descriptions of reader responses to peritexts?

[Anne O'Brien Fisher]

Dear SEELANGovtsy,

I am working on an essay about the front and back matter to various
editions of the popular novels about Ostap Bender by Il'f and Petrov, and
am troubled by my inability to discuss in any great depth the responses of
actual readers to these secondary texts which "packaged" the novels. Can
anyone point me toward descriptions (fictional, non-fictional, or your own
personal ones) of readers' responses to such peritextual packaging of Il'f
and Petrov's novels, or of any other Soviet novels?

I have one example from Jan Zabrana in which a person who liked Jirasek's
writings, but not the government which published them, simply took a razor
and cut out the front and back pages with the tiresome propagandistic
(Communist) interpretations of Jirasek's significance. I would like to
find other examples from Soviet sources. I would be especially interested
to hear examples of positive responses, since I suspect they might have
been fewer and farther between.

Please reply off-list to aof at umich.edu.

Thank you,

Anne Fisher


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"We teach and are taught that a work of art is like a rake lying in the
dark. One who steps on it gets hit in the head, is dazzled with sudden
light, and it is the same with a brilliant work: the viewer is struck with
sudden, unexpected bliss."

- From Stanislaw Lem's _Highcastle: A Remembrance_

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Anne Fisher
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Michigan Slavic Department
Sylvia "Duffy" Engle Graduate Student Fellow, University of Michigan
Institute for the Humanities
work tel: 734-936-1865
aof at umich.edu

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