Author: Izraíl Métter
- Fiction
- Libros del Asteroide
- ISBN: 9788416213047
Synopsis
Boria, the narrator of this lovely novel, is a superfluous man fated to play a marginal role in society—Soviet Russian society. The son of a small Jewish businessman, his petit bourgeois origins prevent him access to the university world in which he believes he has found his calling. This means he must educate himself and resign himself to teaching in second-class institutions. In a fragmentary way, the sensitive Boria recalls his tumultuous life: the death of his father; his first attempts to earn a living teaching private lessons; living in different cities, including Kharkiv, Leningrad, and Rostov; and, above all, his love for the beautiful Katia, a paradigm of feminine unpredictability. Through these fragments, the narrator forms an emotional yet insightful portrait of daily life in Soviet Russia, a world dominated by collective values that tend to crush any glimmer of humanity. The author infuses biographical elements into the novel, which he finished writing in the 1960s but could not publish until 1989. The book established Métter as one of the most prominent Soviet authors of the era and earned him international fame.
En un estilo sencillo y espontáneo, impregnado a veces de emoción y lirismo, el autor relata la atormentada existencia de un hombre superfluo destinado, por su particular modo de ser y de sentir, a desempeñar un papel marginal en la sociedad en que vive, la Rusia soviética. La narración dispersa y fragmentaria, escrita en p rimera persona, evoca diferentes momentos de la existencia del protagonista, hijo de una modesta familia judía, cuyo origen social le ha obligado a ser un autodidacta, que, en un mundo dominado por la primacía de los valores colectivos, ha querido siempre ser considerado como una persona irrepetible y única.La azarosa historia de sus amores juveniles con la hermosa Katia, fascinante y enigmática encarnación de la volubilidad femenina, constituye el eje central de esta bellísima novela, en la que se refleja, de modo nuevo e inédito, la vida cotidiana en la Rusia soviética a lo largo de medio siglo.
