La trama di Storia di un uomo inutile
Negli anni della Russia prerivoluzionaria, un orfano, un ragazzo che oggi sarebbe automatico definire almeno parzialmente “disadattato”, dalla campagna si trasferisce in città (Mosca) da uno zio. E qui entra in contatto con l’ambiente dei rivoluzionari. Straordinaria la rappresentazione dell’evoluzione psicologica e affettiva che lo porta a trovarsi nel campo avverso, a diventare un infiltrato, un informatore della polizia. Come pure straordinaria la rappresentazione di una Mosca mai descritta così sordida nei suoi interni: bottegucce miserande, abitazioni gelide, uffici e commissariati squallidi. E anche i rivoluzionari sono presentati con toni non certo eroici e mitizzanti: figure di poco rilievo, come pure di poco rilievo sono i loro oppositori, “spie” avide e pavide. Viene da chiedersi se non è proprio questa assenza di retorica rivoluzionaria che ha reso questo libro un oggetto misterioso, quasi oscurato dalla critica ufficiale che di Gorkij ha sempre preferito esaltare le opere più “ortodosse”.
Life of a Useless Man
Maxim Gorky was a Russian proponent of the naturalist approach to fiction. He introduced the peasant and workingman as hero and some of his popularity is undoubtedly due to this. Unlike Dostoevsky who saw evil in metaphysical terms, Gorky was an advocate of class conflict as the source of evil. His materialism stemmed from Marxist ideology and would lead him to join with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. This novel was written before that in 1907 and its publication was prohibited by the Czarist regime. Ironically, the Bolsheviks allowed the publication of the novel in 1917 only in an expurgated form. Apparently Gorky’s alliance with Lenin did not get him past the censors.
Perhaps young men in Czarist Russia were like those described in this novel. From my own reading of Turgenev and Tolstoy, among others, I think that there were others that would have been more representative, but Gorky prefers to focus on mass hysteria and class conflict. The result is an interesting novel, but the history of ideas is badly represented. Read at your own risk.
The story of a man, full of fears, that never found the courage to face them. Suffering from tormenting thoughts, but also by an invincible cowardice, lives his life as a spectator, letting himself being dragged by events, which lead him to end up as a spy, an informer for the shake of the Czar. Non- educated, mentally deficient, self-ignorant, tries to please anybody that looks influential and powerful. Although it seems he is dreaming and believes in a better life, he never stands up for it, hoping that everybody else will do. Unfortunately, there is a weak development of the story, that is really tiring, but the penetration into the hero’s psychology in parts of the text is compensating.
this book is about a loser, that havent any courage to faced his world. yet he comes spies, not by his effort but by his fate. his silentness locked him into his miserable world and in the end… death is his only choice. cant imagine how can a man keep silent in front of his world and make war with himself. but still this book is worth to read. like it 😀
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/957363.Life_of_a_Useless_Man
Maxim Gorky Song of the Stormy Petrel – Prokofiev – Dance of the Knights
Maksim Gorki / Maxim Gorky – Malomeščani / The Petty Bourgeois
Maksim Gor’kij
http://www.controappuntoblog.org/2012/01/31/maksim-gorkij/
La madre (Die Mutter)
http://www.controappuntoblog.org/2012/03/22/la-madre-die-mutter/