Book set in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Reviewed on 2019/05: https://www.instagram.com/hebdo_readings/
I loved reading this book and I’m not even sure why. The reason someone like me in 2019 can enjoy a book written primarily for middle-class Russians in 1910 is all thanks to the amazing work of the people at #indianauniversitypress . This particular edition has an introduction, an editor’s note, a translator’s note and then it’s peppered all throughout with annotations and notes. And the purpose of all that extra work is to shed some light on what the book meant when it came out and also keep our contemporary expectations in check. #thewrathofdionysus is a kitsch, highly dramatic and exaggerated #telenovela . It’s at the end of the day a #russian #soapoperawhich very wisely and insidiously aim at playing with #genderroles and #sexualidentities at the time. #nagrodskaya basically assigned traits typically associated with women to male characters and typically masculine traits to our main female character Tatiana #Kuznetsova . More than just tacit, #yevdokiyanagrodskaya also included openly #lesbian and #homosexualcharacters or statements which already made this #debutnovel quite controversial when it came out. I think its powerful and timeless message is the fluidity and ambiguity of feeling sometimes like what people perceive as a woman, other times feeling like what society call a man, and at the end just feeling like a human being without any gender labels whatsoever. Unless you’re reading the original in Russian, I believe this book needs to be read with all the annotations and accolades to appreciate its subversive message. #highlyrecommended#russianliterature #genderqueerlit#saintpetersburg #moscow#Нагродская #ЕвдокияНагродская#novorossiysk
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