Reviews for I remember

The average rating for I remember based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-07-04 00:00:00 Kathleen Summers 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.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-08-03 00:00:00 Shawna Charbonneau 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.