Irina Odoevtseva: Poet, Novelist, Memoirist by Ella Bobrow (review)

HUMANITIES 291 the politics of the novel is clear and elegant, and Frank Davey's newly commissioned discussion of the narrative voice fresh and interesting. But -the remainder of the commissioned articles - by Terry Craig, Teresa Hubel, and Elizabeth Koster - are baffling additions. Terry Craig's article on the moral issues of the novel seems literally pointless. Teresa Jiubel analyses Duncan's views.on class, but it's difficult to take seriously a critic who begins paragraphs with 'Marxism tells us that ... ' and yet seems unacquainted with any Marxist literary theorists. Elizabeth Koster's detailed comparison of the novel with Verner's Pride by Mrs Henry Wood goes some way to flesh out the basic analysis of the romance plot noted by previous critics, but it's difficult to see how this specific comparison would be generally useful in the classroom. Thomas Tausky's personal contributions to this edition are also disappointing. 'The Writing of The Imperialist' suggests some minor historical parallels to the plot of the novel and gives a detailed narrative of Duncan's correspondence regarding it, but the article is also rambling and offers little in the way of new insights on the novel; the discussion of the narrator's use of 'we' in 'The Audiences of The Imperialist' is tmdercut by the author's own use of 'we' (to refer to himself? his audience? me?), a habit which one accepts in a turn-of-the-century novel, butwhich seems coercive and condescending in a critical article. While one hates to criticize Tecumseh Press, which has done so much to make early Canadian literature available for teaching, it seems in this case their policy of giving academic editors a free hand has resulted in an edition freighted with matter that would be of dubiolis use in the classroom and adds greatly to the cost for students. One hopes for better things in the future from their Canadian Critical Editions series. (MISAO DEAN) Ella Bobrow. Irina Odoevtseva: Poet, Novelist, Memoirist Mosaic Press. xiv, 158. $16.95 The October Revolution of 1917 ravaged the foundations of traditional Russian culture, and forced into exile a number of prominent writers and poets. Most of them settled in France, turning Paris into a centre of Russian emigre culture and life. The long list of those who left Russia between 1918 and 1922 included the future Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, as well as the writers and poets A. Tolstoi, D. Merezhkovskii, A. Krupin, M. Tsvetaeva, V. Khodasevich, L. Andreev, and many others. Some returned later to the USSR, but only Tolstoi managed to secure for himself a place of honour in Soviet literature. Kuprin and Tsvetaeva returned in the 19305, but the former died in 1938 in obscurity and the latter committed suicide in 1941. The life of Russian emigre writers in the West was not easy. They were able to create only in their native Russian, and had no direct access to the 292 LETTERS IN CANADA 1996 general reading public in the West. Moreover, they were shunned by their former compatriots in Russia, and for political reasons their works were banned in their former homeland. Irina Odoevtseva left Russia, together with her husband Georgii Ivanov, in 1921. She went into voluntary exile, because she could not reconcile the post-revolutionary atmosphere in the country with her social and cultural background. Only in 1987, after Gorbachev's ascent to power and the ensuing changes in the former Soviet Union, did she return to Leningrad. She died three years later, at the ripe age of ninety-five. In her early days, before departure from the Soviet Union, Odoevtseva wrote only ballads and poetry. She turned to writing novels in the mid1920S , mainly for economic reasons. In St Petersburg, Odoevtseva was closely associated with the Acmeist circle of poets. Acmeism was an offspring of symbolism, and a modern version of neoclassicism. As opposed to the symbolists, the Acmeists asserted the elements of sense and logic in the art of words, and strove towards greater realism and simplicity in poetry. Nikolai Gumilev, the leader of this group, was Odoevtseva's teacher and mentor. He stayed behind in Russia, and was shot in 1921 for...