Translation of The Kreutzer Sonata

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Dear Slavists,

"Sex-negative" (David Powelstock's quotation marks) is a curious way to put it.  I would say (and have said in TOLSTOY ON THE COUCH, 1998) that the character Pozdnyshev in THE KREUTZER SONATA is more complicated than that.  It is true that he has a negative attitude toward heterosexual relations, and an ambivalence about male homosexuality.  He is also a misogynist.  And a masochist.  And narcissistic in the extreme.  The murder of his nameless wife is an explosion of narcissistic rage.  And there is much else.

I look forward to reading the book by Michael R. Katz.

With regards to the list -

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere



On Oct 31, 2013, at 3:12 PM, David Powelstock wrote:

Dear Michael,

That is very exciting news. I'm a big fan of your Notes from the UG translation, so I look forward to your "Kreutzer" translation. It's such a a fascinating text, even though the Tolstoi of "Kreutzer" is my least favorite Tolstoi. To explain my aversion in the terms prevalent in San Francisco in the 1990s, "Kreutzer" is appallingly "sex-negative."

Cheers,
David

 * * * * * * * * * *
David Powelstock
Assoc. Prof. of Russian and Comparative Literature
Director, Master of Arts in Comparative Humanities
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA 02453


On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 5:26 PM, Katz, Michael R. <mkatz at middlebury.edu> wrote:
Dear Anna:

I have just retranslated The Kreutzer Sonata and it will be included in my book called "The Kreuzter Sonata: The Tolstoy Family Story Contest," to be published by Yale University Press in 2014. The book will also include "counter-stories" by Tolstoy's wife and son, Sofiya Andreevna and Lev Lvovich. I'd be glad to send you the manuscript copy of Kreuzter (to be revised by the copy editor, of course), if you need it sooner than the publication date.

Michael Katz
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