And I found it pretty tolerable. The footnotes are in the back (I think?) which kind of stinks for your first read. Unless you're a serious student of Petersburg history, the footnotes are requisite for understanding half of the nuance. Bely is doing all these tricks shifting the geography of the city and playing off places and events, and that's lost to the modern reader without help. I'm eager to read it again without paying attention to the notes though.
I'll take a look at Moravagine, it looks great. It's in line after Volume 3 of Gulag A. and Orlando Figes's history of the Russian revolutions. I need more context for all this pre-WWI stuff!
http://www.amazon.com/Petersburg-Andrei-Bely/dp/0253202191
And I found it pretty tolerable. The footnotes are in the back (I think?) which kind of stinks for your first read. Unless you're a serious student of Petersburg history, the footnotes are requisite for understanding half of the nuance. Bely is doing all these tricks shifting the geography of the city and playing off places and events, and that's lost to the modern reader without help. I'm eager to read it again without paying attention to the notes though.
I'll take a look at Moravagine, it looks great. It's in line after Volume 3 of Gulag A. and Orlando Figes's history of the Russian revolutions. I need more context for all this pre-WWI stuff!