My Universities

Fortunately, I have an old Penguin Classics edition of this (a 1981 reprint). The pages have yellowed and some have literally fallen out. It's sad that Penguin or another classics publisher (such as Oxford University Press) is no longer reprinting this book for English readers. If you love literature and you see this book somewhere, you'd do well to read a few pages. Maxim Gorky was one of the world's greatest writers. Although I did not read the first volume of this trilogy (or the third), I found myself engaged from the first sentence. The reader begins in the midst of things as Gorky writes effortlessly (but with a beautifully poetic undertone!) about finding himself at a crossroads in life: he considers attending a Russian university on the advice of a student; however, instead of doing so formally, he hangs out with students, works at a series of exhausting jobs, worries about where he'll live next and where his next meal is going to come from, and, whenever he gets the chance, he reads. There's a memorable scene where he describes the hard work of a bakery where he often has only rats to keep him company while reading by lamplight. Typical of someone in his early twenties, Gorky tries to fathom life's absurdities. He soon realizes that the conditions under which the peasants live will become so intolerable that they will one day overthrow the Tsar, but he also sees a lot of apathy and resignation in people's souls. Gorky's descriptions of individuals are vividly rendered. Every person he encounters is fully fleshed out. At times it seems that he feels he's been thrown into a hall of mirrors where the people he meet reflect his own personality back to him. At other times it seems that he's witness to a grotesque carnival of humanity. There's a wonderful balance in Gorky's writing here; it's gritty realism and portrayal of the downtrodden and morally corrupt is set against the poetry of life along the Volga River. As a reader of English, I have to rely on the translator (Ronald Wilks). So, I'm not sure if Gorky intended this, but it seems many men he meets have a "womanish" quality (e.g., "the tender eyes of a woman..."). Maybe someone who knows both Russian and English can explain this translation "quirk" to me. Again, I cannot implore publishers enough: reprint this book!

This one was not quite as good as Childhood, but still a very good read and still full of the same bleak portrait of unbelievable poverty and misery of 20th Century Russia.A very good read though! The only thing that sucks is that the last book is very hard to get. The one I found was second hand and printed under Uncle Joe's regime, but if I went through this much trouble to find it, you know the story must be good... Morbid but good...

The finest autobiography triology of youth in literature. Gorky's series contains almost none of his politics but is an account of his childhood and youth.

Ahh The White Guard by Bulgakov, very good book! I also agree with your opinion on Gorky. But, bulgakov is by far one of my favorite authors.

Does anybody read out there? Only English Majors I guess. No one's read "The White Guard" either. I think I am going to throw up, Gorky is one of the best writers of the nineteenth century. Anyway, FIVE STARS, his eye roams like a camera and the book is completley honest, remarkably powerful.