sbbarnes's review against another edition
3.0
Read in a book with all of Pushkin's drama snippets. I found them all readable, but mostly too short to be much of anything, and also none of them seem particularly stage-ready. Mostly they seem to be meant as epic poems just with several characters.
Boris Godunow - The Zar, who maybe killed his son, reclaims his throne after being sequestered in a monastery, while a defrocked monk posing as his dead son battles him. Spoilers, the defrocked monk succeeds mostly because the Zar dies of natural causes on the way. Is this about karma? Or the fickleness of the people? Who knows. I know this is the only real play in the book, but I found it kind of dragged for me, and also there were a million characters I couldn't tell apart and also a million settings, but not in a great way or innovative way like Götz von Berlichingen, more like in a confusing way. Also reminded me way too much of Boris Badenow
Der geizige Ritter - apparently this was kind of about Pushkin's dad. Follows a young broke knight whose dad won't give him money to live on because he's Scrooge McDuck. Ends in death.
Mozart and Salieri - Salieri poisons Mozart because Mozart is so talented that he will ruin music forever. It's less than ten pages long. Kind of interesting but also kind of nothing, and Mozart is basically a frat boy.
Der steinerne Gast - Don Juan returns to Madrid despite his banishment to seduce the widow of a guy he murdered. He suceeds but the murdered guy returns as a statue and kills Don Juan. Don Juan is a dick and also sleeps with like three different women under false pretenses. The statue thing is weird and kind of out of nowhere. But also I love how Goethe, Lessing and apparently Pushkin all thought Spain was just The Land of Moral Lassitude and Free Sex For All
Das Gelage während der Pest - Another kind of nothing ten pages. A bunch of guys have a feast to celebrate the plague because they can't deal with death, and then the Church comes in and ruins it.
Russalka - I want more of this one. It has mythology!! Aristocrat sleeps with miller's daughter, then dumps her to marry rich. She's pregnant and tries to drown herself, but becomes a Russalka. Their kid is a Nixe, or Mermaid, I guess, and later lures its dad to be drowned.
Szenen aus der Ritterzeit - the only one not in verse form, and actually a little longer. Merchant talks about disinheriting his son because his son is really into knights. The son goes to work as a squire, and then realizes being beholden to knights is shitty. Then his dad dies and has in fact disinherited him, and he stops and uprising, and then is sentenced to prison for life for liking a rich girl or something. There's also an alchemist for some reason. It's a little disjointed.
Boris Godunow - The Zar, who maybe killed his son, reclaims his throne after being sequestered in a monastery, while a defrocked monk posing as his dead son battles him. Spoilers, the defrocked monk succeeds mostly because the Zar dies of natural causes on the way. Is this about karma? Or the fickleness of the people? Who knows. I know this is the only real play in the book, but I found it kind of dragged for me, and also there were a million characters I couldn't tell apart and also a million settings, but not in a great way or innovative way like Götz von Berlichingen, more like in a confusing way. Also reminded me way too much of Boris Badenow
Der geizige Ritter - apparently this was kind of about Pushkin's dad. Follows a young broke knight whose dad won't give him money to live on because he's Scrooge McDuck. Ends in death.
Mozart and Salieri - Salieri poisons Mozart because Mozart is so talented that he will ruin music forever. It's less than ten pages long. Kind of interesting but also kind of nothing, and Mozart is basically a frat boy.
Der steinerne Gast - Don Juan returns to Madrid despite his banishment to seduce the widow of a guy he murdered. He suceeds but the murdered guy returns as a statue and kills Don Juan. Don Juan is a dick and also sleeps with like three different women under false pretenses. The statue thing is weird and kind of out of nowhere. But also I love how Goethe, Lessing and apparently Pushkin all thought Spain was just The Land of Moral Lassitude and Free Sex For All
Das Gelage während der Pest - Another kind of nothing ten pages. A bunch of guys have a feast to celebrate the plague because they can't deal with death, and then the Church comes in and ruins it.
Russalka - I want more of this one. It has mythology!! Aristocrat sleeps with miller's daughter, then dumps her to marry rich. She's pregnant and tries to drown herself, but becomes a Russalka. Their kid is a Nixe, or Mermaid, I guess, and later lures its dad to be drowned.
Szenen aus der Ritterzeit - the only one not in verse form, and actually a little longer. Merchant talks about disinheriting his son because his son is really into knights. The son goes to work as a squire, and then realizes being beholden to knights is shitty. Then his dad dies and has in fact disinherited him, and he stops and uprising, and then is sentenced to prison for life for liking a rich girl or something. There's also an alchemist for some reason. It's a little disjointed.
sidhedcv's review against another edition
3.0
"Un potente vivo è odioso per la plebe,
essi sanno amare soltanto i morti."
essi sanno amare soltanto i morti."
msand3's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 stars. For a drama with such high esteem in Russian literature and culture, Boris Gudunov struck me as being cold, static, and awkwardly constructed, even for all it’s quasi-Romantic fire and passion. It felt like a pale imitation of Sturm und Drang, with touches of Shakespeare. Most of the action occurs off-stage, except for Boris’ death, which is as sudden as it is baffling. While this may have kept with the historical record, it simply felt out-of-place in the arc of the drama.
I’m glad I had an introduction and footnotes, as Pushkin assumes the reader has knowledge of these events. Perhaps this is more evidence that one has to be Russian to fully appreciate this drama. It doesn’t feel universal, except perhaps as a text for operatic interpretation. It was hard for me to believe that Pimen’s soliloquy is so beloved in Russian literature (the introduction claimed it was the Russian version of soliloquies from Hamlet), since it didn’t seem particularly insightful or memorable, and considering Pimen’s character is not developed and disappears from the play after that scene. Again, perhaps one has to be a Russian to understand the cultural and historical significance. This is the first (and, so far, the only) disappointment I’ve encountered from Pushkin.
I’m glad I had an introduction and footnotes, as Pushkin assumes the reader has knowledge of these events. Perhaps this is more evidence that one has to be Russian to fully appreciate this drama. It doesn’t feel universal, except perhaps as a text for operatic interpretation. It was hard for me to believe that Pimen’s soliloquy is so beloved in Russian literature (the introduction claimed it was the Russian version of soliloquies from Hamlet), since it didn’t seem particularly insightful or memorable, and considering Pimen’s character is not developed and disappears from the play after that scene. Again, perhaps one has to be a Russian to understand the cultural and historical significance. This is the first (and, so far, the only) disappointment I’ve encountered from Pushkin.
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