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Amazon.com: 4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)

4.0 out of 5 stars Symbolism, Feb 5 2011

By Luc REYNAERT - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Envy, and Other Works (Paperback)

In this emotional novel Yuri Olesha opposes the vanishing `old' world in the USSR against the `new' world of socialism with its `new set of states of the soul'. In other words, the regime wants to create A. Gramsci's `new man'.

The new man
This new man should be a cool, cold, efficient goal-getter (literally and figuratively): `The new man is schooling himself to scorn the old feelings glorified by the poets, by the muse of history herself. The buttercup of pity, the lizard of vanity, the serpent of jealousy - this flora and fauna should be purged from the heart of man.'
Also, `we are not a family, we are mankind.' `Does it mean that the human feeling of fatherly love must be annihilated?'

The `old' men
The members of the `old' age with its `pity, tenderness, pride, jealousy, love, of which the human soul was made up', ask mutedly: `Normal people, where are you?' And what have the goal-getters to offer `to replace our capacity to love, to hate, to hope, to cry, to pity, to forgive? We need the pink wild rose of sorrow or the black currant bush of petty vanity.'

Revolt or indifference
The `old' comrades can revolt: `See this pillow? It is our coat of arms. Our symbol. Bullets get buried in a pillow. With a pillow we shall smother you.'
Or they can become indifferent: `We used to talk so much about feelings. But we forgot the main one: indifference.'

Yuri Olesha's protagonists symbolize the old and new generation of soviet citizen, who are fighting for the control of the new era (symbol: the virgin maiden).
He criticizes severely the lack of humanity in the socialist (communist) ideology.
After its early popular success, it was however stigmatized as pure symbolism by the party's literary ideologues.

In his `Speech to the First Congress of Soviet Writers' (published in this book), the author expressed his mea culpa about his former work: `a writer must be an educator, a teacher. I have set myself the task of writing for the young. Communism is not only an economic system but a moral system as well. I will try to prove that the new socialist way of looking at the world is also the most humane.'

`Envy' as a plea for a more human society is still a very worth-while read.

› Go to Amazon.com to see the review 4.0 out of 5 stars

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Envy, and Other Works [Paperback]

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