Flight - Softcover

Michael Finke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1909631469 ISBN 13: 9781909631465

Publisher: Sylph Editions, 2024

Synopsis

The Cahiers Series continues its exploration of translation in all its aspects with this account by retired professor of Russian literature Michael Finke of his fascinating with flight. Deskbound and myopic, ever since his childhood Finke has dreamt of flight. After decades as a university professor whose secret vice was to spend weekends soaring in lightplanes and gliders, he came across little-studied writings of leading Russian authors of the 1920s who, at the direction of Soviet authorities, engaged aviation as a signal promise of progress in Bolshevik Russia - another dream asking to be translated into reality. The resulting essay allows the literary scholar to meet the flier in an exploration of the sources and meanings of the several dreams inspired by flight. Placed alongside the text are paintings by the British artist Rachael Plummer, paintings which have their own oneiric quality, as airplanes disintegrate into abstraction, and as the offer of an aerial perspective renders landscape almost - but in the end not quite - legible.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Finke is Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where his research and teaching focused on nineteenth-century Russian literature. He has published eight monographs and edited several volumes, the most recent of which are Freedom from Violence and Lies: Anton Chekhov's Life and Writings, and Approaches to Teaching the Works of Anton Chekhov (coedited with Michael Holquist). Living in retirement near Pittsburgh, he attempts a second career in flight instruction and creative non-fiction.

Edition details

• Publisher: Sylph Editions
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1909631469
• ISBN 13: 9781909631465
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Rachael Plummer
• Number of pages: 44