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Years of Childhood

James Duff Duff

4.2/5 ( ratings)

In this account of his early years in eastern Russia at the close of the eighteenth century, Aksakov re-evoked the life of a small boy on his father's country estate and in the more sophisticated urban milieu to which his mother belonged. Between these two worlds Serezha must divide his time - an his loyalties. With the unblinking clarity of a child often too honest for his own and other's comfort, he describes everybody as they impress his awakening consciousness, from the kindly uncles who tease him unmercifully to the millionaire who cares more for his English pigs than for his serfs. The book is inspired by a lyrical delight in nature and country pursuits, but it is not an idyll. Bitter homesickness, physical terrors, the horror provoked by arbitrary death - such experiences are recorded graphically, with a painful candour resembling at times Tolstoy's.

This volume forms the second part of Aksakov's autobiographical trilogy, but it may br read independently, as a classic of its kind in a literature which excels in the genre of childhood reminiscence.

Language: English

Pages: 334

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Release: November 17, 1983

ISBN: 0192815741

ISBN 13: 9780192815743

Years of Childhood

James Duff Duff

4.2/5 ( ratings)

In this account of his early years in eastern Russia at the close of the eighteenth century, Aksakov re-evoked the life of a small boy on his father's country estate and in the more sophisticated urban milieu to which his mother belonged. Between these two worlds Serezha must divide his time - an his loyalties. With the unblinking clarity of a child often too honest for his own and other's comfort, he describes everybody as they impress his awakening consciousness, from the kindly uncles who tease him unmercifully to the millionaire who cares more for his English pigs than for his serfs. The book is inspired by a lyrical delight in nature and country pursuits, but it is not an idyll. Bitter homesickness, physical terrors, the horror provoked by arbitrary death - such experiences are recorded graphically, with a painful candour resembling at times Tolstoy's.

This volume forms the second part of Aksakov's autobiographical trilogy, but it may br read independently, as a classic of its kind in a literature which excels in the genre of childhood reminiscence.

Language: English

Pages: 334

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Release: November 17, 1983

ISBN: 0192815741

ISBN 13: 9780192815743

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