Fire-Color: a novel.

 

Alexander Amphitheatrov is the greatest Russian novelist of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, vividly and brightly conveying in his works the amazing atmosphere of a turning point in our history... The novel "Fire-Color" (1895) reads like an... encyclopedia of the fears of Russian society at the end of the 19th century and at the same time as a witty parody of the fashionably popular "occult novel" of that time. Amphitheatrov demonstrates brilliant erudition in the field of Russian folklore, Eastern traditions, and the fashionable spiritualism of the time. By placing his characters in a world of superstitions and magic, exotic rituals, and alchemical experiments, the author primarily observes the person of his time, torn between healthy rationality and archaic ideas about the structure of the world...