16 Results in the "Blog" category

My mother used to tell me, When all else fails, give the gift of books. When I was growing up, a book was a big deal. By todays standards, less than half of Americans consider a book a big deal. The truth is, that many people dont think much about books throughout their life. Between working, the kids soccer games, taking care of home,…

The stifling bureaucratic regime of Nicholas I offered a poor opportunity for the development of a new generation. The collapse of the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius was a heavy blow to the older school of Ukrainian authors and it weighed still more heavily upon the next generation which would have been attracted to it. At the same time throughout Russia the old…

What happens when two people with completely opposite personalities meet in this life? She’s madly in love, also smart, rich, yet… very unattractive. He’s a rake who’s already managed to charm dozens of women. No wonder. After all, he’s so handsome that he’s considered the most handsome man of his time. A well-born but impoverished officer, a brilliant commander, a veteran of the Napoleonic…

Bielinsky’s weighty articles, written between 1843 and 1846, remain to this day the sole exhaustive review of Poushkin’s poems, and continue to form the basis of all close analysis of his work. But even these criticisms are lacking in the complete insight which comes of biographical research. For many years after Poushkin’s death the suspicion which still attached to his name, and the close…

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take…

With the departure of the eighteenth century there also disappeared from Russia that dazzling glitter which for well-nigh half a century had blinded the eyes of Europe. Catherine was now dead, Potyomkin was dead, Suvorof was living an exile in a village, and Panin was idle on his estates. And now stripped of its coat of whitewash, autocracy stood bare in all its blackness.…

Sometimes you read a book or a story and believe the author. It’s written so clearly, it touches your soul, you understand—it really happened that way, and the characters are so real before your eyes. Why does this work for some authors and not for others? You might say: I need to write in the realism genre, maybe then everything I describe will feel…