in therapy for this problem. But I am trying, so shove it. I also want to give a shout-out to the fantastic cover art that was chosen, Self Portrait with Demons (James Ensor). If an epic can be brief then this is one – Erofeev’s drunken journey to the end of the Moscow train line, stuffed with thoughts and ponderings true, tragic and hilarious. The first thing that strikes the reader is the overriding compulsion to make sense of the world – to catalog, categorize and assign values to things.

It starts in on page one and pretty much follows on every page: “One of my acquaintances says that Coriander vodka has an antihuman effect on a person; that is, it strengthens all If an epic can be brief then this is one – Erofeev’s drunken journey to the end of the Moscow train line, stuffed with thoughts and ponderings true, tragic and hilarious. The first thing that strikes the reader is the overriding compulsion to make sense of the world – to catalog, categorize and assign values to things. It starts in on page one and pretty much follows on every page: “One of my acquaintances says that Coriander vodka has an antihuman effect on a person; that is, it strengthens all the physical members but weakens the soul. With me it happened the other way around for some reason; that is, my soul was strengthened in the highest degree while my members were weakened. But I agree that this too is antihuman. Therefore, at the same time, I added two mugs of Zhiguli beer and an Albe de dessert port straight from the bottle.” If the narrator could have given up drinking, he would have made a great mathematician or IT guy or infographic designer because he couldn’t get enough of calculating and instructing and laying out (cocktail) recipes. For instance, he wants to know what is worse, paralyis or nausea?

Nervous exhaustion or mortal sorrow? It doesn’t surprise you that he is fired from his job for making graphs that chart the drinking habits of his coworkers relative to their productivity. But against this scientific instinct he also seeks to take the wrong path, to get life wrong, to throw his head back “like a piano player” and drink: “What sort of hallway was it? I haven’t the slight idea even now, and it ought to be that way.

Everything should. Everything should take place slowly and incorrectly so that man doesn’t get a chance to start feeling proud, so that man is sad and perplexed.” The book is of course also a social commentary on Soviet Russia, and starts with the narrator talking about how he couldn’t seem to find the Kremlin even if he tried, and ends with him finally in the Kremlin and not liking what he finds there. Highly recommended. Recently, I drank beer with a friend whose native language is Arabic. As our bottles clinked, I asked him if there was anything we could say in Arabic that would be appropriate, such as ‘cheers’, na zdorovya, etc.

“No”, he laughed, “it is prohibited!” I then asked if there was an Arabic word for ‘hangover.’ No, he said. Not even some sort of impolite or forbidden word, I asked, or a word to describe people from other countries who’ve had too much alcohol, and what they experience when they wake Recently, I drank beer with a friend whose native language is Arabic. As our bottles clinked, I asked him if there was anything we could say in Arabic that would be appropriate, such as ‘cheers’, na zdorovya, etc. “No”, he laughed, “it is prohibited!” I then asked if there was an Arabic word for ‘hangover.’ No, he said.

Not even some sort of impolite or forbidden word, I asked, or a word to describe people from other countries who’ve had too much alcohol, and what they experience when they wake up the next morning? No one who spoke Arabic ever observed such a thing and wanted to describe it? The closest thing, he told me, is a word that simply means ‘out of one’s mind’, which, from the perspective of a native English speaker, isn’t very close at all. Yesterday I thought of this book, and I got to wondering how many words Russian has for ‘hangover.’ I know of one, bodoon, but I get the impression there may be others. On the last page of my used copy of Moscow to the End of the Line, or Moskva-Petushki, there is written in pencil, under the questions “make a fig?” and “money to buy drinks?”, a “recipe” for a drink called “Tear of a Komsomol Girl”, a recipe that looks to me like it’s potentially fatal. When I asked my Russian teacher about it, she said that people really drank things like this during the Soviet Union.

She also said the book is one of her favorites. I think I can understand why. Esri Enterprise License Agreement Elastic.

Along with A Confederacy of Dunces, it’s one of the few genuinely funny books I’ve read- and like that book, also very sad. A man, having recently been fired from his job, gets on a train in Moscow, intending to go to Petushki- the end of the line. He meets all sorts of characters on the train, real and imagined, including, inevitably, the devil, who demands that the man answer impossible and scatological riddles. I don’t want to spoil anything, but as the book went along, and the man got closer to his destination, I got a clearer understanding of what Yerofeyev was trying to do- and the sense of tragedy, of a life passing by in a haze, and the large-scale tragedy of Communism, became more apparent. The book is a little like a night of drinking heavily; everything at first seems enjoyable and humorous, then you start to feel depressed and vaguely ill, and realize you shouldn’t be urinating off the edge of the roofand if you’ve really drunk too much, maybe you drift into some awful realm of the spirit like the one depicted in the last 20 or so pages.

Maybe there’s a word for that in Russian. I don’t know much about Yerofeyev’s life, but I get the sense that he lived his book. I watched a small part of a documentary about him, and when he was interviewed he was lying on a couch in his apartment, barely able to move, speaking through a hole in his throat. I don’t know how old he was at the time, but the back cover of the book says that he lived only to 55. Moscow to the End of the Line and Walpurgis Night, or The Steps of the Commander (which I haven’t yet read) seem to be the only novels of his translated into English. The back cover mentions two other titles with intriguing names, Annunciation and Notes of a Psychopath, but I don’t know if they’ve been translated.