Envy (novel)
{{short description|1927 novel by Yury Olesha}}
{{Expand Russian|topic=cult|date=January 2021}}
{{infobox book |
| name = Envy
| title_orig = Зависть
| image = File:EnvyOlyesha.jpg
| caption = First English edition (cover by V. Kozlinsky, 1936)
| author = Yury Olesha
| country = Soviet Union
| language = Russian
| genre = Satirical novel
| publisher = Krasnaya Nov
| release_date = 1927
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
}}
Envy ({{langx|ru|Зависть|Zavist'|links=no}}) is a satirical novel by the Russian writer Yury Olesha, first published in 1927 .
Plot summary
The novel is about a pathetic young man named Nikolai Kavalerov, who refuses to accept Communist values and is consumed by loathing and envy for his benefactor Andrei Babichev, a model Soviet citizen who manages a successful sausage factory. With Andrei Babichev's brother Ivan, Kavalerov attempts to stage a comeback of all the old, petty feelings that were crushed under communism. In the end, Ivan and Kavalerov are crushed by their own iniquity.
Background
Envy first appeared in Krasnaya Nov, a Soviet literary magazine, in late 1927. Olesha wrote the novel while working at the Gudok, a widely read newspaper of the Railway Workers' Union. Other authors of the newspaper were Mikhail Bulgakov, Isaac Babel, Ilya Ilf, and Yevgeny Petrov.{{Cite web | url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Yuri+Olesha.+Envy.-a0138397387 | title=Yuri Olesha. Envy. - Free Online Library }}
Style
Themes
The central social theme of Envy is the fate of the intelligentsia in Russia's postrevolutionary society. The novel presents a clash between the rational industrial state and the creative aspirations of Nikolay Kavalerov, which results with Kavalerov throwing his potential away. Despite Olesha's enthusiasm for the new state of affairs, Envy is one of a number of 20th-century Russian novels in which the protagonists clash with Soviet reality and as a result find themselves marginalized.{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yury-Karlovich-Olesha|title = Yury Karlovich Olesha | Russian author | Britannica}}
English translations
- MacAndrew, Andrew R., and Yuri Olesha. Envy and Other Works. Doubleday & Co.
- Olesha, Yuri. Envy. Trans. Marian Schwartz. New York Review of Books, 2004
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{cite web | url = http://www.sovlit.net/envy/ | title = Envy by Yuri Olesha | publisher = SovLit.net | accessdate = 2012-02-09 }}
- {{cite news | title=Soviet Envy: Yuri Olesha Is Back, and Only Slightly Less Funny | publisher=The Stranger | url=http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=19089 | accessdate=2006-05-24 }}
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Category:Novels with unreliable narrators
Category:Works originally published in Russian magazines
Category:Russian satirical novels
Category:Russian novels adapted into plays
Category:Novels first published in serial form
Category:Bureaucracy in fiction
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