The Captain's Daughter

· New York Review of Books
電子書
192
頁數
符合資格
評分和評論未經驗證 瞭解詳情

關於這本電子書

This classic of Russian literature plunges readers into a fascinating moment in military history as it follows an unforgettable cast of characters during the Pugachev Rebellion.

“Time has done nothing to dull the excitement of the story.” —The New York Times

Alexander Pushkin’s short novel is set during the reign of Catherine the Great, when the Cossacks rose up in rebellion against the Russian empress. Presented as the memoir of Pyotr Grinyov, a nobleman, The Captain’s Daughter tells how, as a feckless youth and fledgling officer, Grinyov was sent from St. Petersburg to serve in faraway southern Russia. Traveling to take up this new post, Grinyov loses his shirt gambling and then loses his way in a terrible snowstorm, only to be guided to safety by a mysterious peasant. With impulsive gratitude Grinyov hands over his fur coat to his savior, never mind the cold.

Soon after he arrives at Fort Belogorsk, Grinyov falls in love with Masha, the beautiful young daughter of his captain. Then Pugachev, leader of the Cossack rebellion, surrounds the fort. Resistance, he has made it clear, will be met with death.

At once a fairy tale and a thrilling historical novel, this singularly Russian work of the imagination is also a timeless, universal, and very winning story of how love and duty can summon pluck and luck to confront calamity.

關於作者

Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) was born in Moscow and brought up mainly by tutors and governesses. One of his great-grandfathers, Abram Gannibal, was an African slave who became a favorite and godson of Peter the Great. Like many aristocrats, Pushkin learned Russian mainly from household serfs.

As an adolescent, he attended the new elite lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo, outside St. Petersburg. In his early twenties he was exiled because of his political verse, first to the Caucasus, then to Odessa, then to his mother’s estate in the north. Several of his friends took part in the failed 1825 Decembrist revolt, but Pushkin did not—possibly because his friends wished to protect him, possibly because they did not trust him to keep the plot secret. In 1826 Pushkin was allowed to return to St. Petersburg. During his last years he suffered many humiliations, including serious debts and worries about the fidelity of his young wife, Natalya Goncharova. In 1837 he was fatally wounded in a duel with Georges-Charles d’Anthès, the Dutch ambassador’s adopted son, who was said to be having an affair with Natalya.

Pushkin’s position in Russian literature can best be compared with that of Goethe in Germany. Not only is he Russia’s greatest poet; he is also the author of the first major works in a variety of genres. As well as his masterpieces—the verse novel Eugene Onegin and the narrative poem The Bronze Horseman—Pushkin wrote one of the first important Russian dramas, Boris Godunov (1825); one of the finest of all Russian short stories, “The Queen of Spades” (1833); and the first great Russian prose novel, The Captain’s Daughter (1836). His prose style is clear and succinct; he wrote that “Precision and brevity are the most important qualities of prose. Prose demands thoughts and more thoughts—without thoughts, dazzling expressions serve no purpose.”

Robert Chandler’s translations from Russian include Pushkin’s Dubrovsky; Nikolay Leskov’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Vasily Grossman’s An Armenian Sketchbook, Everything FlowsLife and Fate, and The Road; and Hamid Ismailov’s Central Asian novel, The Railway.  His co-translations of Andrey Platonov have won prizes both in the U.K. and in the United States. He is the editor and main translator of Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida and Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov. Together with Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski, he has also compiled an anthology, The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry, to be published in early 2015. He has translated selections of Sappho and Apollinaire. He teaches part time at Queen Mary, University of London and is a mentor for the British Centre for Literary Translation.

Elizabeth Chandler is a co-translator, with Robert Chandler, of several titles by Andrey Platonov and Vasily Grossman.

為這本電子書評分

請分享你的寶貴意見。

閱讀資訊

智能手機和平板電腦
請安裝 Android 版iPad/iPhone 版「Google Play 圖書」應用程式。這個應用程式會自動與你的帳戶保持同步,讓你隨時隨地上網或離線閱讀。
手提電腦和電腦
你可以使用電腦的網絡瀏覽器聆聽在 Google Play 上購買的有聲書。
電子書閱讀器及其他裝置
如要在 Kobo 等電子墨水裝置上閱覽書籍,你需要下載檔案並傳輸到你的裝置。請按照說明中心的詳細指示,將檔案傳輸到支援的電子書閱讀器。