Collected Stories of Ivan Bunin ebook

Among the great Russian authors, Ivan Bunin (b. 1870, d. 1953) is arguably the least known and appreciated in the West. He was born into the Russian rural gentry in the midst of its decline. As an author, he distinguished himself as a poet, novelist, and writer of short stories. After the Bolshevik Revolution Bunin fled Moscow, ending up in France, after stops in Kiev, Odessa, Constantinople, Sofia, and Belgrade (a route taken by many other White Russian émigrés). In France, he continued to write, mostly about the Old Russia from before the Great War. In 1933 Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Russian author ever to receive the award. During World War II, he and his wife retreated to the Maritime Alps and hid Jews in their home. For White Russian exiles, Bunin was probably the most revered of all authors. (In his "Manifesto of the Russian Emigration", Bunin called Lenin "a moral idiot from birth".)

I am slowly reading through the high points of Russian literature, beginning with Pushkin. My sampling of Bunin is this collection of his short stories. He is, in short, tremendous. Of the Russian authors I have read so far, the only ones who rank higher in my pantheon are Dostoevsky and perhaps Chekhov.

The thirty-five stories range from one- or two-page sketches to a couple stories of over fifty pages that qualify as novellas. Most, but not all, are set in Russia. (A few are about Russian émigrés in Paris.) Many were written after Bunin left Russia, but in almost all the action pre-dates the Russian Revolution. Many are very evocative of the Old Russia, and in some the atmosphere is thick with nostalgia.

But what stands out most is the sensuality, bordering on voluptuousness, of many of the stories. Bunin's men and women are sexual creatures. Two of the more common scenarios involve either beautiful, sensuous, vibrant women toying with a male admirer or upper-class men taking advantage of pretty peasant or servant girls (and several of them truly are girls, not yet women). When a man and woman meet and then bed on even terms, it is likely to be a one-night stand.

In many of the longer stories, Bunin employs a rather intricate structure, occasionally with narrations nestled inside other narrations like wooden nested Russian dolls. The prose is often quite poetic, though at times it is verbose by today's standards. There are occasional flares of dry humor. Some of the stories have a twist at the end and in a few the ending is quite sudden and lethal (with at least three suicides).

The best of Bunin's stories can stand with the very best short stories in world literature. "The Gentleman from San Francisco" is a classic, as perfect a short story as I have ever encountered. "The Scent of Apples", "Chang's Dream", "Sunstroke", "In Paris", "Tanya", and a few others are not far behind.

Now to voice a complaint, though it is not a major one: I have never seen more poorly executed annotations. At the end of the book, there is a section "Notes to the Stories", in which the stories are arranged in alphabetical order (ignoring, however, "The" if a story begins with that word) rather than the order in which the story appeared in the collection. Worse, there are no markers in the text itself to indicate that a reference or a word or phrase has been annotated at the back of the book. Finally, to complete the inanity, many of the things that are annotated did not need to be, whereas other rather abstruse references or Russian words are not annotated.

This is a very fine collection of Bunin's writing. A great Russian poet at a time of social upheaval, intellectual disruption and terror, like Pasternak,for me he is the more interesting writer of the two, though his (their) art is less to my personal taste than other Russian I prefer. For me he is a little too taken up with his own subjective impressions and poetical artistry rather than forensic insight. My preference is more for Lermontov, Turgenyev and Checkov. Nevertheless there's no question he is a great literary force. His mastery of evocative and atmospheric nature transcends the limitations inherent in translating from poetical Russian to English. For me this translation is excellent and reading him very satisfying. But I prefer the earlier writers and, more recent Russians: Bulgakov especially.

Excellent and smooth translation. Bunin is a Russian author who gets little notice here in the West. This collection contains the popular "Gentleman From San Francisco", but also contains stories that are hard to find in translation. This book is probably one of the better priced Bunin collections I found.

Brilliant stories wonderfully translated.

These were short stories, some better than others. One-word descriptions don't apply. There was a lot of unrequited love throughout the stories.

Brilliant author, not well know in the outside eastern Europe.. Detailed, emotional, vivid depictions of ordinary people in an extraordinary time!

Ivan Bunin is a great writer. If it had not been for my teacher in my literature class, I would not have found this book..

Excellent service for a great collection of stories by Bunin.