Native Speech: Lessons in Fine Literature

“Reading the main books of Russian literature is like re-reading your own biography. Life experience accumulated along with reading—and thanks to it… We grow together with books—they grow within us. And one day, there comes a time for rebellion against the relationship to classics that was instilled even in childhood,” wrote Pyotr Vayl and Alexander Genis in the foreword to the very first edition of their “Native Speech.”

Authors who emigrated from the USSR created abroad a book that soon became a real—though somewhat playful—monument to the Soviet school literature textbook. We still haven’t forgotten how effectively those textbooks permanently crushed in schoolchildren any taste for reading, instilling a lasting disgust for Russian classics. The authors of “Native Speech” tried again to awaken interest in the native elegant word for those unfortunate children (and their parents). It seems the attempt was a complete success. The witty and engaging “anti-textbook” by Vayl and Genis has helped graduates and applicants for many years to pass exams in Russian literature.

Summary: A non-standard look at classical literature: Krylov’s fables as a new Gospel, “Taras Bulba” as the 19th-century “Iliad,” Karamzin as a harbinger of modern prose, Lermontov who foresaw the appearance of Gumilyov… and other unexpected discoveries.