I Remember: Sketch for an Autobiography
Boris Pasternak
3.47
32 ratings5 reviews
Boris Pasternak's autobiographical sketch is the most outspoken and heart-searching document a great poet has ever written. It takes courage to dismiss, as Pasternak does, most of his literary output of the twenty-odd years that followed the publication in 1914 of his first volume of verse, A Twin in the Clouds, with the dry remark, 'I do not like my style up to 1940'; but it takes even greater courage, knowing the sort of aura of sanctity that hangs over the name of Mayakovsky in the Soviet Union, to declare that he rejects half of Mayakovsky, or, even more bluntly, that Mayakovsky was being 'propagated' by the Communist Government 'like potatoes in the reign of Catherine the Great.'
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1959
Original title
I Remember
This edition
Format
192 pages, Hardcover
Published
December 1, 1980 by Pantheon
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About the author
Boris Pasternak264 books1,100 followers
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Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was born in Moscow to talented artists: his father a painter and illustrator of Tolstoy's works, his mother a well-known concert pianist. Though his parents were both Jewish, they became Christianized, first as Russian Orthodox and later as Tolstoyan Christians. Pasternak's education began in a German Gymnasium in Moscow and was continued at the University of Moscow. Under the influence of the composer Scriabin, Pasternak took up the study of musical composition for six years from 1904 to 1910. By 1912 he had renounced music as his calling in life and went to the University of Marburg, Germany, to study philosophy. After four months there and a trip to Italy, he returned to Russia and decided to dedicate himself to literature.
Pasternak's first books of verse went unnoticed. With My Sister Life, 1922, and Themes and Variations, 1923, the latter marked by an extreme, though sober style, Pasternak first gained a place as a leading poet among his Russian contemporaries. In 1924 he published Sublime Malady, which portrayed the 1905 revolt as he saw it, and The Childhood of Luvers, a lyrical and psychological depiction of a young girl on the threshold of womanhood. A collection of four short stories was published the following year under the title Aerial Ways. In 1927 Pasternak again returned to the revolution of 1905 as a subject for two long works: "Lieutenant Schmidt", a poem expressing threnodic sorrow for the fate of the Lieutenant, the leader of the mutiny at Sevastopol, and "The Year 1905", a powerful but diffuse poem which concentrates on the events related to the revolution of 1905. Pasternak's reticent autobiography, Safe Conduct, appeared in 1931, and was followed the next year by a collection of lyrics, Second Birth, 1932. In 1935 he published translations of some Georgian poets and subsequently translated the major dramas of Shakespeare, several of the works of Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, and Ben Jonson, and poems by Petöfi, Verlaine, Swinburne, Shelley, and others. In Early Trains, a collection of poems written since 1936, was published in 1943 and enlarged and reissued in 1945 as Wide Spaces of the Earth. In 1957 Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak's only novel - except for the earlier "novel in verse", Spektorsky (1926) - first appeared in an Italian translation and has been acclaimed by some critics as a successful attempt at combining lyrical-descriptive and epic-dramatic styles.
Pasternak lived in Peredelkino, near Moscow, until his death in 1960.
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Steve
753 reviews · 5 followers
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July 5, 2011
Overwhelmingly know for Dr Z, most readers do not realize Pasternak was a leading Russian Symbolist poet in his youth. Or that for about 15 yrs he did not write anything at all, he just translated foreign works into Russian. Then Dr Z and this short "Sketch for an Autobiography" came out about 1957 and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. This is an intellectual memoir, and thankfully translator David Magarshack includes voluminous notes at the back on who the many artists he mentions are and their role in late 19th/early 20th C Russian arts. Also of interest is this is a "reload", Pasternak had written his autobiographical "Safe Passage" (next on my reading list) back in the '20's, a book he here tries to disown as filled w/ "certain mannerisms". Essentially the early years of the Soviet Experiment were filled w/ avant-garde art which was accepted and supported (just think of some of those early Soviet film makers like Eisenstein!). He is now writing in the age of "Social Realism" and Siberian "re-education" camps. At only about 100 pages this "sketch" ends at the Revolution.
This is an excellent introduction to early 20th C Russian avant-garde art and intellectual history. And it gives those of us who have only read (or seen as a movie) Dr Z an idea about the author's early artistic roots, which were so different from that historical novel. From about 1932 Pasternak wrote very little, and other than his numerous poems and prose poems before that year he only wrote about 4 short stories. yet, based on one late in life novel he was awarded the Nobel in Lit (truly a political move by the West at that time, as he had to have it published outside of Russia). I did not read the essay on translating Shakespeare that also appears in this volume.
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Rhea
114 reviews · 1 follower
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September 11, 2010
I was disappointed in this one. It started off well - he chronicles his early interests, memories and aspirations. His recollection of Tolstoy's death was very moving. Unfortunately that is the highpoint. From there he devolves into "I knew this famous poet/writer/composer and here is why they weren't all that great." He mentions his friends and his sorrow over what befell them, but he never actually follows it up with any specifics. There is very little about the realities of his life, how these friends were important to him, etc. And then, that's it. He signs off and the rest of the book is about his translations of Shakespeare. Just a little random. His notes on the plays turned out to be pretty interesting but I'm still unclear on why they were included.
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Dianne Oliver
514 reviews · 21 followers
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December 4, 2014
I found parts of this scant autobiography fascinating, and especially appreciated his summary of Tolstoy's life and impact-- a beautifully said homage. Sadly, he leaves a lot of the interesting stuff untold. He states that what happens to his dear friends is the sorrow of his life, and does not let us in on their tragic story- a pity.
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Rhea
114 reviews · 1 follower
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September 11, 2010
I was disappointed in this one. It started off well - he chronicles his early interests, memories and aspirations. His recollection of Tolstoy's death was very moving. Unfortunately that is the highpoint. From there he devolves into "I knew this famous poet/writer/composer and here is why they weren't all that great." He mentions his friends and his sorrow over what befell them, but he never actually follows it up with any specifics. There is very little about the realities of his life, how these friends were important to him, etc. And then, that's it. He signs off and the rest of the book is about his translations of Shakespeare. Just a little random. His notes on the plays turned out to be pretty interesting but I'm still unclear on why they were included.
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Dianne Oliver
514 reviews · 21 followers
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December 4, 2014
I found parts of this scant autobiography fascinating, and especially appreciated his summary of Tolstoy's life and impact-- a beautifully said homage. Sadly, he leaves a lot of the interesting stuff untold. He states that what happens to his dear friends is the sorrow of his life, and does not let us in on their tragic story- a pity.
The second part of the book is his interpretation of Shakespeare's works, which he spent many years translating.
lit
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Josh
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August 19, 2009
Phoned-in autobiographical rehash by an amazing author who owed us better. I'm going back to Safe Conduct.
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Bay Long
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December 30, 2019
Rather dull and irrelevant.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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Josh
89 reviews · 62 followers
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August 19, 2009
Phoned-in autobiographical rehash by an amazing author who owed us better. I'm going back to Safe Conduct.
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Bay Long
24 reviews · 1 follower
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December 30, 2019
Rather dull and irrelevant.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
