In the Shadow of Gogol

Avram Terz is the literary pseudonym of Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky (1925–1997), a philologist, researcher at IMLI in Moscow and professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, author of the books "Walks with Pushkin", "Good Night", "A Voice from the Choir", "Ivan... the Fool", the novella "Lyubimov" and the novel "The Cat's House". "In the Shadow of Gogol" is a book in which the talent of a philologist wonderfully combines with that of a writer. Through the mystery of the writer's death and life, through the text of "The Government Inspector" and "Dead Souls", stories and letters, Terz tries not only to examine Gogol's work and personality, but also to unravel the tangle of myths about him. The book features an illustration by Mikhail Shemyakin. How to fit into one’s head two diametrically opposed facts of Gogol's creative history? The one who frightened and tyrannized us the most, also makes us laugh the hardest. We have no author scarier or more nightmarish than Gogol. There is no writer who makes Russia laugh so much. Avram Terz's "In the Shadow of Gogol" is the second volume of the renowned duology, born from the polemic with the first ("Walks with Pushkin"). Two demiurges of Sinyavsky's aesthetic cosmos engage in a sharp and complex dialogue throughout this hefty, almost 500-page book. Despite the title, it is rather Gogol who lives in the shadow of Pushkin here. He is everywhere, and even if he temporarily disappears from the pages, he still looms over the unfortunate Gogol, like the invisible Bronze Horseman over poor Eugene. Alexander Genis