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Title details for Mud and Stars by Sara Wheeler - Available

Mud and Stars

Travels in Russia with Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Other Geniuses of the Golden Age

by Sara Wheeler
Sara Wheeler
Audiobook
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With the writers of the Golden Age as her guides—Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Turgenev, among others—Sara Wheeler searches for a Russia not in the news, traveling from rinsed northwestern beet fields and the Far Eastern Arctic tundra to the cauldron of nation­alities, religions, and languages in the Caucasus. Bypassing major cities as much as possible, she goes instead to the places associated with the country’s literary masters. With her, we see the fabled Trigorskoye (“three hills”) estate that Pushkin frequented during his exile, now preserved in his honor. We look for Dostoevsky along the waters of Lake Ilmen, site of the only house the restless writer ever owned. We pay tribute to the single stone that remains of Tol­stoy’s birthplace. Wheeler weaves these writers’ lives and works around their historical homes, giving us rich portraits of the many diverse Russias from which these writers spoke.
 
As she travels, Wheeler follows local guides, boards with families in modest homestays, eats roe and pelmeni and cabbage soup, invokes recipes from Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, learns the language, and observes the pattern of outcry and silence that characterizes life under Vladimir Putin. Mud and Stars gives us timely, witty, and deeply personal insights into Russia, then and now.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 5, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593148587
      • File size: 248659 KB
      • Duration: 08:38:02

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Sara Wheeler narrates her travelogue of the places trod upon by the greats of Russian literature from 1800-1910. She gives insights into various authors' lives--Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, among others--the places where they lived, and what those places are like now. Those who have read, or listened to, THE ANNA KARENINA FIX may find these works to be somewhat complementary. Wheeler's alto voice and British accent make for a pleasant listening experience. She reads her own work with disciplined enthusiasm and energy that are very winsome, narrating clearly and never being overly dramatic. Many authors are not the best choice to deliver their own work. In this case, however, Wheeler does a splendid job. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 8, 2019
      Wheeler (Chile: Travels in a Thin Country) mixes travelogue and literary history in an entertaining work centered on her fascination with the great Russian writers of the 19th century. Zigzagging across a vast landscape, Wheeler visits sites associated with Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, and Turgenev, as well as lesser lights, such as Tolstoy’s writer friend Afanasy Fet. Amid accounts of these men’s lives, Wheeler relates her own experiences in homestays, sleeper cars, and hotels, showing how the run-down, seedy, and kitschy live in tension against the beauties of landscape and architecture. To Wheeler, if a single characteristic unites Russia, it is misery, “before, during and after communism.” At times, her tone toward the country and its people borders on mocking, as when noting the provincialism of her Russian language tutor, who “had once been to a conference in Greece, and spoke of the country like the Promised Land.” Vivid details nevertheless propel the narrative, from Gogol’s anorexia to “a tin-can shaded” lightbulb in far eastern Anadyr, where wages hover at just above $200 a month. Fans of Russian literature will find this survey simultaneously provoking and informative. Agent: Lisa Baker, Aitken Alexander Associates (U.K.).

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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