Library / Literature & Fiction
Yama [The Pit], a Novel in Three Parts
by A. I. Kuprin
- Pages
- about 442
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 8.1 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
I dedicate the labour of translation, in all humility and sincerity, to
K. ANDRAE. B. G. G.
INTRODUCTION
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
PART ONE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
PART TWO
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
PART THREE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
“With us, you see,” Kuprin makes the reporter Platonov, his mouthpiece,
say in Yama, “they write about detectives, about lawyers, about
inspectors of the revenue, about pedagogues, about attorneys, about the
police, about officers, about sensual ladies, about engineers, about
baritones—and really, by God, altogether well—cleverly, with finesse
and talent. But, after all, all these people are rubbish, and their
life is not life, but some sort of conjured up, spectral, unnecessary
delirium of world culture. But there are two singular realities—ancient
as humanity itself: the prostitute and the moujik. And about them we
know nothing, save some tinsel, gingerbread, debauched depictions in
literature...”
Tinsel, gingerbread, debauched depictions... Let us consider some of
the ways in which this monstrous reality has been approached by various
writers. There is, first, the purely sentimental: Prevost’s Manon
Lescaut. Then there is the slobberingly sentimental: Dumas’ Dame aux
Camélias. A third is the necrophilically romantic: Louys’ Aphrodite.
The fertile Balzac has given us no less than two: the purely romantic,
in his fascinating portraits of the Fair Imperia; and the romantically
realistic, in his Splendeurs et Misères des Courtisanes. Reade’s Peg
Woffington may be called the literary parallel of the costume drama;
Defoe’s Moll Flanders is honestly realistic; Zola’s Nana is rabidly
so.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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