Who Is to Blame?: A Novel in Two Parts

by Alexander Herzen, Michael R. Katz (Introduction)

Overview

"Herzen's novel played a significant part in the intellectual ferment of the 1840s. It is an important book in social and moral terms, and wonderfully expressive of Herzen's personality."—Isaiah BerlinAlexander Herzen was one of the major figures in Russian intellectual life in the nineteenth century. Who Is to Blame? was his first novel. A revealing document and a noteworthy contribution to Russian literature in its own right, it establishes the origins of Herzen's spiritual quest and the outlines of his emerging social and political beliefs, and it foreshadows his mature philosophical views.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801492860
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	10/29/1984
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	962,756
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael R. Katz is C. V. Starr Professor of Russian Studies at Middlebury College. He is the author of The Literary Ballad in Early Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature and Dreams and the Unconscious in Nineteenth-Century Russian Fiction. Katz is also translator of many books, including The Five, Sanin, and What Is to Be Done? also from Cornell.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Herzen was one of the most lucid, realistic, and gifted thinkers of his age and a founder of Russian socialism.... Who Is to Blame? remains of value for its acute social insights and Michael Katz has rendered it fluently into English.

Editorial Reviews

"Herzen was one of the most lucid, realistic, and gifted thinkers of his age and a founder of Russian socialism. . . . Who Is to Blame? remains of value for its acute social insights and Michael Katz has rendered it fluently into English."--Times Higher Education Supplement

"Herzen's only novel is as much a social document as a fiction, since the many characters personify the major issues and types of the time. . . . Herzen's humorous and ironic development of plot and character suggests an answer to the title question: all are to blame for the injustice and aimlessness of Russian life."--Library Journal

"The translation is excellent. . . . Katz catches the epigrammatic wit of the original--quite an accomplishment."--The New Republic

"This edition of Who Is to Blame? demonstrates genuine involvement in the translator's craft by duplicating Herzen's barbed style and preserving the natural strengths of his prose."--Slavic Review

From the Publisher