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    The Flight
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    The Flight
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    The Flight
    Ebook267 pages6 hours

    The Flight

    By Gaito Gazdanov

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    First English translation of this novel by the author of The Spectre of Alexander Wolf

    While summering on the French Riviera, the young Seryozha secretly becomes the lover of the much older Liza - who is also his father's mistress. As autumn approaches, they reluctantly part: Liza to return to Paris, Seryozha to take up his studies at university in London. When he finds out about their affair, Seryozha's father attempts to convince Liza to leave his son, for the sake of the boy's own happiness. She finally gives in - but a sudden, fatal catastrophe changes everything...

    Gazdanov's second novel is proof of his wide-ranging talents: originally written before his celebrated noir experiments The Spectre of Alexander Wolf and The Buddha's Return, The Flight blends psychological drama, illicit romance and moments of both comedy and lyricism into a modernist take on the traditional Russian nineteenth-century realist novel epitomised by Tolstoy.

    Gaito Gazdanov (1903-1971) joined the White Army aged just sixteen and fought in the Russian Civil War. Exiled in Paris from the 1920s onwards, he eventually became a nocturnal taxi-driver and quickly gained prominence on the literary scene as a novelist, essayist, critic and short-story writer, and was greatly admired by Maxim Gorky, among others. Pushkin Press also publishes the celebrated The Spectre of Alexander Wolf and The Buddha's Return.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPushkin Press
    Release dateMar 24, 2016
    ISBN9781782271802
    Unavailable
    The Flight
    Author

    Gaito Gazdanov

    Gaito Gazdanov (1903-1971) joined the White Army aged just sixteen and fought in the Russian Civil War. Exiled in Paris from the 1920s onwards, he eventually became a nocturnal taxi-driver and quickly gained prominence on the literary scene as a novelist, essayist, critic and short-story writer, and was greatly admired by Maxim Gorky, among others. Pushkin Press also publishes the celebrated The Spectre of Alexander Wolf, The Buddha's Return and The Flight.

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    Reviews for The Flight

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    • 4/5
      A Russian émigré in Paris has a philanthropic but emotionally distant father, and a reckless mother who goes from one affair to another, sometimes abandoning the family only to return months later. His parents are perpetually cheating on one another, albeit civilly, and then he himself starts having feelings for his aunt. She seems to be a source of stability, but she has a secret of her own that Gazdanov reveals in time, which makes his growing attraction to her even more complicated. Gazdanov is clearly cynical about love and marriage, as what seem to be romances are either contrived or motivated by selfishness, and he emphasizes this with a few other characters, including an aging, vain actress. The novel’s ending is brilliant, at first seeming to be destined, but then Gazdanov gives us a little surprise. His point seems to be that while humanity is certainly far from ideal, there are moments of purity and light, but regardless, our lives are short, and our troubles and triumphs small in the grand scheme of things.Quotes:On forgiving:“What had happened to Lola was the same as what would have happened to any other very elderly person who, in the final stage of life, during the long hours of senility, had recalled an re-evaluated his life, drawing certain conclusions, the only ones possible: that it was necessary, above all else, to forgive people for their involuntary misdemeanors, that one should not hate anyone, that everything was fragile and uncertain, except for this peaceful and pleasant reconciliation, this undemanding love and tenderness for those dearest to us, irrespective, even, of whether they deserve it or not.”On love, and separation:“…in order to comprehend this happiness, he had to compare it with what had gone before it, and only then, only in so doing could he see the singularity of it. Liza’s shadow never left him; even when she was not there, everything was imbued with her presence and the expectation of her return; the air was full of her intonations, the water was suffused with her rippling reflection, and in the caress of the sea breeze Seryozha distinctly felt the approach of her lips, now forever half open, to his face.”On timelessness:“As far as the eye could see, everything was raindrops and damp fog; the wind howled softly and ominously. Amid this raw tumult, Liza could hear the shingle on the beach, and through the various noises came the rapid, simultaneous murmur of several streams; everything was there – the sobbing, the sodden squelch and smack of mouldering earth, and, cutting through the dank, leaden air, somewhere nearby a cockerel crowed. Liza could not step away from the window. Perhaps for the first time in her life, her perception of time had vanished; long ago, in the terrible abyss of vanished millennia, the very same event had repeated itself time and time again: that same violent whirl of rain, those same sounds, the noise of the vast earth and the shrill call of the cockerel – and if one were to imagine the mythical Titan, who fell sound asleep to the drumming of this rain and awoke, leaving he Stone Age behind and finding himself in the Age of Christ, everything would have been the same: the sheets of water, the damp fog, the piercing call of birds in a dank mist full of droplets.”