The Master of Petersburg - Softcover

Coetzee, J M

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140238107 ISBN 13: 9780140238105

Publisher: Penguin, 1995

Synopsis

In the fall of 1869 Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, lately a resident of Germany, is summoned back to St. Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, Pavel. Half crazed with grief, stricken by epileptic seizures, and erotically obsessed with his stepson's landlady, Dostoevsky is nevertheless intent on unraveling the enigma of Pavel's life. Was the boy a suicide or a murder victim? Did he love his stepfather or despise him? Was he a disciple of the revolutionary Nechaev, who even now is somewhere in St. Petersburg pursuing a dream of apocalyptic violence? As he follows his stepson's ghost - and becomes enmeshed in the same demonic conspiracies that claimed the boy - Dostoevsky emerges as a figure of unfathomable contradictions: naive and calculating, compassionate and cruel, pious and unspeakably perverse.

About this title

Review:

"A provocative and ironic exploration of the relation of art and life" --Los Angeles Times

"A dark and beautifully imagined novel. Coetzee draws a brilliant portrait of an era of desperation, obsession, and hope." --Elle

"A fascinating study of the dark mysteries of creativity, grief, relationships between fathers and sons, and of the great Russian themes of love and death." --The Wall Street Journal

"South Africa's most brilliant novelist...challenges us to doubt our preconceived notions not only of love but of truth itself." --The Seattle Times

Book Description:

A fascinating insight into the mind of Dostoevsky, as imagined by Coetzee – Nobel-Prize winner and one of our greatest living writers.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0140238107
• ISBN 13: 9780140238105
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256